Explained by Mercuryo #28

The 28th edition of our curated newsletter.

In today’s newsletter we look at:

Can You Measure the NFT Market?
Visa’s New Toy
SEC vs DeFi
A Curious Case of One DeFi’s Vulnerability
Introducing Rarible

When Culture Meets Commerce

Visa Buys a CryptoPunk

Visa has enlarged its artifact collection by buying a CryptoPunk 7610 for roughly $150,000. The decision was less about the individual punk but more about CryptoPunks in general, given that it is a historical NFT project.

Visa believes NFTs are doomed to play a significant role in the future of commerce, as they can help content creators and SMEs in new ways. Moreover, Visa has published a whitepaper on NFTs to help businesses understand how they can integrate NFTs into their platforms and, of course, how Visa can help.

SEC’s Doubling Down on an Effort

Crypto’s ‘DeFi’ Projects Aren’t Immune to Regulation

According to The Wall Street Journal, SEC’s longtime policymaker and former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Gensler has been on the DeFi case for a while. Considering working out some proper regulations, Mr Gensler promised a vigorous attack on fraud and misconduct in the market.

Besides, he will ask Congress to help legislate a solution to fill regulatory gaps, such as cases in which some digital assets don’t fall into an existing regulatory framework. The term DeFi is “a bit of a misnomer,” Mr Gensler said. ”These platforms facilitate something that might be decentralized in some aspects but highly centralized in other aspects.”

Mercuryo Co-Founder’s Piece

DAOs in Web 3.0

Opinions and curated pieces by Mercuryo Co-Founder Greg Waisman – Follow on Twitter

A Story of One Vulnerability

Two Rights Might Make A Wrong

You would think that if every part of the system is safe, then the whole system is also secure. It might be true in some cases, but not in software development. The DeFi space is a perfect example of why such beliefs are not solid.

Unfortunately, while composing two components might be safe most of the time, it only takes one vulnerability to cause severe financial damage to hundreds if not thousands of innocent users. This piece tells a story of a similar vulnerability that put over 109k ETH at risk.

Non-Fungible Immensity

How Large is the Market for NFTs?

Estimating the size of the NFT market is no easy task. The thing is, NFTs are not just funky-looking collectibles, but a whole myriad of assets that can represent ownership of bonds and real estate, art, in-game items, music, and even insurance and liquidity.

This piece dives into the deep digital see of non-fungible tokens trying to size the market, analyzing each industry that has anything to do with NFT. So how big it is exactly? Here’s a hint: it is much larger than you think.

Meet The Rarible Protocol

An Open-Source, Cross-Chain Tool For NFT Innovation

The Rarible Protocol is a set of smart contracts that work with various blockchains and an open-source indexer. Projects can use it to build apps, while smart contract developers can design features in the protocol that benefit an entire ecosystem of projects.

The idea of Rarible is to let developers and teams focus on what’s essential rather than building an entire NFT storefront or marketplace from scratch. Twenty diverse projects are currently building applications on the protocol. More about Rarible in their Medium post.

Something You Could Have Missed

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This is a weekly newsletter curated by our Blockchain Lead Vyacheslav Akhmetov. We cover the most sparkling events in the industry and sharing more about our journey.