Damien Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. Most notably recognised as being an enfant terrible of the 1990s art scene, Hirst would submerge dead animals in formaldehyde as part of his artwork. 

Now, whether or not you think this is art is completely subjective, in fact, questions surrounding the nature of art and whether a particular piece of art is valuable, are not exactly new. Turning a urinal upside down and slapping a signature on it turned out to be a revelation for the artworld with Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' in 1917, playing a big part in the history of art.

Fast forward over 100 years to present day, and the questions are still as relevant as ever. Only now with the recent hype surrounding NFTs, artists are inspired in new ways with their artwork, including how its sold. This is where Damien Hirst comes in with his idea, posing the question through the participation of thousands of collectors, which is more valuable -physical artworks or the digital artworks?

HENI works with leading artists across the world, believing in the importance of art with the goal of making it accessible to everyone, and recently, HENI and Damien Hirst joined forces as part of a collaboration which sees an exhibition of paintings from Hirst's first NFT collection, otherwise known as The Currency artworks.

The Currency, launched by HENI in July 2021, is a collection of 10,000 NFTs each corresponding with 10,000 original paintings by Damien Hirst himself. For this project, collectors were asked to decide whether they wanted to either keep the NFT, or swap it for the physical artwork, with the collectors being told that they could not keep both, and that it was a one-way process. Hirst describes The Currency as a work of art in which people participate by buying, holding, selling and exchanging the artworks.

Damien Hirst began the exhibition during Frieze Week, by burning hundreds of his own spot paintings that were created in 2016, after offering potential buyers the choice of either purchasing them as original physical artworks or as £2,000 non-fungible tokens.

Following Frieze Week, the exhibition remained open, with physical artworks continuing to be destroyed, with visitors encouraged to come along and witness art created by Hirst being burned.

The exhibition began at Newport Street Gallery on 23rd September, and drew to a close on 30th October.

The Currency Chronicles is a publication released during the exhibition, which outlines the experiment from the experience of the community during the first phase of the project. To prove their authenticity, the artwork includes a watermark, a microdot and a hologram containing a portrait of the artist. 

Each artwork is individual in that no colour is repeated more than once, with the titles being generated through the application of machine learning of lyrics from the artist's favourite songs.

Published under HENI, The Currency: Chronicles Vol. 1 also includes a collection of essays and personal stories as well as artworks that have all been inspired by the first year of The Currency, with a foreword by none other than the legend that is Stephen Fry, and over 150 'chronicles' created by members of the HENI community.

One year ago, Damien Hirst announced he was going to “challenge the concept of value through money and art", and only a month into his project, The Currency brought in an overwhelming $47 million, however, over the remaining 11 months, interest in the project declined with both floor prices and trading volume decreasing.

In the end, the numbers were 5,149 physicals, and 4,851 NFTs, meaning each individual digital version had to be burned on a daily basis.

So, what does have more value when it comes to physical and digital art? With technology advancing, and digital artworks becoming more and more prominent, a digital version could give physical a run for its money. But with the history that physical artworks can bring, it's difficult to say. Who know? Ask again in another 1000 years when technology has advanced even further. Needless to say, it's an interesting concept that undoubtedly brought a community together. 

At Newport Street Gallery, London, the artist performatively burnt thousands of his own works.

The Currency by Damien Hirst | Fracas Digital

Web 3.0 heralds a new era for our interconnected, digital world, but what is it? Is it just a buzzword, or indeed a big shift towards empowering users across the worldwide web? By the end of our simple beginner's guide, you will know what it is, how it is changing the world, and the vast opportunities it can offer!

Web 3.0 is a vision for a decentralized, open access internet that is not controlled by particular organisations or individuals.

It is premised on a decentralized internet with more anonymity, permissionless access, and new technologies that enable these; such as blockchain, machine learning and smart contracts. Web 3.0 is possible thanks to this new tech, and builds on and changes some of the features from the web 2.0 and web 1.0 internets that came before it.

The creation of the internet heralded web 1.0; which featured a fairly small number of static web pages from a small number of developers and organisations, as web development skills were a rarity.

Because of these initial limitations, web 1.0 was largely used to find digitised information online. Web 1.0 spanned the 1990s through to the 2000s.

Web 2.0 began in the 2010s and expanded what could be created online by enhancing the responsiveness and personalisation of websites.

Web 2.0 enabled users to create their own content or tailor their experiences on interactive platforms. The current web is dominated by large corporations such as Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix.

Web 2.0 enabled new features such as drag and drop website building, interactive websites and dynamic social media features, like polling and commenting.

Web 3.0 is emerging due to new technologies that can enhance user privacy, data security, and trust across the web.

