Tokenized Bank Deposits Are Coming
Tokenized Bank Deposits Are Coming
Major innovations are coming to the blockchain, as Mastercard looks to tokenize bank deposits and Coordinape launches an on-chain resume. Read on for more, and prepare for today's HV-MTL Forge launch.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Mastercard tokenizing bank accounts
Coordinape launching on-chain resumes
HV-MTL Forge set for release
Azuki rebounds ahead of community call
Coinbase says SEC has no jurisdiction
💸 Mastercard Tests Tokenized Bank Deposits
Last week we said "The institutions are coming" based on the flurry of BTC ETF requests piling in.
This week the mantra is "The institutions are building."
Mastercard is throwing its hat in the ring to bring tokenization and blockchain to the banking sector with its Multi-Token Network (MTN).
The Details
A quick summary of MTN:
Multi-Token Network is a Mastercard initiative focused on tokenizing bank deposits
Major Banks and Financial Institutions are invited to participate in the MTN project
Future Scope: The project plans to expand to central bank digital currencies and regulated stablecoins
Here's what Mastercard's head of crypto and blockchain, Raj Dhamodharan, had to say in an interview with Coindesk:
“What powers the global economy today is regulated money in the banks. So we’re starting with making tokenized bank deposits, so the unit of money in a bank account is a digital asset on the blockchain, bringing the same level of programmability to those as you find with digital currency in the crypto ecosystem.”
This experiment adds to a growing list of projects around the banking sector aiming for similar goals, including JPMorgan's JPM Coin.
Why It Matters
Anyone who has had to go into a bank branch to perform a wire transfer can attest to how difficult that legacy process is.
Tokenized money in the banking sector would mean a great improvement, with around-the-world transfers being possible in seconds (and fully traceable and in line with bank compliance rules).
This could transform banking operations and redefine global money transfers.
Bringing stablecoins into the MTN experiment is also a path to more mainstream crypto adoption by banks and customers.
And even for crypto natives, more bank-friendly integration for potential onramps and offramps into assets like stablecoins would likely be welcome for most.
Overall more and more investment is pouring into blockchain and crypto infrastructure - a sign that it's likely not going away anytime soon.
📝 On-chain Resumes with CoSoul
Working in Web3 is about to get more interesting, and for some, a bit more "permanent."
Coordinape, a digital community platform, is launching CoSoul as a version of an on-chain resume.
Are you ready for your Web3 work to become a part of your permanent record?
The Details
Here is the quick summary:
The CoSoul NFT is free to mint on the Ethereum layer 2 network Optimism
Holders can accumulate participation data, accolades, and employment verification attached to their NFT
CoSoul NFTs are non-transferable
The CoSoul NFT updates monthly with new metrics and generative artwork reflecting a holder's activity
Coordinape is also using its native token GIVE to allow contributions for participation within DAOs
Co-founder of Coordinape "Zemm" had this to say in their interview with Coindesk:
"We think that work history will live on-chain for digital communities and digitally native organizations (like DAOs), as a record of provable interactions between individuals, teams, orgs, etc."
Why It Matters
This was low-hanging fruit for soulbound NFT use cases.
Would potential employers rather trust a handmade resume from a candidate, or look at an on-chain version with contributions and information from employers and coworkers?
For that reason, the on-chain resume is one of the most likely NFT use cases to go mainstream in the coming years.
The risk - how do you combat "noise" and potential bad actors leaving stains on someone's CoSoul?
Likely a few kinks to work out in v1 here, but it's exciting to see this come to fruition.
🎮 HV-MTL Forge Goes Live
The major event in the NFT space today - Yuga's HV-MTL Forge goes live.
In anticipation of the game, Yuga released a game guide for the HV-MTL Forge, along with an explainer video (for those who don't like to read).
The game itself? It's an evolving game that starts as a casual world builder and turns into a competitive dungeon crawler.
Key Details
Objective: To evolve the HV into an Evo2 through creating a forge
How to play: construct your own workshop or forge, which generates the required energy for exploring The Rift, while also maintaining your HV and Forge
How to win: convince community voters that your forge is the best, with voting at the end of each 3-week season
This game is just getting started, literally, as Yuga committed to six seasons for HV-MTL Forge.
The HV-MTL NFTs soared after the announcement, up 19% to 0.83 ETH on the day.
Along with the announcement, co-founder Garga shared a deep personal statement about how he and Gordon Goner came up with the initial plans for a game, and how it evolving into a series of mini-games.
I highly encourage reading his thoughts for those interested in this ecosystem.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Trading volume came in over 29k ETH on Wednesday, led once again by the major Azuki collections (now 65k ETH traded in 2 days); NFTs saw a mix of red and green
Azuki ecosystem floors rebounded a bit on the day after Zagabond announced a Discord community call coming today at 6 pm PST
The Moonbirds ecosystem will be expanding soon, as 50 Mythics per day will start to be mintable for lucky holders (and Oddities will be burnable for Mythics as well), with more details to come on mechanics
Cool Cats held a town hall, sharing that they will partner with notable game developers to launch three games and significantly update their Cool Pets collection in the coming year
Sotheby's is launching an on-chain generative art program powered by the Art Blocks Engine, starting with artist Vera Molnar
DraftKings Reignmakers PGA TOUR is back today with the Rocket Mortgage classic! Get caught up with a preview and some predictions with this guide from our resident golf pro Jason Rouslin
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market was up slightly on the day; BTC +1% to $30,600; ETH even at $1,870
Coinbase claimed that the SEC has no jurisdiction over crypto on its platform in a response to the SEC lawsuit
Warner Music Group has partnered with Polygon to launch a music accelerator program to "onboard the next generation of blockchain music projects and [dapps]"
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Azuki (5,495 ETH, 9.15 ETH Floor)
Azuki Elementals (2,309 ETH, 1.54 ETH)
Azuki Elemental Beans (1,966 ETH, 2.04 ETH)
BAYC (1,561 ETH, 37.7 ETH)
HV-MTL (857 ETH, 0.84 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Apes Together Strong (90%, 0.36 ETH Floor)
Mongs (55%, 0.17 ETH)
Cool Pets (52%, 0.08 ETH)
Matrix 2061 (48%, 1.7 ETH)
OxMahjong (32%, 0.46 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is another huge day for both the ETH and BTC NFT space.
Ordinals have lost some hype of late, but founder ZK Shark is looking to bring it back with his OMB Green Eyes mint. The OG collection OMB still holds a 3.2 BTC floor, which is likely enough to get newcomers to pay the steep 0.09-0.29 BTC mint price for Green Eyes. But will the new supply hurt the market? We will see soon.
Over on ETH, the HV-MTL Forge launch is the event of the day. Expect some volatility on those NFTs.
The wildcard are the Guttermelos dropping on OpenSea for 0.115 ETH ($214) - not out of line at all for a sneaker drop from an NBA star (comes with both digital and physical).
If you want more, see the full list of today's drops from Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
OMB Green Eyes (10:00 a.m. ET); 0.09-0.29 BTC
Gutter Melos (11:00 a.m. ET)
HV-MTL Forge launch (TBD)
Pudgy Penguin - Igloo Shop launch (TBD)
Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's NFT Calendar page.