
Google Trends data shows interest in NFTs has waned, even as trading volumes are surging, while Korean multinational giant Lotte has partnered with Polygon.
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creators Yuga Labs has announced a new NFT collection on Bitcoin dubbed “TwelveFold.”
The move was announced via Twitter on Feb. 28, with Yuga Labs unveiling 300 tokenized computer generated artworks as part of the TwelveFold collection that will go up for auction later this week.
Introducing TwelveFold. A limited edition collection of 300 generative pieces, inscribed on satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain.https://t.co/aFWEIhzqcI pic.twitter.com/PjWABKKBr4
— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) February 27, 2023
In an accompanying blog post, Yuga Labs explained the concept behind the collection is based on mathematics, time and the Bitcoin blockchain.
“TwelveFold is a base 12 art system localized around a 12x12 grid, a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain,” the post reads, adding that:
“Satoshis are the smallest individually identifiable units of a Bitcoin. An inscribed satoshi can be located by tracking when that satoshi was minted in time via the Ordinal Theory protocol.”
“Inspired by this, our collection explores the relationship between time, mathematics, and variability,” it explained.
Yuga Labs cited the recent buzz around Bitcoin NFTs, or Ordinals, as the reason why it chose to drop a collection on the network.
“Stepping into the Ordinals Discord a month ago felt like getting a glimpse of the 2017-era Ethereum NFT ecosystem. It’s the type of energy and excitement we love at Yuga,” the firm stated.
Yuga Labs is launching an Ordinal Inscription collection on Bitcoin.
— Eric Wall | Taproot Wizard #2 (@ercwl) February 27, 2023
The instructions on how to acquire them involves running a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, requires an empty Bitcoin address, and all bids will be in bitcoin.
They also provide a guide to Bitcoin UTXOs. pic.twitter.com/NQJeZQaagp
According to Google Trend data, search interest for NFTs has fallen to levels not seen since early 2021 — before the NFT boom — suggesting interest could be waning for nonfungible tokens.
NFT trading volume data from February however, suggests otherwise.
Google Trends uses a metric of 0-100 to display interest in various keywords that people look up in its search engine. Between Feb. 19 and Feb. 25, the keyword “NFTs” scored a mere seven out of 100.
Such levels haven’t been seen since early-to-mid January 2021, while it has been a steep decline since the all-time high of 100 between Jan. 23 and Jan. 29, 2022.
NFT trading volume in February paints a different picture however.
According to data from CryptoSlam, there has been $997.14 million worth of global NFT sales for the month, following on from the $1 billion posted in January.
These levels bring the NFT market back to that of June 2022 and its $982 million worth of sales, before dipping to a low of $460 million in October 2022.
More recently, sales volume has been on a significant incline, with the launch of the trader-friendly marketplace Blur being a key contributor behind this.
The man who won the Golden Key NFT for posting the highest score on the BAYC-affiliated Dookey Dash game has sold the token for 1,000 Ether (ETH), or roughly $1.63 million.
Twitch streamer Kyle Jackson, also known by his pseudonym Mongraal online, initially received the key on Feb. 16 after notching a hefty 928,522 points during the Dookey Dash competition hosted by Yuga Labs.
Wasting no time, Mongraal announced on Feb. 27, that he had agreed to sell the key to Adam Weitsman, BAYC NFT hodler and CEO of scrap metal shredding company Upstate Shredding.
I have agreed to sell the key for 1000 ETH to @AdamWeitsman. Super nice guy and thrilled the sale went through with him.
— Mongraal (@Mongraal) February 27, 2023
A special thank you to @yugalabs for hosting an incredible competition. I look forward to competing in future events. Royalties will be paid in full.
1/2
The Golden Key is bound to unlock something special from Yuga Labs, however, the specific details have not yet been revealed.
Polygon Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Ethereum-layer 2 scaling network Polygon, has partnered with South Korean multinational conglomerate Lotte Group to host the firm’s NFT projects.
