Coinbase recently announced that its NFT marketplace has now entered the beta phase and is open to a limited number of beta testers who will be admitted based on their position on the queue. The exchange plans to compete with major players in the field by including social elements such as a comment system (complete with downvotes and upvotes) as well as an algorithmic feed.

This development will go a long way towards further establishing Coinbase as one of the top crypto platforms in the world and will simultaneously help increase mainstream adoption of NFTs as well.

What can we expect?

The screenshots included in Coinbases blog post resemble a mix between Instagram and OpenSea, which is among the biggest NFT marketplaces in the world. In fact, there are profiles where individuals can display their collections which others can also follow, along with a Discover feed that Coinbase claims will propose NFTs to users based on what they purchase, whats popular, who they follow, and various other factors.

Moreover, favoriting NFTs is likewise supported by the marketplace, as it is by OpenSea and numerous other markets. There is also a Shop page where beta testers may buy NFTs. Presently, only the Ethereum blockchain is supported by the marketplace, and beta users can connect via a wallet such as Coinbases own wallet or MetaMask. Furthermore, although the platform claims that Coinbase NFT would eventually accept Mastercard, only ETH is being utilized for pricing at the moment.

A little late to the party?

Most would agree that Coinbase is a prominent participant in the crypto exchange market and plays a vital role in this sector, however some would nevertheless argue that the platform is entering the NFT space a little late. Currently, the market is displaying symptoms of weakness as both trading volume and the amount of traders on the biggest marketplaces have uniformly declined in the last month, according to DappRadars NFT marketplace tracker.

As a matter of fact, even OpenSea recently experienced about 67% fewer deals and 23% fewer traders than it had in March. Additionally, whereas search interest in non-fungible tokens increased between October 2021 and January 2022, it has subsequently returned to normal levels by now.

Still, better late than never for Coinbase as NFTs continue to rise in popularity and usage with little signs of slowing down, although the platform also has its hands full with a class-action lawsuit as well.

Kadena, a Layer-1 PoW (Proof-of-Work) protocol, recently announced a $100 million grant. The initiative is part of Kadena Eco, a strategic effort which brings together industry thought leaders, IT talent, and financing to stimulate the growth of Kadenas respective ecosystem.

Why is this important?

Kadena Eco is an innovation network aimed at accelerating the development and adoption of useful apps that help everyday individuals. The network makes use of Kadenas builder-centric blockchain, which allows developers to combine Web 3.0 innovation with that of Web 2.0 usability.

With that in mind, creators and entrepreneurs who want to expand on Kadena or design other important aspects of the network may now apply for the networks new funding program. The platform has dedicated $100 million to the initiative as aforementioned and is seeking contributions from high-quality, open-source projects in fields such as gaming, the metaverse, DeFi, Web 3.0 and NFTs.

All participants have to be willing to embrace Kadenas creation in the open concept by presenting meaningful content, tutorials, and product explainers across all relevant communities as well as channels. Moreover, grant submissions will be judged based on technical merit, specification details, team experience, and overall value to the Kadena ecosystem. In exchange, Kadena Eco will provide crucial coaching, in-person cooperation, and substantial financial assistance.

Future prospects

The Kadena grant program will comprise many different yet related elements. These include an R&D division that converts complicated technological ideas into practical applications, an incubator for hands-on technical development, an accelerator for early financing and coaching, and finally a venture fund that provides smart capital and operational skills.

According to CEO Francesco Melpignano, Kadena Eco will advance the evolution of blockchain technology by giving developers innovative, scalable architecture and secure smart contracts. He also stated that the teams goal is to ultimately empower inventors, entrepreneurs, and anybody else with a creative mind to keep the revenues from their work.

With blockchain, consumers may now own their digital assets and products and genuinely have digital ownership over what happens on the Internet for the first time. This was not conceivable before the development of blockchain, the CEO added, which is why Kadena Eco is assisting in scaling blockchain for the mainstream and making it available to countless people worldwide as the sector continues to experience unprecedented growth and mainstream acceptance.

Emirates Airlines, based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has announced its foray into the metaverse and NFT space. Emirates will hence reportedly provide a wide range of services and a variety of digital collectibles to improve its flyers metaverse experience.

The recent decision follows the legalization of crypto-oriented activities and enterprises in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Various Middle Eastern regions seek to connect their digital economy to the crypto industry in lieu of the burgeoning sector and how quickly it is being accepted in the area.

