Gm🌤️ Can you believe it's already March? February really flew by - almost as fast as Bitcoin’s ride from $22K to $25K, then back down to where it started. But no worries, we're here to help you keep up with all the latest news and trends so you (hopefully) never get caught up in the volatility.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• BTC/ETH DIP ALERT 🚨

• The biggest NFT sale ever?

• From Victory Royales to Golden Key worth $1.6M

• Opensea 🥊 Blur

MARKETS

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies all saw a sharp drop yesterday, following the news of Silvergate Bank not being able to file its annual report on time and telling SEC that it’s evaluating its ability to stay in business. Even as major clients like Coinbase, Paxos, and Crypto.com immediately cut ties with the crypto bank, the price of Bitcoin dropped $1,200 in less than 30 minutes.

NFTS

Did this Mech Mind NFT just sell for $200 million?

On Monday, this generative art piece by MechMindsAI sold for a whopping 125,000 ETH, equivalent to more than $200 million—making it the most expensive NFT sold on chain ever. This single transaction placed Mech Minds at the top spot for the week and thirteenth on the all-time list in terms of total volume. And the floor price of Mech Minds jumped over eight fold from 0.01 ETH (~$16) to 0.08 ETH (~$133).

But hold up, there’s a catch. The team behind MechMindsAI disclosed that they were behind this transaction. Basically, they sold the NFT to themselves, then returned it to the original address. In traditional finance, this is known as wash trading—an illegal market manipulation method.

How did they do it? Mech Minds was able to borrow 125,000 ETH from a flash loan, which basically lets you borrow as much crypto as you like, use it however you like, then pay it back all in one transaction. In the end, Mech Minds only had to pay an $18 transaction fee for this ultra-effective marketing scheme. Talk about a bargain!

Why did this happen? Wash trading was effectively deterred for NFTs thanks to the service fees charged by the marketplaces. For example, OpenSea used to take 2.5% of the sales price of all NFT transactions. If Mech Minds wanted to do a wash trade worth $200 million, they would have to spend 2.5% of that ($5 million) to make the trade. However, OpenSea recently removed their service fees in order to compete with the rising marketplace Blur. The two companies playing chicken to gain market dominance has led to this unintended side-effect.

Why this matters: Total volume is one of the main metrics that NFT traders look at to evaluate an NFT project—maybe not so much anymore. Next time you try to grab a trending NFT project, it’s important to DYOR (or just follow us on Twitter, we got you).

GAMING

From Victory Royales to a Golden Key worth $1.6M

What if you could pocket $1.6M in a week playing games? That’s exactly what 18-year-old pro gamer Mongraal did last week.

Back in January, Yuga Labs (who owns blue chip NFT projects like BAYC and CryptoPunks) took their own shot at Web3 gaming with Dookey Dash. Holders of BAYC and MAYC were airdropped a Sewer Pass, which let’s them enter the game.

People really gave their best shots because their rankings would determine the prices of their Sewer Passes. According to Yuga Labs, holder will be able to summon their “Power Source” with their pass next week. For the first place, a Fortnite pro who goes by Mongraal, the pass turned into a golden key.

So what’s the craze? Well, the CEO of 9GAG offered 999 ETH worth around $1.6M for Mongraal’s golden key last week. Eventually, Mongraal sold the NFT for 1,000 ETH to this guy who runs a scrap metal company.

Mongraal made $706K playing 76 Fortnite tournaments over 4 years. He’s now made well over double that playing Dookey Dash for a week. And even if you're not the best gamer out there, you can still make a decent amount of money selling your Sewer Passes for thousands of dollars. As a terrible gamer myself, I'd happily take that deal any day.

Is Web3 going to open new doors for gamers as it did for artists?

GLAZING THE NUMBERS

OpenSea 🥊 Blur

As long as we know, OpenSea was the monopoly among NFT marketplaces.

Enter underdog. When Blur came out back in October with a cool futuristic design and made all fees optional, only a few paid attention. But when they announced their plans to airdrop their $BLUR token, things really started to heat up. Because Blur is backed by Paradigm, a prominent crypto venture capital, people started pouring in to receive $BLUR in hopes that they’ll rise in value.

The takedown. Immediately after the waited $BLUR airdrop on February 14th, Blur has gone and surpassed OpenSea in terms of trading volume by a staggering margin. People started posting gains as much as $1.9M on the internet and those who missed out started bidding like crazy, because Blur announced plans for Season 2 airdrops.

This has put OpenSea in a bit of a tight spot. Once people get used to paying no fees, they really have no reason to come back to OpenSea which charges fees set by creators and takes an additional 2.5% themselves. So for the first time, OpenSea dropped their fees to 0% for a limited time (which is what led to Mech Mind NFT’s $200M wash trading).

Zoom out. Mech Mind’s wash trading is just one of the many side effects of Blur’s successful zero fee policy. Until now, NFT projects were financially motivated to keep doing new things for their projects and care for the community even after the initial sale because the creator received a cut of every secondary sale as well. With Blur giving the choice for buyers to not pay any fees to the creator whatsoever, this paradigm may see a dramatic shift. Some people are projecting that NFT projects will respond by only providing perks to those who paid the fees during a secondary sale.

MUNCHKINS

• Voyager liquidating assets may bring prices down even more

• How to start your own NFT community

• It’s official - NBA Top Shot NFTs are securities

• Spotify is testing token-enabled playlists

• Tesla share drops 5% following a lackluster “master plan”

TWEET OF THE DAY

The Chief Legal Officer at Ripple jumped on Twitter and was basically said, “Hey, the SEC dude can’t vote on this issue ‘cause he already made up his mind on it.” According to a legal precedent, Antoniu v. SEC (8th Cir. 1989), a decision-maker who has already made up their mind on an issue cannot be impartial in a related case and must therefore recuse themselves. Let's see how this plays out!

Congratulations, you now know more about crypto than your grandma's financial advisor! Keep up the good work and keep impressing your family with your crypto knowledge. See you on Tuesday 🤗

If you can't wait until Tuesday for more, be sure to follow us on Twitter for real-time updates and insights.

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Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. "DYOR" or "Do Your Own Research" before making any financial decisions. We aim to be a part of that research, but please exercise caution and carefully conduct your own due diligence before making any financial decisions.

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