These technologies range from near-infallible verification of digital assets (such as non fungible tokens), to cloud-computing that allows a permissionless network of unaffiliated devices to store and host online communities and platforms together. What are the current limitations to web 2.0? And in what ways does Web 3.0 give solutions to these challenges?

An example is centralised platforms, operated by tech giants such as Amazon and Netflix which feed recommendations and targeted ads to users based on their profiles and activity.

On social media, ads are targeted to users who can give feedback after the fact, but they do not get to truly choose if they would like to share their data or preferences, and if so, how. Another challenge is search engines and platforms can filter the content that a user can find.

These examples alongside global events is fuelling a growing trust issue between consumers, governments and corporations, that is driving an appetite for change. So what are the current and upcoming technologies that enable web 3.0's solutions?

Bitcoin is a pioneering example of blockchain technology, which could not work without it; neither could NFTs or web 3.0!

A blockchain is an open-ledger of assets and transactions, which are made up of 'blocks', that are in a sequential order.

A decentralized network of nodes (computers) each store and process these records and transactions, so they each have a copy. Each block in the blockchain includes the collectively verified records of the blocks that came before it, so that everything always tallies up. Typically, network participants remain anonymous.

In most blockchains, the majority of the network of nodes will need to agree on the latest block of records, via solving an encrypted mathematical puzzle to find a hash (an encoding of data), that is correctly linked to the block's records and reconciles with prior blocks too.

This method verifies the data is truthful without revealing the content of these blocks to the whole network. In this way, anonymity, trust and verification is enabled by the blockchain network's participants and can be applied to websites and platforms in web 3.0 for transactions, digital content, assets and more.

Web 3.0 also relies on cloud based algorithms that draw upon storage and computing power from a decentralized web of computers, or nodes. ML algorithms find patterns and can predict solutions based on vast masses of data that are fed into them.

To power the intensive workings of blockchain, AI and ML enables ever-faster problem solving to verify virtual transactions across decentralized networks. The algorithms themselves are decentralized and not controlled by a particular party.

Not only is unprecedented computing power making mass privacy and verification possible on blockchain networks, but it also enables anonymous personalisation online too.

Users can choose if and how they share their data to enable decentralized applications to tailor their experience just for them, whilst protecting their identity from 3rd parties.

Currently it is still normal for transactions to be done on centrally controlled platforms that capture personal data, which raises concerns about data theft, scamming, and privacy.

Blockchain-enabled smart contracts are a way around this, as they can verify a set of conditions have been fulfilled that also tally up with the rest of the blockchain.

Verifying these conditions before exchanges are made, such as payments, creates reliability and trust across these networks. It's envisioned that more global opportunities for business and exchange will be opened up thanks to the smart contract.

Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that enable transactions across a peer to peer network, typically without relying on centralized control.

Because of this, cryptocurrency is often seen as a threat to government and financial institutions as they can bypass these structures. Famous examples of crypto include Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Cryptocurrencies are often based on blockchains that enable trustworthy global transactions without reliance on central authorities. Cryptocurrency is likely to be integral to enabling transactions on web 3.0.

The current web has its challenges such as data breaches, but how web 3.0 will materialise is also unclear. In general it is set to enrich the social web, security and transparency.

It is likely to co-exist with web 2.0 platforms, that will gradually adopt web 3.0 features to stay competitive; allowing users greater control of their data and ability to personalise online services.

Reddit for example is looking at featuring cryptocurrency tokens so that users can earn them based on sub-reddit activity, and use these tokens to influence their communities.

Web 3.0 also compliments other emerging web technologies such as virtual reality as well as IoT devices, that could learn and coordinate with each other securely.

In any case, the development of web 3.0 is guaranteed to be interesting! It is well worth keeping an eye on this space to take advantage of the opportunities it can offer.

Web 3.0 is the upcoming third generation of the internet where websites and apps will be able to process information in a smart human-like way.

Web 3.0: A Beginners Guide

In the past few years, the Solana network has become more and more popular, as well as becoming a favourite amongst many users and investors. Towards the end of 2021, Solana was dubbed as being the 'next Ethereum' after its price increased to over $260, with many more users wanting to invest.

Bitcoin is naturally the most discussed platform on the market, it's now becoming more and more common for investors and developers to consider their options when it comes to the future of crypto and blockchain technologies.

Since its price and value went up, Solana appears to be innovating at a much quicker pace than Ethereum, resulting in market share gains in NFTs and other areas. Ethereum is still undoubtedly the leading blockchain, however, Solana is certainly beginning to make a dent in Ethereum's dominance.

Created by Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana is a cryptocurrency that was designed to work similarly to Ethereum, as well as improve upon it.

