Today's all about Ethereum

GM, and welcome back to your numero uno spot for all things NFTs and Web3!

Estimated read time: 4 minutes 15 seconds

Today's stories:

• Ethereum NFT rentals 👀

• OpenSea has Ethereum’s back post-merge

• ETC out here going crazy

The Ethereum token standard that supports rental NFTs

What are Ethereum token standards?

Standards are all about making sure that new projects and mints are compatible with Ethereum exchanges and platforms.

For example, ERC-20 ensures interoperability for fungible tokens on the blockchain, while almost all Ethereum NFTs meet ERC-721.

So what’s this new standard?

ERC-4907 became Ethereum’s 30th official standard at the end of June. It’s an extension of standard 721 that aims to provide new features for NFTs.

Why is it interesting?

Unlike previous standards, ERC-4907 makes it possible to allocate NFT “users” without giving away the ability to transfer or sell the asset.

Essentially, it opens up the possibility for NFT owners and users to be different people.

In other words, NFT rentals.

 Why the hell would I want to rent an NFT?

Ok, for some PFP collections, there might be little point in renting. But any NFT with unused utility could be loaned to somebody who can’t afford the full item, or who only needs it for a limited time.

Say you want to try out a play2earn game, but aren’t interested in the grind of levelling up your own character from zero. Why not rent a pre-made character for a few hours to see how you like it?

This could also be very beneficial for the whales out there that bought a bunch of NFTs from a particular project, and will never be able to play as all of them. ERC-4907 opens up the possibility to rent out the NFTs for use by other players, without the risk of compromising the ownership of your assets.

Or, maybe you’ve always wanted to attend some exclusive NFT holders-only event? If the official holder can’t make it, they could loan their access to you.

Maybe you just want to check out a community from the inside.

So will there be NFT rental markets in the future?

It’s easy to imagine people becoming experts/authorities in digital niches, acquiring lots of property in that area, then renting it out.

• You could have digital landlords renting out space in metaverses

• Or content creators offering subscriptions on avatars, interiors, art, music, etc.

• Anybody with a large static collection could start renting to earn passive income

• There’s even potential for NFT mortgage platforms, where users pay installments to use an NFT until they fully own it

NFT mortgages?!

Honey, I know you’re thinking, but have you seen the great rates on these Pixelmons?

So where can I rent NFTs?

Until the new standard becomes widespread, current options for renting NFTs are limited – and may involve putting up collateral against your rented item.

But if you do want to rent an NFT right now, there are a few rental marketplaces that help protect both owners and users.

OpenSea has Ethereum’s back post-merge

Here’s OpenSea, committing to accept only PoS Ethereum NFTs after the merge.

That means they won't support NFTs created on any ETHPoW chains forked before the mid-September changeover.

What are other marketplaces & exchanges doing?

• LooksRare, Rarible, and other major ETH marketplaces are yet to comment

• Circle and Tether are with OpenSea, only planning to support ETHPoS

• Coinbase and FTX are going to evaluate potential forks on a case-by-case basis.

• Bitfinex has a Chain Split Token (CST), letting investors split the difference between ETH coins if a fork happens.

• Poloniex accepted the ETHW coin earlier this month (as an IOU in anticipation of a fork), followed by some other exchanges.

ETHW is not currently tradeable on Binance.

Will there be ETHW?

Yes, there will almost definitely be an attempt to fork the Ethereum chain for the 3rd time in its history, to produce ETHW and retain a source of income for miners.

The question is, will a fork have enough momentum to be taken seriously by investors, exchanges, and NFT/layer 2 creators?

A few days ago, the anonymous ETHW movement posted an open letter to reintroduce themselves to the wider Ethereum community.

ETC out here going crazy

2 days ago CoinMarketCap had Ethereum Classic at $41.75, with its market cap up over 16%, it has taken a slight dip but looks ready to run again.

On the 5th, it had a 24-hour increase of over 19% – and a 3-month jump of 96%.

The reason? Miners are going all-in on ETC pre-merge.

In the early hours of this morning, an ATH hashrate of 49.52 TH/s was reached, following weeks of recording-smashing mining activity – while Ethereum's rate is starting to decline.

How soon will we see 50 TH/s?

What is hashrate?

Hashes are randomly generated alphanumeric codes used to secure blockchains. Hashrate is the number of “guesses” that mining computers take to produce a hash that satisfies the target hash.

The higher the rate, the safer the chain. A high hashrate means serious computing power is needed for bad actors to produce the target hash and process a majority of transactions, therefore compromising the network.

(ETC was hacked multiple times when its hashrate was in the single figures).

What is ETC?

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is a forked chain of Ethereum (ETH). It was made in 2016 when hackers stole 3.6 million ETH, leading to disagreement within the community about how to react.

The blockchain now called Ethereum decided to artificially revert the chain to its pre-hack state, while Ethereum Classic continued with the original legacy chain.

The two platforms are about to diverge further, with Ethereum planning a “merge” in which it will move from proof-of-work validation to proof-of-stake. This will make mining on the Ethereum chain redundant.

Ethereum Classic, on the other hand, has no plans to change its validation method. The anonymous group responsible for running the blockchain claims there’s room for even more ETH miners to switch to ETC in the coming weeks, despite yesterday’s ATH.

Thanks for listening to our TedTalk on Ethereum!

Headlines of the day

• Solana NFT Startup Dust Labs Raises $7M as y00ts Tops NFT Charts

• Andreessen Horowitz wants to fix NFT copyright with its ‘Can’t Be Evil’ license

• Olafur Eliasson Has Launched a New Virtual Reality Artwork and Is Minting His First NFT—Thanks to a Commission from $69M Beeple Buyer Metakovan

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.