The EU is Fine With Bitcoin

Two monoliths of the NFT ecosystem – CryptoPunks ($PUNKS.NFT) and the Bored Ape Yacht Club ($BAYC.NFT) – will now be owned and operated by the same company. 

Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits from developer Larva Labs. While the merger is historically significant, it will create a small “cultural monopoly” in Yuga Labs, which will now own two of the world’s largest, and most important, NFT collections.

 Yuga Labs and Larva Labs jointly announced their partnership via Twitter on Friday evening.

“We now own the brands, copyright in the art and other IP rights for both collections, along with 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits,” said Yuga Labs.

 Larva Labs clarified that it would retain rights to its other big NFT collection, Autoglyphs. 

CryptoPunks ($PUNKS.NFT) is arguably the collection that started it all – though they weren’t explicitly called NFTs, they became the basis for digital collectables on the blockchain when launched in 2017. The 10,000 randomly-generated 24×24 8-bit pixel art were given away for free – but now sell for thousands. In 2021, during a period of rapid growth for the zeitgeisty NFT space, an ultra-rare alien punk was sold for 4,200 ETH ($7.58 million). The unique collection also received support from giant companies like Visa, which bought CryptoPunk #7610 for $150,000 in August 2021.

Despite remarkable sales records, CryptoPunks failed to resolve some owners’ issues and was harshly criticized by the community. For instance, it sold old “V1” NFTs from a scrapped smart contract and later apologized that the collection wasn’t part of the CryptoPunks. Also, NFT owners complained that Larva Labs was not paying enough attention to the project and offered no perks.

While all of this was happening, Bored Ape Yacht Club ($BAYC.NFT) became the top NFT collection of unique avatars. Released by Yuga Labs in April 2021, the collection of 10,000 lazy-looking apes stands out because here buyers purchase NFTs and gain membership at an “online club” with a growing number of benefits and offerings. Bored Ape holders have also received two free NFTs, the Mutant Ape Yacht Club and the Bored Ape Kennel Club. Moreover, Yuga Labs is also developing a play-to-earn game based on the Bored Apes and plans to launch an Ethereum token soon as well.

Larva Labs acknowledged in its recent blog post that the growing demands placed on modern-day generative NFT projects were outside their abilities and aims. 

“Our personalities and skill sets aren’t well suited to community management, public relations, and the day-to-day management that these kinds of projects require and deserve,” according to the post.

Larva Labs has definitely benefited from this decision, as once the news spread that they would be selling the project to Yuga Labs, CryptoPunks sales soared over 1,200%, according to CryptoSlam.

Out of the gate, Yuga Labs turned over the IP of the Punks to their users. However, it has not yet detailed what perks and benefits NFT holders will receive in the future.

Bitcoin is safe, at least in the European Union where a proposed rule that could have effectively banned the popular cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Litecoin has been rejected by the European Union Parliament.  

The Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) voted to approve the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA), which will implement regulatory alignment for the crypto industry across the EU. The proposal also contained a provision (added to the draft last week) that sought to limit across all 27 EU member states the use of cryptocurrencies powered by an energy-intensive computing process called proof-of-work, or PoW. Crypto advocates across the globe reacted furiously to the proposal, but the EU did not ban PoW tokens, voting 31 to 23 with four abstentions.

The European Union lawmakers voted for uniform laws concerning crypto-assets, including consumer protections and safeguards against market manipulations and financial crime. As a means of reducing the carbon footprint of crypto assets, the European Union has asked that crypto-asset mining be included in the EU taxonomy (a classification system) by 2025.

The move shows that the EU does not want a blanket ban on crypto, but it has taken steps towards regulations, with an eye on the climate impact. Legislative action has taken place just days after the executive crypto order signed by President Biden, which also highlighted the use of crypto-innovation in the financial sector and consumer protection. 

The next step will be a trialogue between the European Commission, Council, and Parliament on the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA). There will be some interesting developments to watch, such as whether or not the European Union sets some new crypto regulations or waits for other countries to do so first.

There will be no big move in the crypto market for some time as the top altcoins await big news. Meanwhile, some other tokens are gaining traction. Here are some of them:

1.THORChain: THORChain, a decentralized liquidity protocol that enables users to exchange cryptocurrencies easily across a range of networks without the need for a third party like Binance or Gemini, was the center of attraction of many investors. 

Last week, developers announced the launch of Thorfi, a feature that allows synthetic assets to be launched as part of the network.

Synthetic assets provide people with the opportunity to create derivatives using real assets in the blockchain industry. For instance, one can create synthetic derivatives based on Amazon, Tesla, or any other asset. Thorchain will utilize its liquidity pools to back its synthetic assets, according to the announcement. These tokens will be minted from 50% RUNE and 50% of the target asset. 

The move has created more demand for $RUNE.X within the crypto community. This has resulted in its market cap gaining over $2.47 billion, making it the 47th biggest cryptocurrency. The token rose by 18% today, trading at $7.53.

2. MovieBloc: MovieBloc, a blockchain-based streaming platform aiming to challenge the domination of the movie theatre and home entertainment industry, recently ranked among the top trending tokens on CoinMarketCap. 

MovieBloc’s goal is to support filmmakers and viewers through blockchain and monetization opportunities. Earlier this month, it announced a new partnership with one of Australia’s hottest emerging film production companies, Continuance Pictures, which will distribute its films on the platform. In addition, creators will be able to add subtitles in their choice of language to make their movies available to more audiences.

The news caused the native token of MovieBloc, $MBL.X, to jump over 110% today, hovering around $0.019. The maximum and total supply of MBL coins are 30 billion, and the circulating supply of MBL tokens is 13.53 billion, according to data provided by CoinMarketCap.

Chainbing: Chainbing, a blockchain-based platform to store, index, analyze, and share data, received spotlight coverage on a lazy day. The native token $CBG gained over 13% at $43.37.

It is possible that the current surge is related to the announcement on Twitter that token holders will now have a voice in Chainbing’s community governance and development. It’s good progress of the project that was launched in the third quarter of 2021. The first data center is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Upon launch, users will be required to pay in CBG to access paid content, while contributors will be rewarded with token incentives when they provide information.