Yakovenko proposed this new decentralized blockchain technology in 2017, launching Solana onto the crypto market in March 2020. Since its release, Solana has increasingly gained more and more popularity, with a market cap of $11.1 billion, ranking 9th in the top 10 cryptocurrencies. Solana is also renowned as being one of the fastest cryptocurrencies around and according to Coindesk, processes 2700 transactions per second. Faster and cheaper transactions mean that there is potential for Solana to compete with credit cards as an accepted payment method.

The native crypto coin on the Solana network is SOL, and is a less decentralized network than other cryptos such as Bitcoin, Cardano and Ethereum. Solana have also released their own stablecoin/crypto, Tether.

Solana is different to Ethereum in that it uses proof-of-history, with Ethereum using proof-of-work.

With a rapid growth in its crypto, decentralized finance and non fungible tokens, Solana claims to be the fasted blockchain in the entire world. Food for thought for developers and users who are considering spending their money and making an investment.

A rival of Solana, Ethereum is an open-source blockchain, allowing for a peer-to-peer network using smart contracts. A smart contract enables transactions between users to take place without a trusted central authority. Ethereum also serves as the basis for its own crypto, Ether.

Ethereum is also home to the most sought after collections for non fungible tokens, including the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks.

Ethereum may be the popular network, however, it's important to note that between the two networks, Ethereum has 5 years on Solana, having being launched in 2015 whereas Solana was launched in 2021.

With something as massive as Ethereum, it's difficult to imagine it ever being 'killed' or outdone. However, there are a few other crypto coins that are in fact chasing Ethereum, and each of it's rivals have earnt the name 'Ethereum killer'. In terms of size, cost of transactions as well as other factors, Ethereum is the one to beat. Or try to at least. And it seems that Solana's recent surge in NFT minting and daily volumes have shown the Ethereum platform that it's one to watch.

Other examples of ETH killers are Cardano, EOS and Polkadot, proving themselves to be a risk to the Ethereum network.

Solana's transaction speed of 400ms beat Ethereum's 10 second limit, and it also supports smart contracts. As well as this, Solana has over 250 projects running on its blockchain and is a fourth generation blockchain that supports Proof-Of-History.

One of the most important features of the Solana platform is its speed. Solana is able to process up to 65,000 transactions per second, surpassing all of its competitors. It’s also known for its low transaction fees. Because of its scalability, developers and users of Solana can rest assured that transactions are to remain below $0.01 - and that's a promise.

Fast transactions and low costs, and its scalable ecosystem are just some of the reasons that Solana has been labelled an Ethereum killer.

Solana network has dealt with multiple outages this year alone, and in September 2021, its system went offline for almost 18 hours.

October didn't see a good start for Solana either, with an hours long service interruption marking its twelfth outage this year. Despite its network outages that prevented the blockchain and its users from processing transactions, September saw surging NFT mints and daily volumes that would rival Ethereum.

September also saw Solana posting higher daily trades volumes over Ethereum, with an increase in unique buyers rising by 34% month after month, according to data fetched from Dune Analytics.

The volume for NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain may have taken a bit of a nosedive in April of this year, however, the recently converted proof-of-stake blockchain remains as being the one to beat when it comes to NFT sales, with its popular blue-chip collections BAYC and Crypto Punks.

In contrast to high gas fees, lower gas costs and less than $200 trades means that Solana has had more participation and more interaction than Ethereum, according to reports from analytics platform, Nansen.

“Ethereum’s role in the NFT space will gravitate toward stores of value. In contrast, Solana will become and, to some extent, already is the hotbed for trading, newer collections, and creators looking to access the global market,” Nansen concluding after conducting their own research.

The "y00ts: mint t00b", one of Solana's own projects that was released at the beginning of September by Dust Labs, had the highest 30 day trading volume on Magic Eden, as well as OpenSea. The design reveal is yet to take place.

y00ts: mint t00b is a collection of 15, 000 mint pass NFTs that was launched on the Solana blockchain. Dust Labs is also responsible for DeGods, which just so happens to be the most popular and valuable NFT collection found on the Solana blockchain.

DeGods is a digital art collection consisting on 10, 000 NFT which was minted on 8th October, 2021, and since its launch it has been making waves across the NFT community in a big way. With a current value of 290.00 SOL, the DeGods collection has made its way into the top 5 most valuable NFT collections across all other chains, coming in behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Crypto Punks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Moonbirds.

The growth in popularity for Solana could be a result of the quick pick-up of the entire NFT market after a dip at the end of 2021 which destroyed the collective market capitalisation for all digital assets and collectibles.

You can't really compare the two networks, as they were each made with different ideas in mind. Each platform has its own major selling point for its investors. Ethereum boasts long term stability, security and tough smart contract capabilities, along with higher trading price and higher success rate when it comes to investments.

While Ethereum is still ahead, Solana is constantly gaining ground. The proof-of-stake protocol has obtained 9.89 million trades worth $1.1 billion, while Ethereum has registered 13.38 million trades worth $16.5 billion, according to data from Flipside Crypto. 

