The NFT space has had quite the year, and while it can be difficult to separate the billions of dollars in crypto speculation from the potential infrastructure shifts, plenty of mainstream tech companies are dipping their toes into the space and signaling future interest. This time it’s TikTok’s turn. The fast-growing social media platform which […]
NBA Top Shot creator on the NFT craze and why Ethereum still isn’t consumer friendly
We caught up with the Dapper Labs CEO at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 last week to discuss the challenges facing the crypto space, the future of Ethereum, and how quickly NFTs blew up this year.
Mark Cuban and Coinbase back Eternal, an NFT marketplace for trading Twitch streamer clips
The NFT world collectively seems to be trying to turn internet memories into one big game — with a lot of cash involved of course. The original “Doge” image sold for $4 million back in June, the original “Pepe” comic image sold for $1 million in April, in short, people are becoming meme millionaires. Buying […]
Guardian owner invests in Unlock, an NFT protocol designed for subscriptions and memberships
Monetization for the creator economy continues to be a huge issue and opportunity, but creators mostly have to lock themselves into platforms like Patreon to realize their value. A better method would be to have a membership system for creators which sat across several platforms. Now, GMG Ventures (parent company of The Guardian newspaper) has […]
OpenSea admits incident as top exec is accused of trading NFTs on insider information
The “eBay of NFTs” is running into a scandal as it admits one of its employees traded the crypto digital assets using insider information from the platform. Yesterday, a top executive at NFT platform OpenSea was accused of front-running sales on the platform, purchasing pieces from NFT collections before they were featured on the homepage […]
CryptoPunks creator inks representation deal with major Hollywood talent agency
One of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies is getting into the NFT game. Larva Labs, the creator of CryptoPunks, just signed with United Talent Agency (UTA) in a representation deal that will bring one of the earliest and most iconic NFT projects into the entertainment and branding worlds. “I would say that it is one of […]
Offchain Labs raises $120 million to hide Ethereum’s shortcomings with its Arbitrum product
As the broader crypto world enjoys a late summer surge in enthusiasm, more and more blockchain developers who have taken the plunge are bumping into the blaring scaling issues faced by decentralized apps on the Ethereum blockchain. The popular network has seen its popularity explode in the past year but its transaction volume has stayed […]
CryptoPunks blasts past $1 billion in lifetime sales as NFT speculation surges
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week we dove into Bezos’s Blue Origin suing NASA. This week, I’m writing about the unlikely and triumphant resurgence of the NFT market. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my […]
Yat thinks emoji ‘identities’ can be a thing, and it has $20M in sales to back it up
I learned about Yat in April, when a friend sent our group chat a link to a story about how the key emoji sold as an “internet identity” for $425,000. “I hate the universe,” she texted. Sure, the universe would be better if people with a spare $425,000 spent it on mutual aid or something, […]
Tenderly raises $15.3M to help Ethereum developers ship decentralized apps faster
Blockchain infrastructure startups are heating up as industry fervor brings more developers and users to a space that still feels extremely young despite a heavy institutional embrace of the crypto space in 2021. The latest crypto startup to court the attention of venture capitalists is Tenderly, which builds a developer platform for Ethereum devs to […]