Polygon, an Ethereum sidechainsidechain network, is seeing major price gains for its token MATIC after Meta announced Instagram would be using the Polygon network for its upcoming in-app NFT minting feature earlier this week.
According to CoinGecko data, MATIC is up roughly 20% in the past 24 hours, from approximately $0.94 to $1.13. In the past week, MATIC climbed 25% and has increased a staggering 35% in the past month.
What’s MATIC for? While Polygon users can pay for many transactions in Ethereum, MATIC is required to pay for the gas fees on the network. (Gas fees are essentially transaction fees that are paid to the network.) Polygon’s gas fees are very low, but still required for transactions. Sometimes, NFTs can be bought with MATIC as well, allowing traders to avoid the process of bridging or wrapping Ethereum or searching for a crypto exchange that will sell Wrapped Ethereum natively on Polygon.
But Instagram’s NFT minting feature is a big deal—last year, CNBCreported that Instagram has over 2 billion monthly users. That means lots of potential traffic for the Polygon network.
“Creators on Instagram having the opportunity to engage with fans and monetize through Polygon-powered digital collectables is a watershed moment for both the creator economy and web3,” Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt previously told Decrypt, adding that in his view, “Polygon excels at delivering Web3 to the masses.”
🚨 MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT🚨
💻Earlier this year, we announced a display partnership with @Meta.
⛓️Now, @Meta has selected @0xPolygon for MINTING digital collectibles!
Historically, NFTs—unique blockchain tokens that signify ownership—have been popular on Ethereum with creators earning over $1.8 billion in royalties alone, an October research report from Galaxy Digital revealed. Compared to the Ethereum mainnet, the Polygon NFT economy has been significantly smaller.
According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, nearly 309,000 Polygon NFTs were sold on OpenSea in October. In contrast, more than 1.1 million NFTs were sold on Ethereum’s mainnet on OpenSea last month. That’s a 112% difference.
A new research report out today from Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital found that Ethereum NFT creators have been paid a total of $1.8 billion in royalties from secondary sales on marketplaces like OpenSea.
In the report, Galaxy Digital researchers Sal Qadir and Gabe Parker also found that NFT creators’ royalty rates on OpenSea—the top overall marketplace by trading volume—have doubled over the past year on average, jumping from a 3% cut of sales to 6%.
The researchers also discovered a concentr...
But with Reddit users creating over 3 million wallets to mint and trade the platform’s “Collectible Avatars,” nearly 3 million Reddit Polygon NFTs in existence to date per data aggregated on Dune, and Polygon’s massive upcoming partnership with Starbucks, Polygon’s bevy of big-brand partnerships is a sign its proponents are pushing hard toward its vision of mass adoption.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Altcoin Hyperliquid was recently down more than 6% over the past 24 hours, the poorest performer among the 100 leading cryptocurrencies by trading volume in Thursday trading.
HYPE fell below $36 at one point, its lowest level in 10 days, and well off its all-time high of $45.59 set just three days ago, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. The token of the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange remains up more than 40% over the past 30 days, a result at least partly of its dominant position...
When most healthcare companies discuss digital transformation, they typically mean electronic medical records or telemedicine platforms.
But for Prenetics Global Limited, a publicly-traded health sciences firm, going digital meant something entirely next level: a $20 million Bitcoin treasury strategy that adds its name to a growing list of companies adopting a Bitcoin acquisition strategy.
The Nasdaq-listed genomics and digital health company disclosed Wednesday that it has acquired 187.42 BTC...
A startup has raised $6 million in a seed round to protect Bitcoin from quantum computing.
Project 11, which focuses on quantum computing's hypothetical threat to the leading crypto network, announced the raise Thursday, which was co-led by Variant and Quantonation, and included participation from venture capital firms Castle Island Ventures, Nebular, and Formation.
The firm said that quantum computing is a threat to Bitcoin so "every wallet, every account holder, every smart contract key—all...