Loopring X GameStop NFT Beta Launch
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
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Quick Take
Figure reveals plans for crypto backed mortgages.
GameStop releases a beta version of its NFT marketplace.
Element Finance opens applications for delegates to its DAO.
Rocket Pool changes node operator commissions to a fixed fee.
Figma Crypto-Backed Mortgages
Figure has revealed plans for a crypto backed mortgage product to be launched in early April. The company claims to offer 100% LTV, meaning borrowers can borrow the entirety of their crypto collateral. Figure will accept Bitcoin or Ethereum as collateral for loans of up to $20 million on a 30 year mortgage. Borrowers can also make payments with their collateral.
Figure co-founder Mike Cagney claims the company won’t use the crypto collateral during the loan. The collateral can be released once its value is greater than 125% of the loan amount. Users can currently join a waitlist to be among the first borrowers when the product goes live.
Loopring X GameStop NFT Beta Launch
GameStop has released a beta version of its NFT marketplace built on top of Loopring. Users can currently claim a username and make deposits to Loopring L2 by connecting a wallet to beta.nft.gamestop.com. Gamestop plans to launch a mainet release of its NFT marketplace by the end of Q2 2022.
GamesStop has previously partnered with ImmutableX to create a $100 million fund dedicated to supporting Web 3 game development. Amid confusion as to which L2 technology the marketplace is built on, ImmutableX says GameStop’s marketplace will ultimately be an aggregator. Loopring is an Ethereum L2 zkRollup protocol with over 1 million NFTs minted on Loopring L2.
#TestingTheMerge
It’s been a week since Kiln, an ethereum merge testnet, underwent the transition from PoW to PoS. The transition experienced a few hiccups including errors related to sync on certain execution clients as well as Prysm producing invalid blocks. Ethereum researcher Danny Ryan urges client teams, researchers, developers, testers, and validators to test the Kiln testnet.
As software and documentation is improved, ethereum developers will prepare to upgrade the public testnets over the next four weeks. Stakers should start to run their post-merge setups. Details for testing Kiln can be found at kiln.themerge.dev. The Merge will mark the largest blockchain upgrade ever performed.
Element DAO Opens Delegate Applications
Element Finance has opened up applications for delegates and members of the Governance Steering Council (GSC), a community-led governing body of the Element DAO. In the coming days Element will reveal details of the governance launch, including the initial allocation of voting power. It could mean a potential governance token airdrop for Element users.
The council will be responsible for proposing votes directly on-chain, managing grants, and using the treasury budget up to a specific limit. GSC members must stay above 0.9% delegated votes in order to remain in the council. To apply for membership, delegates must first nominate themselves by commenting in Element’s GSC delegation forum thread.
Rocket Pool Changes Node Operator Commission
Rocket Pool has changed node operator commissions to a fixed fee of 15%. Nothing changed retroactively for existing minipools, meaning current node operators get to keep their existing commissions (up to 20%). The commission comes from rETH stakers who make up half of a minipool. Rocketpool does not collect any fees from stakers.
Previously, the commission rate for new minipools was variable based on supply of node operators available to stake ETH and demand of ETH needing to be staked. The commission ranged from 5% to 20%. However, node operators were able to game the system by waiting until the commission rate was 20% before launching a minipool.