4th February 2022 > > Awesome comedy, and a brief look at Looksrare.

Market Snap (at time of writing)

Market Wrap

Leveraged shorts are getting increasingly nervous and switching positions, whilst yesterday’s techies calling for the end of time are once again left wondering how they get it all so wrong so regularly.

Occasional Series – the greatest comedy recording of all time

Personal choice obviously, but this came up in conversation yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

I have always loved these guys.

Occasional Series – You’re ‘aving me on aren’t ya

Closely followed by this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwiKfXIlgCo

The “Os” bit is a classic in itself. Just ask the Chickpea.

The bigger of the two Rons always regretted not finishing the sketch (*** snowflake alert, look away now ***) with “a pair of knockers”.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – looksrare Part 1

Regular readers are familiar with the CCC’s fascination with non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

I make no apology for endlessly banging on about NFTs.

If you have zero interest in what is possibly one of the most exciting crypto spaces to date, simply go back to reading within your comfort zone, reinforce your pre-conceived notions, and let the rest of us true libertarians change the world for the better.

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One of the potential topics for the CCC tomorrow is a mea culpa about one of the key early adopters of NFTs, namely CryptoPunks. No spoiler alerts here, but the story – which I must admit absolutely appeals to my geeky, bespectacled persona – has led me to a brand new NFT marketplace.

I agree finding a brand new NFT marketplace is not exactly ground-breaking news, but this one has a twist:

https://looksrare.org/

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looksrare brings together two of the most extraordinary innovations in the crypto space of 2021:

NFTs (natch).

Reserve Treasury Protocols.

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The largest and most successful NFT marketplace OpenSea, https://opensea.io/, is a centralised approach to the display and trading of NFTs.

It has been phenomenally successful, partly because of its first mover advantage, but mostly because of great management of the project.

But the decentralisation revolution enabled by cryptos means that these types of projects have a limited lifespan. looksrare tells us why.

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Treasury Reserve Protocols as you know have been mostly scams, and even if not that, financially painful for most participants.

The CCC retains its faith in the core concept of Treasury Reserve Protocols, the scammers and paper hands notwithstanding.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – looksrare Part 2

I am not claiming that looksrare is the NFT marketplace answer and is certainly not the answer to the Reserve Treasury Protocol conundrum.

But some of the core concept of looksrare looks promising to me.

For the avoidance of doubt I am NOT suggesting anyone gets involved, and I promise you I have no skin in the game, at least not yet. Later today, maybe, possibly, probably.

looksrare looks to me like a classic (mostly) decentralised solution to a controlling centralised ethos.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – looksrare Part 3

Now for the interesting part.

Much like OpenSea, looksrare is currently centralised, but there is a roadmap to move to a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) in which all decisions are made via smart contracts. The governance token is called LOOKS - price action can be seen here:

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/looksrare/

Owners of LOOKS can stake them to receive rewards in similar way to Reserve Treasury Protocols.

Rewards of over 200% APY are payable in LOOKS, making it an inflationary coin backed by a real-life application.

Additionally, all fees earned on the platform (2% of all sales) are payable to staked LOOKS as WETH (wrapped ETH) currently at over 200% APY.

The model of rewarding LOOKS stakers looks very powerful to me IF the project is a success. That “IF” is doing a lot of very heavy lifting, but not enough to stop me exploring further.

I will let you know how I get on.

Reserve Treasury Protocols (before they all go to zero)

Reminder – Olympus and Wonderland are, to the best of my knowledge, live viable projects. XEUS, FORT and JADE turned out to be scams, though they are still live scams. Scams are not uncommon in these Wild West fringes of Decentralised Finance (DeFi).

Point of order – a staunch and loyal supporter of the CCC has asked that I make clear that it is only my belief that JADE is a scam. The project is still very much alive, and there is a wide body of opinion that does not concur with my view. I am very happy to make this point – the CCC believes that consenting adults are allowed to have different opinions on a wide range of topics.

Photon appears to have won the prize for being the most extraordinary scam. In under 18 hours it went to zero. And as far as I can tell – and I am no blockchain analytics expert – they walked away with less than $30k.

It is very upsetting we have scumbags like that around.

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