Ethereum and Solana are two of the most popular cryptocurrencies by market cap, as well as being two of the most popular blockchain platforms. It's true that Ethereum may have been around a bit longer and has been a dominant platform within the industry, however, cheap transaction costs and other features make it a real contender. 

Solana in September posted higher daily trades volumes than Ethereum.

Solana Sees Explosive Growth | Fracas Digital

Solana's Recent NFT Growth Rivals Ethereum

HEAD OF GOOGLE CLOUD SAYS IT IS A LAYER ZERO FOR CRYPTO 

Head of Web3 strategy for Google hints on making Google Cloud a layer zero for other blockchains.

Recently, a lot of big brands have been plunging into the Web3 space in full force so as not to be left out and Google is no exception. In fact, Google is set on becoming the pillar of Web3.

Few days ago, Richard Widmann who is the head of Web3 strategy and cloud for Google stated that Google cloud is a layer zero for crypto.

WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY GOOGLE CLOUD BECOMING LAYER ZERO?

Richard stated at the Mainnet Conference in New York City which took place from 21st to 23rd of September, 2022 that he is working to build a massive bridge between Web3 brands and blockchain. 

He revealed that he plans to achieve this by offering node services to blockchains through Google Cloud. That is, Google Cloud will be providing layer-1 blockchains with the nodes they'll use to run & power the crypto network, thereby making it layer zero as it will run beneath the blockchains. 

Google Cloud, in this scenario, can be thought of as the foundational building blocks for blockchains and according to Richard, he does not want "only some people to have access to this foundation."

Richard Widmann went further to differentiate Google's layer zero vision from that of Avalanche network which claims to be layer zero. He pointedly noted that Avalanche network is a layer one blockchain and not layer zero as it claims because it doesn't have a cloud business rather it runs on data centres just like every other layer one blockchains. 

"Any layer one protocol is running compute containers generally on a cloud of some kind," Richard said. "They try to set themselves as that foundational layer, but, ultimately, it's all running on top of a compute container hosted somewhere, and that's where the cloud providers come in."

While other professionals working in Web2 companies are still sceptical about what the future of crypto holds, Richard believes in a decentralized future where crypto is mainstream. He even views Google as a brand that aligns with what crypto preaches: decentralization and open-source development.

He admits that if big tech companies like Amazon or Google end up controlling the vast majority of blockchain nodes, then it is a problem because it will contrast the entire purpose of decentralized technology. That is why he emphasized on the fact that blockchain nodes have to be decentralized. 

The Google Web3, Cloud Lead also debunked the new gospel that centralization is not needed in any aspect of the economy by attesting to the fact that not everything can be decentralized because "there are some things where a censorship, resistant, distributed source of truth makes sense which don't require immutable ledgers."

This move only goes to prove that Google is ahead in its acknowledgement and adoption of Web3. 

Guess we probably saw it coming because earlier this year, Google Cloud announced its ambitions to go fully into Web3 by providing back-end services to developers who want to create their own Web3 software. A separate team, the Google Cloud Digital Assets Team was even established to handle this motive.

"The Cloud provision --we're a layer zero," Widmann said.

Google Web3 Lead Says Google Cloud Is a 'Layer Zero' for Crypto.

Google Cloud | Layer Zero for Crypto | Fracas Digital

The World Wide Web that we all know and love today had humble beginnings. The first generation of the web, otherwise known as Web 1.0, lasted from 1989 to around 2005. With its early development pioneered by computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, Web 1.0 was described as a 'read-only' network, providing access to shared information and any given article but offering little to no opportunity for forms of interaction. Users were merely consuming content from static websites found on the read only web.

Web 1.0 provided the foundation for the internet that many of us depend on today. Almost everything is done online. Whether it's learning, working, meeting new people, banking, shopping, or complaining on Twitter - in this day and age, it would be difficult to live without it. The internet we use today has undoubtedly come a very long way since Web 1.0, with its arrival opening up a whole new world of possibility, bringing an array of new opportunities and new platforms, and changing our lives forever. 

The idea for the original web evolved over the years, growing and developing into its current form. The term 'Web 2.0' was originally coined in around 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, although made popular by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty in late 2004 with many of the first Web 2.o websites beginning to emerge in late 2003. Distinguishing itself from Web 1.0 as read-only web, Web 2.0 would become the read-write web, and is the online world that we are most familiar with.

During the time of Web 2.0's emergence, more and more households were purchasing computers, with high speed internet becoming available in many new locations at relatively low prices. The internet's popularity was growing and growing, and as it became more accessible to the people, it brought a whole new wave of consumers.