Furthermore, Emirates is converting its Emirates Pavilion at the Expo 2020 site as a point of contact for those interested in contributing to the airlines future-focused initiatives, such as those involving the metaverse, non-fungible tokens, and Web 3.0.

In related news, UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum approved a new legislation governing digital assets last month, in addition to establishing an independent agency to supervise crypto-related governance.

Binance and other global crypto organizations are also setting up shop in the country at an accelerated rate thanks to the newfound acceptance of the UAE Prime Minister.

Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency trading platform in the United States, has become the focus of a class-action lawsuit alleging that its arbitration practices are unenforceable.

A plaintiff claims in a recent court filing that Coinbase's arbitration clause in its terms of service is fundamentally unconscionable since it significantly favors one party. He said that a contract term is invalid under California law if it was unconscionable at the time it was made.

Moreover, the plaintiff does not argue that when he signed up for his user account, he agreed to be bound by the Coinbase user agreement in effect, nor that it addresses the issue. Rather, he claims that the arbitration agreement is unlawful since it lacks any semblance of bilaterality.

As per the court filing, the plaintiff, who aims to represent a group of individuals in a similar circumstance, requested to arbitrate after a fraudster took approximately $31,000 from his account but found Coinbase unresponsive and the terms seemingly unjust.

In related news, Coinbase was slammed with another class-action lawsuit not too long ago, alleging that the platform offered cryptocurrency assets as unregistered securities.
 

No one marketplace can offer everything that a consumer might want. Take Walmart for example, its a megalithic marketplace that offers every product under the sun. But they offer nothing to major brands wishing to enhance the customer experience of buying their product.

OpenSea and Rarible are like the Walmart of the NFT world. They leave global brands wanting more from OpenSea that they simply cannot deliver on.

The ability for brands like Nike to tailor the customer journey of buying a Nike NFT is limited and insufficient on OpenSea. For that reason, major brands will shun existing NFT marketplaces and build their own in 2023.

Custom NFT Marketplaces

Every company has a Facebook page, but its their domain name thats their real pride and joy. The ability for brands to customize their Facebook page is throttled by Facebook. But brands can take their website in any direction they want, tailoring every aspect of the browsing experience.

Mozverse uses this same rationale to give companies the ability to easily establish their own Web3 presence. Think Shopify for NFTs. Companies selling their products on Amazon are lumped in with every other merchant. But companies that opt to create a store with the help of Shopify get to tailor the eCommerce experience from end to end.

Pepsi NFT Drop was a Flop

As major brands experiment with offering NFTs to their customers and fans, theyre bound to make some mistakes. For example, Pepsi dropped an NFT collection called Mic Drop on December 14, 2021. The NFTs were given away to minters all users had to do was pay the ETH gas fees.

Pepsi MicDrop NFTs have since done $7M worth of volume on OpenSea, with the majority of the activity taking place in the first 3 months after the drop. As one op-ed points out, their use of NFT lingo and attempt to capitalize on the trend of NFTs felt ingenuine. This begs the question, how do major brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Nike and Adidas, or Gucci and Ralph Lauren, enter the NFT space?

A Whole Web3 Presence is Required

The answer is that these companies need to be constantly engaging their audience through the NFTs theyve launched. NFTs arent just about launching a collection, theyre about using them to create and offer unique experiences to brand followers. A full blown Web3 presence is required for each brand that decides to create a Web3 offering. This might mean exclusive bonuses for NFT holders such as tickets to conferences or events. Its really up for the brand to decide.

The point is that a Web3 presence is more about constant engagement, marketing, and incentives. The way to do this is through a customized marketplace in conjunction with a well fleshed out Web3 and metaverse strategy.

Major Brands to Build NFT Marketplaces in 2023

What we can learn from 2022 is that major brands wish to enter the NFT space, but dont necessarily know how. They got a taste, but now they want the whole pie. For that, brands will need to work with insiders that have been with or following the NFT industry since the very beginning.

This is exactly what Mozverse is offering international brands itching to create NFTs. End to end establishment of the companys Web3 presence coupled with a customized NFT marketplace.

