#142 - Have Polygon NFTs become the new standard?

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

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Today,

• Are Polygon NFTs bigger than Ethereum's now?

• The original Doge couch is up for auction

• What's inside Bitcoin's biggest block?

Top 24 hr collection volume

via CoinMarketCap

1. CryptoPunks - 8 sales earning 1,164.79 ETH (0.08%)

2. Sewer Pass - 283 sales earning 915.93 ETH (0.02%)

3. BAYC - 2 sales earning 171.99 ETH (0.23%)

4. MAYC - 10 sales earning 145.75 ETH (0.18%)

5. Dooplicator - 180 sales earning 130.31 ETH (0.31%)

Polygon NFTs – the new normal?

Noticed a shift in the market lately? For the second month in a row, Polygon NFT sales overtook Ethereum NFTs on OpenSea.

In Jan, OpenSea handled ~$1.5 million in NFT sales on the Polygon sidechain compared to ~$1.1 million on layer1 chain Ethereum.

It's not just the numbers that are interesting, though. It's what's driving them.

With its lower gas fees, Polygon is becoming the go-to chain for low-cost NFT projects and cheap, plentiful gaming assets like skins and powerups.

Plus, its reputation couldn't be better right now, thanks to big names like Meta, Starbucks, Reddit, and Donald Trump choosing the chain.

Trump Cards were the top Polygon NFT collection in January, with ~5,500 sales and $2.8 million in trading vol.

But, before you stuff your Ethereum NFTs into garbage bags and throw them out like I did with my original shiny Charizards back in 2002, remember that Ethereum is still home to the big studios and big bucks.

On OpenSea in Jan, Ethereum saw ~$446 million in total volume, compared to Polygon's $15.4 million...

Tweet of the day

On the web3 wire

Another big project, Cool Cats, goes multi-chain 🐈Customizable avatars will be available on "multiple layer-1 blockchains and layer-2 scaling networks."

NFT now's featured drops of the week 🫳The NFT-obsessed publication shares its picks.

NFT sales were ⬆️ 38% as January ended$946.7 million in sales were driven by BAYC.

Miners mine biggest bitcoin block ⛏️

The biggest Bitcoin block ever was mined this week, at 3.96 MB, which is just under the limit for blocks on the chain.

The block was mined as a promo for a new type of bitcoin "NFT" made by mining company Luxor Mining and indie dev Udi Wertheimer.

The block contains an old bitcoin meme – a bald, bearded wizard sporting sunglasses – plus the words "Magic Internet JPEGs".

Taproot was a significant upgrade to the Bitcoin network that facilitated more private and secure transactions.

The on-chain image was tokenized using a protocol called Ordinals. The protocol lets users transfer satoshis (the smallest BTC increment) inscribed with images, HTML, and other data types.

This process stays entirely on-chain and doesn't require a sidechain or additional token. It's NFTs, but for Bitcoin.

For years, we've seen experiments and small startups creating NFT-like protocols for Bitcoin, but Ordinals might be the most robust platform yet.

Announcing the block on Twitter, Luxor Mining teased that other wizards may soon be available.

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Meme of the day

The original Doge couch is up for auction

PleasrHouse is hosting a 24-hour charity NFT auction that gives the winner ownership of the couch from the original doge meme.

That's right, the one and only couch that Kabosu, the Shiba Inu of iconic internet meme status, graced with its lil' backside back in 2010.

When Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato posted photos of her rescue Shiba Inu on her personal blog, she probably didn't suspect the effect they'd have on the internet's (+ meme's, Elon Musk's, and crypto's) history.

Fast forward to last month, and it was announced that now-17-year-old Kabosu has become sick, after being diagnosed with leukemia.

In response to the news, PleasrDAO, the web3 collective formed to purchase expensive, iconic NFTs and notable digital assets, decided to auction the couch for Save The Children.

PleasrDAO actually acquired the original Doge photo from Sato in 2021 – for 1696.9 ETH (a cool $4.8 million at the time).

The deets:

• The live 24-hour NFT auction will stream on Feb 8th and features a rare appearance by Atsuko Sato and Kabosu

• This is the second live auction from PleasrHouse

• A special Open Edition NFT drop is also happening during the stream

Next email: web3 threads of the week 👋

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