The birth of Facebook in 2004 aligned perfectly with the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, becoming one of the biggest social media platforms to ever exist. And since then, the social internet has blown up, with platforms such as Uber, Airbnb etc arising during the reign of Web 2.0.

The majority of people today own a smartphone, and the mobile revolution provided a whole new access to the internet, making it available to us anytime, anywhere. Many of today's websites and popular apps are centred around participation and collaboration, with the birth of Web 2.0 focusing on allowing opportunities for interactivity rather than read only pages. Other social media websites such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and TikTok provide a voice and a platform for users to create their own content, share content as well as consume it. Nowadays, ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and they will tell you that they want to be a YouTuber.

From Web 2.0, the next iteration of the web evolved into what is known as Web 3.0. Currently a work in progress, Web 3.0 refers to the third generation of the World Wide Web - bringing to fruition the idea of a decentralized internet, an openness of the web and a greater utility for the user.

The new version of the World Wide Web, Web 3.0, is that it is going to be based on blockchain technology, incorporating concepts such as decentralization and token based economics.

A decentralized web brings a peer to peer approach, eradicating the middle man, and empowering its users against the giants of Web 2.0. Any user of social media may or may not know that our identity and our data is held prisoner from the moment we sign up. 

Some of the biggest names in tech such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft make a profit from user data, something Web 3.0 will enable us to be compensated for. This means that users will eventually be able to sell their own data to advertisers all while maintaining ownership and privacy over data.

By giving ownership back to its users, Web 3.0 allows the people to make the choice of how their data will be used, and who it will be used by. From read-only to read-write, Web3 brings a new version with read-write-own.

Everything will be tokenized, meaning the user will have complete control over their online interactions.

One of the main aims of Web 3.0 is to allow for more efficient searching. 'The Semantic Web', which is an extension of the web, will make data readable to machines. Today, users are required to search keywords in order to find content, however, the idea for the semantic web is to update software programmes with metadata that can be interpreted by machines, making use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Advanced technologies such as machine learning will allow machines to be able to read and understand not only the concept of data, but also the context of it, thus bringing more accurate results and an enhanced experience for the user.

In addition this, Web 3.0 will also be more immersive. Digital assistants such as Siri and Alexa could be considered examples of Web 3.0 applications, which combine artificial intelligence and voice recognition. In the future, we may find ourselves relying much more on using voices or gestures to interact with technology, as opposed to keyboards.

Web 2.0 relies on a single server which handles all of the processing, a centralized control - whereas Web 3.0 will have a decentralised data network, commonly referred to as the D-Web. A decentralized data network is controlled by multiple domain controllers. The beauty of a decentralized web is if one server should fail, then it isn't an issue as multiple machines share the network load, known as decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAO for short. This also makes the network much easier to scale, as more machines can be added for further computing power. DAO's rely on each community member and are built with one main purpose, which is to work towards a shared goal.

It would be difficult to ignore decentralized finance, or DeFi, when discussing Web 3.0, as it is the fastest growing blockchain based category and most well known part of the internet's third iteration. 

DeFi uses smart contracts found on a blockchain, to provide services such as lending, borrowing, payments, asset management, that does not require a trusted third party.

Another example of DeFi being beneficial is that it allows money to be stored in a secure, digital wallet as opposed to keeping it in bank accounts, eliminating fees that banks can unfairly charge us for utilising their services.

Decentralized finance is available to anyone with an internet connection without the need for approval, as well as allowing us to transfer funds in seconds.

Apple's Siri is an example of a Web 3.o application, as well as Wolfram Alpha which is a search engine.

There are many forms of search engines available to us, but Web 3.0 website Wolfram Alpha will focus the search to what the users really want. Occasionally with Google we can find ourselves scrolling until we finally find what we're looking for, whereas with the semantic web and technologies introduced with Web 3.0, results become more accurate and cater to the users wants and needs.

Siri and Alexa are apps that we are a bit more familiar with, using artificial intelligence, machine learning and voice recognition to perform actions or answer questions. Companies like Apple have been  investing heavily in Web 3.0 technologies, with new business arising as part of the semantic web.

The majority of our lives are spent online, whether we like it or not. There are apps and websites for literally everything and we can access them with the click of a button, speak to someone we've never met with a simple right swipe, search for anything online and it will immediately become available to us. It's fair to say that the internet has come a long way since the 80's and it's not going to stop now. At the minute, Web 3.0 seems like a pipe dream, a Utopia of data ownership and AI, built on a vision of how the internet shouldn't be (Web 2.0). It's still being built so watch this space.

Web 3.0 is the third generation of the evolution of web technologies, where websites and apps will have the ability to process information in an intelligent, human-like way.