According to a Feb. 27 announcement from Lotte’s marketing and NFT hub, Daehong Communications, the partnership will see Lotte’s avatar-based NFT project BellyGom ported over to Polygon from the Klatyn network.
The project will be rebranded as BellyGom season 2, and the NFTs offer hodlers benefits relating to Lotte’s product and service lines such as shopping discount coupons and hotel vouchers. New additionally benefits have been teased moving forward, but details were sparse in the announcement.
Lotte has nearly 100 different business units across areas such as fast food, candy manufacturing, electronics and hotels. As of September 2022, the firm is estimated to have around $15 billion worth of assets on its balance sheet.
Looking more broadly, the firm has outlined intentions to develop its Web3 initiatives in partnership with Polygon, as Lotte looks to expand its NFTs to a global audience and develop “a new NFT business model rather than simply issuing NFTs.”
Related: Blur runs after OpenSea market share, but its success depends on upcoming governance proposals
The move adds to Polygon’s growing list of partnerships with major brands such as Startbucks, Adidas, Adobe and Prada.
According to a survey from metaverse platform, Metajuice, almost three out of four of the NFT collectors on its platform purchase NFTs for status, uniqueness and aesthetics.On the other hand, 13% percent of the survey participants said that they are buying NFTs to resell them in the future.
A group of well-known Japanese tech companies agreed on Feb. 27 to forward the creation of the “Japan Metaverse Economic Zone. Along with creating the Japan Metaverse Economic Zone, the agreement focuses on building an open metaverse infrastructure called “Ryugukoku,” which will spark the next wave of metaverse development.
Bitcoin remains the most-searched cryptocurrency in 2022 by far thanks to its top-brand status and being in a league of its own when it comes to decentralization.
Cryptocurrencies have suffered immensely in 2022 from the onslaught of a hawkish Federal Reserve and the implosions of crypto platforms FTX, Terra, Celsius Network, and others.
Notably, the market valuation of all the cryptocurrencies combined has dropped 70% year-to-date (YTD) to nearly $770 billion, signifying massive capitulations by traders and investors alike.
The waning demand has also pushed the internet requests fo6r the keyword "buy cryptocurrency" to their lowest since February 2020, according to Google Trends.
Nonetheless, the latest Accenture's 2022 Global Consumer Payments report shows that retail interest in cryptocurrencies remains high despite 2022's market crash. The reasons given by responders include long-term investments (28%), curiosity (22%), short-term speculation (21%), and others.
Meanwhile, separate research by personal finance portal DollarGeek dwells into 2022's most-searched cryptocurrencies worldwide, thus presenting a rough outlook on what retail players may invest in heading into 2023.
Bitcoin (BTC) has emerged as the most googled cryptocurrency in 2022 in DollarGeek's research, attracting 28.41 million monthly searches worldwide.
The interest remains relatively high as experts assess its quality compared to other crypto assets in the industry. For instance, venture capital investor Tim Draper thinks weaker coins will become relics amid the ongoing crypto winter to Bitcoin's benefit.
Related: Tim Draper still positive on $250K Bitcoin price prediction in 2023
With @CNBC @WebSummit . Here is why @bitcoin will reach $250k. https://t.co/DqARhl8pAu
— Tim Draper (@TimDraper) December 16, 2022
BTC's price is down nearly 65% YTD with some analysts predicting it would fall further toward $10,000. But internet searches over the past 12 months reveal that most people have searched for buying Bitcoin, not selling it, which suggests that most people have still never owned Bitcoin.
Dogecoin (DOGE) is the runner-up to Bitcoin, attracting an average of 5.85 million monthly searches worldwide in 2022.
The meme-cryptocurrency was in the news mostly due to Elon Musk who purchased Twitter and teased his followers with the idea of integrating DOGE payments for in-app payments. However, it also gained traction after getting listed on Robinhood, a U.S.-based commission-free trading platform.
These events helped Dogecoin record temporary surges in internet searches, as shown in the Google Trends chart below. For instance, Musk's eventual Twitter buyout in late October coincided with Dogecoin internet trends rallying to a perfect 100 score.