Team Behind Mozverse

The Cofounder and creator of Mozverse is Danny Mozlin. Danny and Mozverse Cofounder Zach Hirsch lead the team to develop the products and offerings of Mozverse. Danny is a technology entrepreneur with hands in a number of sectors, including augmented and virtual reality. Danny combines his knowledge of cryptocurrencies and Web3 with experience working with virtual spaces to create a unique offering for companies entering the metaverse. With the help of a team of more than 20 developers, designers, and marketers, Mozverse is filling a gap in the industry by helping brands create and establish distinguished NFTs in the marketplace.

In what is quickly becoming one of the year's hottest stories, the Elon Musk Twitter saga has a brand new chapter after the Tesla CEO recently announced his intentions to buy the company. Elon has hence recently offered to acquire Twitter for a whopping $43 billion, claiming that the social media network he has previously chastised for not upholding free speech values needs to be converted into a private corporation under his watchful eye.

What is happening?

Twitter Inc. recently stated in a regulatory filing that Elon, the companys current largest shareholder, has suggested buying the remaining shares of Twitter which he does not presently control for $54.20 per share, representing a $43 billion offer as aforementioned.

Elon called the pricing his best and last offer, but he didnt elaborate on funding. The offer is also non-binding and subject to financing and various other terms. In any case, Musks proposal to buy Twitter is motivated by his confidence in Twitters capacity to be the platform for free expression throughout the world, a notion he sees as a societal essential for a real and functioning democracy.

Is Elon in the right?

To prove his point, Musk posted a survey last month, asking supporters if they thought Twitter adhered to the idea of free speech or not. About  2 million individuals responded, with more than 70% believing Twitter would often not allow free speech. The Tesla CEO then purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter and briefly considered joining the companys board of directors. Those ambitions, however, were short-lived, as Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced Musks departure from the board before he could even join, stating it was for the best.

Conversely, Elon has reiterated his dissatisfaction with Twitter in its present incarnation. The worlds richest man believes that the social media giant is not living up to its potential and the only way that it can do just that is by transforming into a private company under his leadership. In fact, Elons bid of $54.20 a share represents a 54% premium over the day prior to when Musk started investing in Twitter. Its also a 38% increase from the day before his investment was made public. Twitter's premarket shares are additionally up over 11% as of this writing.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the situation develops as life continues to be stressful and troublesome for the Twitter staff who just can't seem to catch a break. In other news, Dogecoin (DOGE), Elons favorite crypto, experienced a slight increase due to the Tesla CEOs recent actions.

After a lot of back and forth, the upcoming Ethereum Merge, which is a critical component of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, has now been postponed until the second half of 2022.

It wont be in June, but rather in the months following, according to Tim Beiko, an Ethereum Foundation developer. He went on to say that there is no specific time frame yet, but the team is unquestionably getting closer to the inevitable shift to PoS (Proof of Stake) on Ethereum. Beiko had also recently urged users to not invest in any more mining equipment.

What do we know thus far?

Although it is not what the Ethereum Foundation wishes, Ethereums transition from a PoW (Proof of Work) to a PoS consensus mechanism has been heralded as a fundamental change which will reportedly put to rest any and all worries about how much energy network validators spend. It also implies that Ethereum mining shall be rendered useless in the near future. Moreover, the update affects far more than just investments in ETH mining machines.

In any case, searches for Ethereum Merge have already eclipsed their all-time high, which was only a couple of weeks ago. This is timely news since, until recently, the consensus was that the Ethereum update will take place before the end of June, 2022.

So, whats the issue?

The road to the Ethereum update has seemed like one stride forward and a few steps back at times. In fact, a researcher from the Ethereum Foundation had previously doubted the update, and in turn received resistance from Vitalik Buterin, Ethereums co-founder.

Also, developers have only just begun evaluating the effect of the Ethereum upgrade on a shadow fork regarding the mainnet. According to Ethereum DevOps developer Parathi Jayanathi, the new testing environment has discovered vulnerabilities ranging from sync code to request timeout. In a more general sense, the entire crypto market is patiently waiting to see what will happen as the Ethereum Merge could be the most important crypto-related event in 2022. Supporters are hopeful that the update will go smoothly but a lot could nevertheless go wrong, only time will tell.

Charles Hoskinson recently stated that he was prepping for the upcoming Consensus 2022, which would be held from the 9th till the 12th of June in Austin, Texas. He intends to demonstrate to the crypto community and Cardano aficionados that IOHK and the Cardano development team are reportedly open for business.

Furthermore, Hoskinson revealed that the Vasil hard fork (named former ADA ambassador Vasil Dabov) will take place in June and would significantly boost Cardano's performance.

