The Weekly Wrap-Up - 18th February 2022

Vampire Attack on OpenSea ‘x2y2’ Launches 

New NFT Marketplace Follows LooksRare Launch Last Month 

Another project has launched a ‘vampire attack’ on OpenSea, after LooksRare last month. The X2Y2 NFT marketplace seeks to compete with OpenSea, in addition to stealing market share from LooksRare. The platform claims it has far greater staking rewards than LooksRare, and allows for NFTs to be staked to earn X2Y2 and WETH. The platform will also not distribute trading rewards unlike LooksRare.

The platform has announced an airdrop of 120 million X2Y2 tokens for OpenSea users (12% of total token supply). However the airdrop was paused for ‘technical issues’ after just 7% of tokens had been distributed. Some have pointed out that the airdrop contract could be used maliciously to steal NFTs from the wallets of users. The X2Y2 token, listed on Uniswap, is currently highly volatile. 

US Senators Move to ‘Mitigate the Risks’ of El Salvador BTC Adoption

Senators Fear Negative Impact on US Financial System 

A group of US Senators have moved to introduce legislation which would result in reporting on El Salvador’s Bitcoin activities. The group believes that El Salvador’s consideration of Bitcoin as legal tender represents a threat to the stability of the US financial system. El Salvador announced its consideration of BTC as legal tender on September 7th last year.

The proposal of the legislation, known as the ACES (Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador) Act, was led by Republican Senator for Idaho, Jim Risch. The report would look into how Bitcoin was implemented into El Salvador’s financial system, as well its impact on El Salvador’s citizens and businesses. 

Colorado Set to Allow its Citizens to Pay Tax in Crypto

Colorado Governor Pushes For Crypto Adoption

Governor of Colorado Jared Polis has announced that by summer of this year, citizens of Colorado will be able to pay their taxes in crypto. He stated in an interview that it had been a longtime ambition of the state. Polis also stated that the state endeavours to allow crypto to be used for other government purposes. He clarified however that these payments could not be held by the state in volatile digital currencies such as BTC and ETH, due to their instability. 

It is believed that at least 20 US states are considering the use of crypto for tax payments, with more than 16% of US citizens currently holding digital assets.

Universal to Release NFT Collections

Major Music Label Plans to Mint ‘Fan NFTs’

Universal Music Group has announced that it is working with NFT marketplace Curio to create NFT collections for its signed artists and brands. The collections will be designed for and marketed to fans of signed artists, as a means of further monetising their intellectual properties. 

Michael Nash, Executive Vice President of UMG, stated that :

With Curio, our labels will have a secure and dedicated platform to host these premium projects and provide new opportunities for collectors and fans from around the world to acquire unique pieces, inspired by their favourite artists…  

UMG also entered a partnership with the digital avatar company Genies in December last year.