What Is Web 3.0? | Fracas Digital

Launched in April 2021 by Yuga Labs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has become one of the most sought after collections in NFT art. Costing $200 at their launch, Bored Ape NFTs now go for over $400,000.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection consisting of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs found on the Ethereum blockchain. Similarly to CryptoPunks (which is the original NFT collection), the Bored Apes is an NFT project that has a library of NFT art comprised of characters with a variety of unique traits and individual characteristics.

Bored Ape NFTs are "editions", meaning that these non fungible tokens are a one-of-a-kind piece of digital art. Because they are a part of a collection, they become somewhat like collectible trading cards.

Large collectible editions, such as BAYC and CryptoPunks, are typically created through a process which generates new variations algorithmically via a computer program. Creators will design the template and put together variations by mixing and matching different traits.

These traits include earrings, different coloured backgrounds, a selection of hats, a variation of coloured furs, as well as a broad variety of clothing styles.

At the launch of the Bored Ape NFT, Yuga Labs was made up of four people that went by pseudonyms. The two co-founders being Gordon Goner and Gargamel, and their two friends Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup, who both helped with the development of the NFT.

It was revealed in February of this year by a BuzzFeed article that the people behind the pseudonyms Gordon Goner and Gargamel are Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow. After the article outing two of the four founders to the world, Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup revealed that their true names are Zeshan and Kerem.

The Rise Of Bored Ape Yacht Club As Unique Digital Collectibles

Drawing inspiration from CryptoPunks, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has skyrocketed in popularity since it was introduced in April 2021. At its release, the mint price of a BAYC NFT was 0.08 ETH, which at the time was the equivalent of $192, and it took only 12 hours to sell all 10, 000 within the collection. Nowadays, the cheapest Bored Ape found on OpenSea will set you back a cool $425, 000 (145 ETH). Since then, these apes have gone onto become somewhat of a status symbol, initially within the NFT space but now amongst celebrities too.

BAYC holders include Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, as well as Justin Bieber - who made headlines when he spent a whopping $1.29 million on a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT back in February.

Celebrities such as Timbaland and Eminem have also jumped on the bandwagon and invested in these unique digital collectibles, displaying their Bored Ape NFT as their profile picture on Twitter.

Branching out from the metaverse, and into the mainstream - BAYC have already collaborated with Gucci and Adidas, not mentioning a Rolling Stones cover in June of this year.

What Make Bored Ape Yacht Club So Valuable?

As mentioned, the short answer is that being an owner of a Bored Ape and displaying it for the world to see is a status symbol. Much like owning a piece of original artwork by Picasso himself, it is a non fungible object which can never be replaced, and it's because of this that brings it value, and with that comes status. It's only now that this same notion is transcending into the virtual world through digital artwork and content that NFTs and other unique digital collectibles are now being seen as status symbols too. Whether you agree with it or not, is entirely down to you. But there's no denying its presence, which only seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

During an announcement in March 2022, the team behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs, revealed a project known as 'the Otherside' was to be available to the public in April of this year. But what is it?

This is the largest product to be launched by Yuga Labs, and is essentially a metaverse project doubling as a gaming platform, distinguishing itself by only currently being accessible to BAYC owners, whereas other metaverse platforms are open to all online users.

Along with its very own metaverse, Yuga Labs has other big plans for the Bored Ape brand, starting with the introduction of their very own cryptocurrency - aptly named Ape Coin, and will be the main currency to be used within the Otherside. Lucky Bored Ape holders were airdropped 10, 000 Ape Coins at the launch, estimated to be worth around $100, 000 at the time.

As well as branching out into fashion with Gucci and Adidas, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is making its name known in the food industry too, with its very own restaurant in Los Angeles.

And if all that isn't enough, then there's mobile games and BAYC figurines available too.

There really is no stopping the Bored Apes. With plenty going on, it's hard to understand why they're bored in the first place.

Collectibles of up to 10000 unique, digital Bored Ape NFT's living on the Ethereum blockchain.

Bored Ape Yacht Club | Fracas Digital

When it comes to NFTs, the coolest of them all are undoubtedly the CryptoPunks. Representing the misfits, CryptoPunks have been there since the very beginning of all NFT projects and owning a CryptoPunk NFT means being a part of internet history, but what exactly is this bunch of strange characters and why have they become one of the most expensive NFT collections in the world?

Launched in 2017 by the Larva Labs Studio, CryptoPunks is a non fungible token collection found on the Ethereum blockchain.

As one of the oldest NFT projects and frequently credited as being the reasoning behind the NFT craze of 2021, CryptoPunks initially began as an experiment when Matt Hall and John Watkinson (founders of Larba Labs, now owned by Yuga Labs) had the idea of designing an app or game for smartphones. This project eventually resulted in a software program that would go on to generate thousands of different characters to be sold as crypto collectibles.