In the past, Hoskinson said that this next hard fork will contain scalability enhancements like pipelining, updated Plutus CIPs, UTXO on-disk storage, and Hydra.

According to the founder, these improvements, when combined with parameter tweaks, would increase Cardano's throughput and optimize the system to support an expanding spectrum of DeFi applications, smart contracts, and decentralized exchanges.

Apart from these modifications, Cardano's IOG team is striving to provide its users with additional goods and services which include a dApp store, a new lightweight wallet, and bridges which enable assets to be moved from the main Layer-1 chain to different sidechains.

A new Bitcoin (BTC) law will reportedly permit Brazil's President to create or deisgnate a regulatory agency for the purposes of overseeing the crypto market. This law in Brazil is likely to be adopted by the National Congress in the first half of 2022.

The bill, which has been debated in the Chamber of Deputies since 2015, was recently adopted in the first round of voting. The Brazilian Senate has linked it to another crypto-focused law that has already been passed by the Senates Economic Affairs Committee.

It should be mentioned though that the laws approval in plenary would not make BTC legal tender in Brazil, as it is in El Salvador. The proposed bill would instead empower the Brazilian President to appoint a federal organization in charge of implementing cryptocurrency-oriented laws.

The leader would hence either establish a new regulator or outsource this responsibility to the countrys Central Bank of Brazil (BC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM). Apart from outlining specific regulatory guidelines, the bill also indicates a prison sentence of up to 8 years and a hefty fine for any fraudulent endeavors.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that Elon Musk, the companys new majority shareholder, will not be joining the companys board of directors.

Musk was appointed to the Twitter board of directors after purchasing a significant investment in the company and becoming its largest stakeholder. Elon has now opted not to join the board, said Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

Elons appointment to the board was seemingly all set, however the Tesla CEO announced that he will no longer be joining the board as of this time, stating that this is for the best for everyone involved.

Madeira, a Portuguese autonomous zone, and Prospera, a jurisdiction on Honduras Roatán island, are reportedly making preparations to officially accept Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option within their borders and embrace it as legal tender.

Its worth mentioning that when purchasing or selling the worlds biggest crypto by market cap, residents in both regions will also not have to pay capital gains tax.

The authorities will allow other municipalities in Honduras or various firms along with political subdivisions that do not reside within the U.S to float BTC bonds from inside the Prospera jurisdiction, according to Prospera President Joel Bomgar. President Bomgar feels that this might help the local economy by attracting international direct investments.

Moreover, the President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, similarly stated that citizens will not have to pay capital gains taxes while trading BTC as aforementioned.

American Bank is a locally owned community firm based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Most recently, the bank announced that its users will be given the option to access the top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), through the company's brand new cryptocurrency trading offering.

What to expect?

The bank has been in business for more than 25 years and it will reportedly employ the Bakkt crypto-connect solution to let its clients purchase, trade, and successfully hold the two biggest crypto assets by market capitalization. As such, the Bakkt crypto-connect solution is expected to emerge in the second quarter of 2022.

As more consumers grow interested in purchasing crypto via traditional financial institutions, American Bank plans to employ Bakkt's educational materials to grant cost-effective access to cryptocurrencies. It is a well-established fact by this point that a growing number of users want to be able to access crypto via their respective banks. This is exactly why American Bank is working with Bakkt to offer consumers an easy to use on-ramp to crypto via their trusted bank relationship, according to Sheela Zemlin, Bakkt's Chief Revenue Officer.

Crypto acceptance in the U.S is growing

Pennsylvania could follow the footsteps of others such as Texas and Wyoming who have already adopted a pro crypto approach. In 2021, a slew of large U.S banks, led by Morgan Stanley, began providing wealth management consumers exposure to cryptocurrencies. In fact, back in March, Morgan Stanley had claimed that clients with a minimum of $2 million in assets will thus be allowed to access three BTC funds. Meanwhile, various other banks which provide crypto exposure to their wealth management customers include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Wells Fargo & Co.

Elsewhere, BNY Mellon announced in February of last year that it will keep, transfer, and subsequently issue BTC for asset management clients, thereby making it among the first significant Wall Street banks to take this kind of action. Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Miami own Mayor Suarez are also just a few influential people who are actively and openly backing crypto as they hope that the U.S can become a major player for many years to come in this growing industry.