This Week in Crypto: (1) McDonald's is Now Accepting BitCoin · (2) Coinbase CEO goes on rant · (3) NFTs continue to make billions
This Week in Crypto: (1) McDonald’s is Now Accepting BitCoin · (2) Coinbase CEO goes on rant · (3) NFTs continue to make billions
This $h!t just got real.
Happy hump day, friends.
Let’s talk.
McDonald’s
McDonald’s now accepts Bitcoin, but only in El Salvador
El Salvador’s recognition of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender has opened up new payment options for its citizens, with fast-food empire McDonald’s reportedly accepting payments in the cryptocurrency through Lightning Network.
Just walked into a McDonald's in San Salvador to see if I could pay for my breakfast with bitcoin, tbh fully expecting to be told no.
— Aaron van Wirdum (@AaronvanW) September 7, 2021
But low and behold, they printed a ticket with QR that took me to a webpage with Lightning invoice, and now I'm enjoying my desayuno traditional! pic.twitter.com/NYCkMNbv7U
As the expression goes… this $h!t just got real.
McDonald’s Starts Accepting Bitcoin In El Salvador
*California-based bitcoin payment processor OpenNode confirmed to *Forbes it has formed a partnership with McDonald’s to allow it to begin accepting bitcoin (Editor’s Note: *OpenNode earlier told *Forbes that Panda Express was also using bitcoin, but has since said that was an error and we have clarified the piece).
Bitcoin can now be used to pay at all 19 McDonald’s locations in the country, as well as online and through the delivery app, OpenNode said.
Though this appears to be the first major American company to adjust to El Salvador’s cryptocurrency initiative, OpenNode spokesperson Ryan Flowers said his team is “currently onboarding multiple multi-billion dollar businesses based in El Salvador.”
I have a feeling that the biggest news today is not El Salvador, but big retailers like McDonald’s and Starbucks accepting Bitcoin
In this thread, some think it is a test for things to come from our governments/the establishment, whereas others view it as the emergence of the sovereign individual.
CoinBase
CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong goes on a (passive aggressive) rant against the SEC. Here’s the full transcript!
We don’t want to fill up this entire post with the transcript, so click the article to read it if you feel so inclined.
Otherwise, it’s what you expect: big daddy government getting in the way as they try to get their share.
NFTs
Teen Artists Are Making Millions on NFTs. How Are They Doing It?
Jaiden Stipp was watching a Star Wars movie at his afternoon youth group in Tacoma, Washington, last March when the bids started coming in. First it was a fragment of an Ethereum coin, worth about $300 at the time.
Then it was more. Eventually Stipp — who is 15 years old and will soon be starting his sophomore year of high school — sold his artwork, a digital illustration of a waving, astronaut-like cartoon figure, for 20ETH. (That converted to over $30,000; it was traded a month later for nearly $60,000.)
“My dad was like, ‘No way this is actual money,’” Stipp says. “It seems like it’s a lot of fake money being passed around. So we took some of the money out just to see what’s actually real. And then at the bank. I was like, ‘Whoa.’”
This is a long article with too many good tidbits to share them all.
If you want to get into the NFT market, don’t skip this one.
NFTs Boom Anew as DOG Coin Becomes $550 Million Asset Overnight
The frenzy for digital artwork is breaking new ground as one of the Internet’s best-known memes gets turned into a near $550 million asset overnight.
The DOG coin — a fraction of the non-fungible token depicting the famous Doge meme — has doubled in value in less than 24 hours of trading, according to CoinGecko data. That makes it one of the most valuable NFTs yet.
No, they’re not referring to DOGE.
We were confused for a second there too.
It’s DOG coin.
There will be many more similar assets to come.
CryptoPunks blasts past $1 billion in lifetime sales as NFT speculation surges
Back in April, I wrote about a platform called CryptoPunks that — at that point — had banked more than $200 million in lifetime sales since 2017. The little pop art pixel portraits have taken on a life of their own since then. It was pretty much unthinkable back then but in the past 24 hours alone, the platform did $141 million in sales, a new record.
By the time you read this, the NFT platform will have likely passed a mind-boggling $1.1 billion in transaction volume according to crypto tracker CryptoSlam. With 10,000 of these digital characters, to buy a single one will cost you at least $450,000 worth of the Ethereum cryptocurrency. (When I sent out this newsletter yesterday that number was $300k)
When I published this back in April, the cheapest CryptoPunks were $30k, today the cheapest one available for sale is just shy of $300k https://t.co/X4iTSl6FjC
— Lucas Matney (@lucasmtny) August 27, 2021
It’s not just CryptoPunks either; the entire NFT world has exploded in the past week, with several billions of dollars flowing into projects with drawings of monkeys, penguins, dinosaurs and generative art this month alone.
After the NFT rally earlier this year — culminating in Beeple’s $69 million Christie’s sale — began to taper off, many wrote off the NFT explosion as a bizarre accident. What triggered this recent frenzy?
Here’s some advice from Figma CEO Dylan Field who sold his alien CryptoPunk earlier this year for 4,200 Eth (worth $13.6 million today).
Just getting into NFT’s? Welcome!! It’s a fascinating world and this is just the very start :)
— Dylan Field (@zoink) August 28, 2021
My unsolicited advice: exercise caution + restraint. There are a lot of speculators in the space right now. Buy things you love / plan to hold forever and don’t expect prices to go up!
Utah Jazz launch revolutionary NFT-based virtual locker room
The Jazz will be the first professional sports team in the world to offer access to a virtual locker room via NFT. Team owner Ryan Smith says the opportunity is as important for the Utah community as it is for the team’s more tech-savvy fans.
Everyone.
Everything.
Soon, our dogs, mothers, and even our mental health will have and be their own NFTs.
Old News to Revisit
Atari Is Building a Casino in Ethereum’s Virtual World Decentraland
Atari is launching a crypto casino in crypto-powered “metaverse” Decentraland next month.
The casino will feature Atari-themed games, and 88% of the profits will go to a Decentral Games DAO.
Metaverse Alert.
Miscellaneous
The strategy I learned from this sub is actually making me lose money. Where is my mistake? Help!
When the price was sufficiently high, I bought some and waited for the price to go down. I sold. After quick math, I noticed I was at a loss — must have been fees.
I decided to try with a larger amount and there just happened to be ADA ATH. I bought. Then crash. I sold.
I did exactly like you said and I’m somehow losing money? Wtf, reddit??? I don’t know, I’ll try a couple more times, but that’s it!
Is “buy high, sell low” even a real strategy? Has it worked for anyone? And don’t tell me I should have gone with the “DCA” joke!
Our two cents:
This guy needs to learn to HODL.
Pour Conclure
TL;DR* — Buy crypto, and Mint and/or Trade NFTs.*
Oh, and remember to HODL.
Checking out.
Your Pal,
The Gopher
P.S.
You’re early.
Don’t fret if you feel like you’re missing out on the gold rush.
It hasn’t even started.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice in any way, shape, or form. You are reading opinions from an anonymous news publisher in Cartoon Gopher Format.
Questions & Comments: Please feel free to ask questions and leave comments as it relates to Crypto, Blockchain-Tech, NFTs, & Web 3.0 — or if you’d just like to say hello — I want to hear from you!
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