Inspired by the London punk movement of the 1970s, there are 10, 000 unique CryptoPunks to date - 6,039 males and 3, 840 females - each with their own individual characteristics, and no two punks are the same. 'They needed to be a collection of misfits and non-conformists,' say Hall and Watkinson. 'The London punk movement of the 1970s felt like the right aesthetic.'

CryptoPunks are randomly generated and come with a variety of different traits. They can have buck teeth, a mohawk, wear a beanie or even a top hat. The punks can also wear an earring, sunglasses and even rock a big beard.

The maximum number of traits a punk can have is seven, but there is only one of these in existence. Punks that have no distinctive features are known as genesis punks.

CryptoPunks aren't just limited to being male or female either - there are zombie punks, ape punks and even alien punks. These are much rarer than their human counterparts, and also come with accessories. Take the pipe smoking alien for example, which sold for an eye-watering $7.5 million in March, 2021. Which raises the question, how did something that started out as an experiment, go on to be worth so much money in the crypto community?

The Rise of CryptoPunks and Crypto Collectibles

Given that CryptoPunks art is worth so much money now, you will be shocked to hear that back in the early days they could be claimed for free by anybody who had an Ethereum wallet. Nowadays, the only way to obtain one of the punks, is via NFT marketplaces that are embedded on the blockchain. Through this NFT market, you can put buy or sell CryptoPunks, or even put a bid on.

Back in February of this year at a Sotheby's auction, a single lot consisting of 104 CryptoPunks with an estimated total value between $20 million - $30 million was withdrawn after the seller decided they didn't want to give up their collection, turning to Twitter and simply posting "nvm, decided to hodl". A Twitter user who goes by the name 0x650d.

CryptoPunks paved the way for digital artwork, having inspired NFT projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club - another collection which also consists of thousands of unique ape NFTs with a variety of individual characteristics.

As one of the oldest NFT projects and the first to appear on the blockchain, the current buzz around the NFT space and hype within the community probably wouldn't exist without these punks.

Listed Punks and the Different Coloured Backgrounds

If you are a prospective punk purchaser, then you need to know what the different coloured backgrounds mean!

A purple background shows that these NFTs have an active bid on them, a red background means that they are available for sale by their owner, and a blue background means that they are not currently for sale and there are no current active bids.

CryptoPunks are only available for purchase through the Larva Labs' website and you will need to log in with an Ethereum wallet - meaning that you can now buy, bid on and sell a CryptoPunk NFT.

Larva Labs tracks all of the listed punks in order of their price from low to high.

Because they hold the title as being the first NFT collection to ever be created on the Ethereum blockchain, CryptoPunks are considered to be extremely valuable - and because there are only 10, 000 punks available, only few can own one. It's with this rarity that comes the hefty price tag. And if you're fortunate enough to afford the opportunity to purchase a punk, then you will be setting yourself back at an average sale price (over the last year) of 109.79 ETH, that's a cool $134,903.37 USD.

If an alien punk is what you're after, then it will cost you a whopping 8,000 ETH ($23.7 million USD) which is currently the largest NFT purchase in history, bought by Deepak Thapliyal, CEO of Chain.

CryptoPunks owners include the likes of Jay Z, Serena Williams and one of YouTube's content creators, Logan Paul.

Due to its significance in the NFT space, as well as being a widely known and popular image, the CryptoPunks could very well be a good investment for the future. However, due to CryptoPunks being collectibles of digital art, collectors should not expect any future use cases for their non-fungible tokens.

Since the Yuga Labs acquisition in March of this year, the world waits patiently to see what this new ownership means for CryptoPunks, and where it will take them in the future. At only a few years old, these punks have already made a huge impact on the NFT space and will without a doubt leave a legacy behind, since CryptoPunks as non fungible tokens is really where it all began.

What started out as a small project for Matt Hall and John Watkinson, has gone on to take the crypto community by storm. And what may seem like a temporary craze, the punks have always been around to wreak havoc - whether it's in the real world, or the metaverse. The misfits are here to stay.

Created by Larva Labs in 2017, CryptoPunks has become possibly one of the most important NFT projects ever.

CryptoPunks | Fracas Digital

Long strings of numbers and characters meant to be read by computers are known as crypto addresses. These lengthy addresses have caused confusion and even financial loss.

The Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, is a distributed platform based on the Ethereum blockchain that gives an easy solution to long and complicated crypto addresses: a single URL that symbolizes a crypto address, exactly like a website name or email.

The Ethereum Name Service uses the same idea as the Domain Name Service (DNS), which maps simple website names to IP addresses, to make crypto addresses simple to read and communicate.

To visit a website in the early days of the internet, you had to type in the long public address, which was a long string of digits that was difficult to remember and practically impossible to predict. Then came human-readable names, which made it easier for regular people to navigate the internet. For Example, to find Google, you'd need to enter 172.217.18.196.

