Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced plans to launch a marketplace where users can mint, collect and trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Users can now sign up to a waitlist for early access to the marketplace.

U.S. fintech giant Stripe is hiring a new blockchain team to enable cryptocurrency payments for its users. The company is returning to the cryptocurrency space three years after it dropped support for Bitcoin payments over the network’s transaction times and fees.

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched a $1 billion growth fund to support the Binance Smart Chain network, with the goal of helping accelerate cryptocurrency adoption.

This week we’re excited to bring you our first piece of what is going to be an ongoing weekly series, diving into the world of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, in partnership with Masterpiece - your entry point into the world of NFTs, including price, collection and a wide range of NFT data across all the leading digital asset marketplaces.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Coinbase Preparing to Launch NFT Marketplace
• Stripe Assembles Crypto Team 3 Years After Dropping BTC Support
• Binance Launches $1 Billion Crypto Growth Fund
• NFT Deep Dive: Art blocks’ Ascent to $327M Volume

Coinbase Preparing to Launch NFT Marketplace

Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced plans to launch a marketplace where users can mint, collect and trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Users can now sign up to a waitlist for early access to the marketplace.

NFT sales have boomed this year, to the point their market topped $10 billion in transaction volume in the third quarter of this year. Some NFTs sold for exorbitant sums, with a digital collage from Mike Winkelmann, the artist known as Beeple, selling for nearly $70 million.

Coinbase’s NFT marketplace, called Coinbase NFT, would include “social features” and tap into the creator economy. The move could be seen as a way for Coinbase to branch out into new revenue streams,as it’s currently heavily relying on exchange fees.

Stripe Assembles Crypto Team 3 Years After Dropping BTC Support

U.S. fintech giant Stripe is hiring a new blockchain team to enable cryptocurrency payments for its users. The company is returning to the cryptocurrency space three years after it dropped support for Bitcoin payments over the network’s transaction times and fees.

According to a job listing page on its website, it’s looking for four “Staff Engineers” with cryptocurrency experience. Stripe’s head of engineering, Guillaume Poncin, has said the firm is looking for engineers and designers to “build the future of Web3 payments.”

The job listing details the future engineers will be tasked with working “across everything from web/mobile UIs to backend, payments and identity systems.” The listing adds:

“We hear a growing need from developers and users in that space for better building blocks to accept payments, move funds, exchange between fiat and crypto, etc. By focusing on these problems and needs, we aim to build faster, more trustworthy, and higher quality crypto-enabled experiences.”

Stripe’s move comes after some of its major competitors, including Square, PayPal, and Mastercard, entered the cryptocurrency sector.

Binance Launches $1 Billion Crypto Growth Fund

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched a $1 billion growth fund to support the Binance Smart Chain network, with the goal of helping accelerate cryptocurrency adoption.

Roughly half of the funds will be directed toward investments in areas such as gaming, financial services, and virtual reality, with $300 million of the remainder going to a builder program and $100 million moving toward liquidity incentives and talent development.

Gwendolyn Regine, investment director of the BSC Accelerator Fund, said in a statement:

“With the $1 billion initiative, our focus will be widened to building cross-chain and multi-chain infrastructures integrated with different types of blockchains,”

NFT Deep Dive: Art Blocks’ Ascent to a $327M Volume

This segment is brought to you in collaboration with Masterpiece. To start things off we’re going to focus on Art Blocks - a first of its kind platform that hosts and publishes generative art that is minted/generated on-demand and immutably stored on the Ethereum Blockchain.

This year Art Blocks has surged in popularity - from recently raising $6 million in an equity round led by True Ventures to seeing its daily volumes soar from less than $1,000,000 - to now exceeding the $5,000,000 mark regularly. On August 29th, Art Blocks had a 7-day cumulative volume of $327,409,098 in which it recorded a staggering 27,200 sales.

One of the most popular Art Blocks ‘drops’ is The Fidenza project, which launched in June for a mint price of 0.17 ETH - or roughly $400 at the time. Fidenza’s have quickly become one of the most sought-after Art Block pieces - accounting for the majority of the highest-priced Art Blocks secondary market NFT sales. In the last 50 days, 12 Fidenza pieces have sold for more than$1m.

The largest Art Block sale of all time goes to Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers collection, which, this week, had a record sale of 2,100 ETH or $6,940,724.79. Excluding the Fidenza’s mentioned above, the second-highest single Art Blocks sale was for Art Block’s founder and CEO Erick Calderon’s Chromie Squiggle drop, which saw token #4697 sell for 945.00 ETH ($2,784,887).

Chromie Squiggle was the first Art Blocks collection and has recently seen record sale after record sale. This started 24 days ago when Squiggle 6339 sold for 485 ETH ($1,654,906). Just 3 days later, Squiggle 7583 broke this record - selling for 922 ETH ($2,746,580). Squiggle 7583 is special as it is one of twenty Squiggles that has the ‘Perfect Spectrum’ trait - making it the 13th rarest Squiggle of the 10,00- strong collection.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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