Upgrades For LooksRare in V2 Marketplace
LooksRare is an NFT marketplace that launched at the beginning of 2022, wishing to create an NFT economy and marketplace that values its customers and creators in a special way. By creating a platform that allows users to purchase any type of NFT that was created on the Ethereum blockchain, this is the one-stop shop for all ERC-721 NFTs. What sets LooksRare apart from the competition is the fact that they were able to target their marketing towards existing OpenSea users and launch their very own token. LooksRare was able to produce $307 million in revenue and $9 billion in volume within the first month of launch.
LooksRare then went on to be one of the top NFT marketplaces by trading volume, which puts the marketplace in the top 5 marketplaces in the industry. Although OpenSea and Blur are bringing in a significantly higher amount of trading volume per day, it seems like LooksRare is finally hopping onto the new meta to try and catch up to its other competitors in the NFT marketplace leaderboard. As of right now, LooksRare sees about 1,200 ETH worth of trading volume per day, according to data provided by @sealaunch on Dune Analytics.
LooksRare has upgraded to version 2 and announced that it is now live!
With a lot of industry-leading marketplaces switching over to cheaper trading and platform fees for their users, it does seem like LooksRare has been a bit late to the game; however, this is due to the fact that LooksRare wanted to take the time to build out a foundation that would be flexible and scalable.
In order to meet the market’s standards in today’s NFT marketplace meta, LooksRare slashed their platform fees by 75%, dropping their fees from 2% to 0.5%.
We know that there has been a large influx of transaction volume going to platforms such as Blur due to the fact that high-frequency NFT traders and enthusiasts seem to enjoy very low protocol fees when it comes to trading. Less fees would mean more ETH for them to trade with. It is literally the Robin Hood revolution all over again. Just like how online stock brokerages transitioned to low or no fees over time, we are seeing the same happening to the NFT industry.
We can see that LooksRare is dropping their fees in order to compete with Blur and the recently launched OpenSea Pro, which both offer zero-fee trading.
In addition to slashing these protocol fees, LooksRare is also throwing in another feature that is very popular in the NFT marketplace industry right now: bulk listing, bulk selling, reusable signatures, and most notably, being able to purchase an NFT with any ERC-20 token.
One of the main points of differentiation that LooksRare is trying to have seems to be with their new feature for NFT traders to save on gas fees. LooksRare V2 will now allow NFT traders to save about 50% on gas compared to Blur and 30% on gas compared to LooksRare V1.
In the event that gas is a huge deterrent to swapping NFTs, this could come in handy for frequent NFT traders.
It will be very interesting to see if these new features and gas + transaction fee-saving features will allow LooksRare V2 to catch up to OpenSea and Blur’s trading volumes. Even with OpenSea Pro launching just this week, OpenSea Pro is bringing in just as much or even more daily trading volume compared to LooksRare currently. With these new features, we may see a decent amount of market share coming to LooksRare.
Political Incentives: Thailand Prime Minister Contender Offers Airdrop
Srettha Thavisin is a real estate mogul who is now running for office in Thailand and is a contender to be the next prime minister of Thailand.
A very interesting promise has been made by Thavisin, as he promises every citizen of Thailand 10,000 Thai Baht in the event that he is elected.
With the equivalence of about $300 USD, this will be a stimulus package in the form of an airdrop to the citizens of Thailand, offering them relief as debt and expenses continue to rise over the previous years.
Although the Bank of Thailand stated that Thai baht stablecoins would be illegal just two years ago, it seems like Thavisin still wants to push this if he is elected, which would have quite a lot of implications.
As for the implications of a government stimulus for the people of Thailand, there are definitely consequences to providing relief in the form of money. It seems like Thavisin is doing this to further push economic growth in Thailand, as he states that the current money handouts are too small and not appropriate.
There are implications with regard to inflation and other economic issues that may arise from providing an airdrop in the form of digital currencies; however, there will be a very significant increase in exposure to digital currencies and themes from the crypto world that many people in Thailand have never heard of. By being able to provide these citizens with a digital currency that resembles their national currency, they may be inclined to learn more about digital currencies.
Without getting into any politics at all, it is definitely cool to see that a potential leader is trying to push for the use of digital currencies within the government for the purpose of an election and to stimulate economic growth. Seeing how Thavisin is faced with much opposition from other parties but yet still stands strong with his plan to follow through with his proposal is something that we have not seen much of from leaders in crypto around the world.