However the crypto world is still in its long addresses stage and to get to the pages they desire, users require long, difficult-to-remember addresses. This is where the Ethereum Name Service comes in handy. It aspires to make cryptocurrency as simple as surfing the web.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a system that links machine-generated codes to human-friendly names, similar to DNS. The Ethereum Name Service, on the other hand, is a totally open, decentralized, non-profit name system that is Web3 compatible, unlike the Domain Name System. It is powered by The Ethereum blockchain, and the names on the ENS system are protected by smart contracts.

• Long strings of numbers and characters meant to be read by computers are known as crypto addresses. These lengthy inscriptions have caused confusion and even financial loss.

• The Ethereum Name Service is a distributed platform based on the Eth blockchain technology that gives an easy solution to long and complicated crypto names: a single URL that symbolizes a crypto address, exactly like a website name or email.

• The ENS registry, which records domain names, and the Resolver, which converts domain names to machine-readable addresses and vice versa, are both Ethereum smart contracts.

• Users are hurrying to obtain their ENS domains before they become unavailable, much as they did in the early days of DNS names.

• ENS supports a variety of domain extensions, including .com,.org,.io,.app, and more.

• Brave, Opera, Status (mobile), MetaMask Mobile (mobile), and Puma are among the browsers that now support the ENS name. A browser like Chrome or Safari will not operate with ENS.

The ENS is run by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which is essentially a non-centralized organization. The DAO is governed by the ENS token, which allows holders to propose suggestions and vote on future development.

According to Coinbase in the last seven days, the service price of Ethereum Name Service has dropped by 50.21 percent. In the previous 24 hours, the price dropped by 24.81 percent. The price has dropped by 0.65 percent in the last hour. The current ENS price is £9.008571. Ethereum Name Service is now trading at a price of £69.443094, down 87.03 percent from its all-time high.

There are now 20,244,862.091 ethereumnameservice in circulation.

The Ethereum Foundation members Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande lead the early development of the ENS community.

The initiative distributed ENS tokens to users of the service in November 2021 and created a DAO, to run it. (True Names Limited is the legal entity linked to the DAO.) ENS token holders act as shareholders in the corporation, making choices regarding pricing, protocol modifications, and how funds are managed in the treasury.

The introduction of ENS tokens also resulted in the project's funding strategy shifting away from grants. On crypto exchanges, ENS tokens may be traded for US dollars and other cryptocurrencies, giving the project's creators a financial lifeline.

You may use an Ethereum wallet like MetaMask to look for available domain names at manager.ens.domains. After you've chosen your domain, the system will guide you through the registration process, which will need you to confirm two transactions from your wallet. You'll also have to decide how long you want to register a domain, with an annual rent of $5.00. (paid in ETH). As the domain owner, you may now configure the various locations or information you wish that name to connect to, as well as any subdomains.

The Chinese calendar states that 2022 is the year of the tiger, however, in the crypto world it is undoubtedly the year of the Ethereum Name Service. ENS has been the preferred platform for thousands of dApp (Decentralized App) customers, allowing them to migrate completely to Web3. ENS registered nearly 163,000 new domains in April alone, and by the end of the month, daily transaction volume on the platform had surpassed BAYC NFTs on OpenSea. It didn't end there, though.

With one million names generated on May 2, ENS hit a new milestone. With all of this activity, ENS names has dethroned OpenSea as the most popular gas-burning protocol on Ethereum.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) | Learn all about ENS from the experts at Fracas Digital NFT

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) | Fracas Digital NFT

As discussed in our other blogs, a Non Fungible Token (NFT) is an irrevocable digital ownership and authorisation for a given asset regardless of whether it is digital or physical. Most NFTs including many well-known ones such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, are based on the Ethereum blockchain, where Ethereum is used for buying, selling and trading them. Although they are new, NFTs have proven to be a very popular way to earn income. However, trading these can sometimes have limited effect to earning profit due to the high charges such as the gas fees that can be charged through Ethereum.

Considering the high charges, many platforms have thought of other ways for users to earn rewards and passive income through NFTs. These other ways include staking, renting, royalties and many more. There will be an overview on the ways to earn passive income below, and the best NFT projects to earn passive income.

One of the most popular ways of earning passive income is through staking NFTs. Staking in easier words is locking NFTs for a set period of time in which users can also be rewarded at the same time. By investing in NFT staking projects, some individuals could earn from 5-20% profit, which can differ depending on the NFT and the platform used for staking the NFT.

Another way of earning passive income can be through renting NFTs. There are many NFTs that have high prices. Renting out these NFTs can increase tokens easily, resulting in earning passive income by merely renting them. Although renting is still in its early days, NFT creators already have an indication of the correct pricing and duration for renting out their tokens.