So wile DOGE's price is down roughly 55% YTD, the internet search data suggests that its potential pool of buyers could be relatively higher in number than sellers, similar to Bitcoin.
Shiba Inu's (SHIB) monthly internet searches globally came at 4.43 million. Nonetheless, the meme-coin has beaten its top-rival Dogecoin in the U.S., with 1.29 million monthly searches versus DOGE's 729,000.
That is despite Shiba Inu's weaker price performance in 2022 compared to Dogecoin. SHIB is down roughly 75% YTD, but staying in the news due to its foray into the metaverse and the potential launch of Shibarium, Shiba Inu's Ethereum layer-2 blockchain.
In addition, the internet searches for Shiba Inu also spiked due to Crypto.com, a crypto exchange with the largest SHIB position as of November 2022. The market feared that Crypto.com would become insolvent, which will prompt it to sell its SHIB holdings.
However, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek clarified that their mounting SHIB reserves are due to customer buying.
Ethereum is the fourth most-googled cryptocurrency worldwide with 3.84 million monthly searches in 2022 despite Ether (ETH) price losing 67% YTD.
The second-largest blockchain by market cap stayed in the news throughout the year due to its switch to proof-of-stake (PoS) from proof-of-work (PoW) via the Merge. Notably, interest in the keyword "Ethereum" and related terms like "Ethereum 2.0" and "Merge" peaked in September when the PoS switch happened.
Ethereum's internet searches may have also gained traction due to concerns that it has become a security after the PoS upgrade. Recently, crypto platform Paxful removed support for ETH citing similar reasons.
Cardano (ADA) has attracted 1.47 million monthly internet searches on average in 2022, becoming the fifth-most googled cryptocurrency worldwide.
The Cardano trend picked up momentum specifically in January 2022 when ADA outperformed Bitcoin and Ether in price. Later, however, searches have been declining despite the Vasil hard fork in September failing to produce a spike in interest.
Other honorable mentions of the most-searched cryptocurrencies in 2022 include Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), XRP (XRP), SafeMoon (SAFEMOON), and Nexus (NXS).
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Neither FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried nor any FTX official has provided its users with clarity as to why FTX’s website was taken down.
Financially-troubled crypto exchange FTX has brought its website back online following a period of intermittent downtime — with the trading platform now sporting a banner confirming withdrawals are halted and advising users against depositing.
The FTX website returned online at approximately 9:00 pm UTC on Nov. 9, after encountering five separate periods of network downtime spanning over two hours, according to the “IS IT DOWN OR JUST ME” website.
The crypto community on Twitter has also noticed a new bright red banner that can be seen throughout the website that reads:
“FTX is currently unable to process withdrawals. We strongly advise against depositing.”
A pinned message on the official FTX Telegram Group on Nov. 8 also confirmed the halting of withdrawals, without any estimates about when they would return.
"We are waiting for confirmation from our team to ramp it up. Right now we dont have an ETA but surely will communicate it as soon as we have it," a member of FTX support staff wrote in the message.
Attempting to sign up for a new account on the website also comes with an alert that “signups are paused” at this current time, Cointelegraph has discovered.
This suggests that deposits, while “strongly advised against,” are only accessible to those who have existing accounts on the trading platform.
Meanwhile, two websites linked to the crypto exchange including Alameda Research and FTX Ventures remain down at the time of writing.
Related: Binance’s victory over FTX means more users moving away from central exchanges
It comes amid an ongoing liquidity crisis being faced by the crypto exchange.
A Nov. 9 report from the Wall Street Journal claims that the exchange is facing a shortfall of $8 billion, and is unable to meet withdrawal demands without emergency funding.
Binance initially signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy out the embattled exchange but pulled out less than 48 hours later, citing the mishandling of customer funds and alleged U.S. agency investigations as the reasons for its change in decision.
Google search results for “FTX website” also saw a large spike over the last few hours following the reports that the FTX website was intermittently going down, according to Google Trends: