Mark Cuban’s NFT Platform Lazy.com Completes Polygon Integration

The Dallas Mavericks are giving away non-fungible tokens as a way to thank their loyal fans! Earlier this month, the basketball team launched its Mavs NFTs. Mark Cuban said these fan tokens can be collected, bought or sold.

Fans interested in this awesome Mavs NFTs can get them when they buy a game ticket at the Dallas Mavericks shop.

Image source: Getty Images

Why is the billionaire investor fired up about NFTs?

NFTs have hit the headlines recently because some have sold for extraordinary amounts of money. But you don’t have to spend millions of dollars at Christie’s to buy an NFT. Successful entrepreneur Mark Cuban has found many ways to invest in NFTs. Find out how, and why he’s so stirred up about them.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban of Shark Tank fame has made a strategic investment in NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam through his venture capital entity Radical Investments.

According to Cuban, “CryptoSlam. io is the go-to destination for tracking all things NFT. ” In the announcement, he highlights top-selling NFT collections CryptoPunks and NBA Top Shots. Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA team.

“CryptoSlam has become the industry leader in tracking transactions for NFTs,” Cuban continued. “And that dominance is only growing. I’m excited to be part of the amazing company Randy is putting together

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Mark Cuban discussed his early business ventures, told the story of how he bought the Dallas Mavericks, and argued people pay too much attention to the daily swings of cryptocurrency prices in a recent Bloomberg interview.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban may have arrived relatively late to the crypto party, but he’s certainly made his presence felt.

The billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner spends three to four hours a day looking through crypto projects, but only selects a few to invest in. Here are some of his favorite projects.

In what’s called the “merge,” Ethereum plans to shift from a proof-of-work model to proof of stake. Though the timeline isn’t confirmed yet, developers predict that the merge will happen this summer.

Asked about the proposed changes planned to result from the merge, Cuban told Fortune, “I’m very bullish

Research shows that almost everybody trusts Mark Cuban when it comes to NFTs.

Key points

• Mark Cuban is the top NFT influencer for many different types of people.
• Cuban was quick to spot the potential in these digital certificates of ownership.
• No matter how much you trust an influencer, it’s still important to do your own research.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) stole the show last year as more and more people began to engage with this new way to own items online. And as people searched for reliable information about these new and mysterious products, Mark Cuban emerged as a top influencer in almost every category.

The study broke down NFT influencers by gender, age, political affiliation, and income. Cuban came out on top in almost every group — he’s trusted by Democrats and Republicans, men and women, most age groups, and people in almost every income group.

According to the survey, other top NFT influencers include:

• John Legere: The former CEO of T-Mobile grabbed headlines when he spent $888,888.88 on an NFT.
• Beeple: Real name Michael Winkelmann, the digital artist has made a name for himself as one of the most influential NFT creators. Most famously, Christie’s auctioned one of his pieces for almost $70 million.

The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) space has been plagued with projects that are purely created to scam investors, and now Mark Cuban’s «NFT company» has been caught up in promoting these illegitimate projects.

If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Entrepreneur Mark Cuban speaks on a panel during the SXSW (South by Southwest) conference and festivals in Austin, Texas, U. March 14, 2022. REUTERS/Montinique Monroe

May 4 (Reuters) — Animation app immi launched in Apple’s App Store on Wednesday after securing investments from billionaire Mark Cuban, singer Pitbull and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, the latest in a spate of celebrity investments in companies focused on the metaverse and non-fungible tokens.

The app, which creates animations that can be used on social media or in the metaverse, will allow select owners of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club and My Pet Hooligan NFTs to animate these characters.

The company’s seed round of fundraising valued immi at $50 million, a spokesperson said. Other investors include Tony Robbins, Zoom founder Eric Yuan and musician Steve Aoki.

Immi plans to launch its own characters as NFTs, in addition to animating more existing NFTs in the future, the company said.

Reporting by Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

For billionaire investor Mark Cuban, there was one defining moment that led him to go all in on cryptocurrency.

For Cuban, the opportunity to also earn royalties on secondary sales of his NFTs was huge.

«The fact that you could take a digital file — audio, video, picture, whatever — and not only mint it to sell it, but also attach royalties to it, I’m like, ‘How can you do that?’ Because you can’t do that with anything physical,» the «Shark Tank» investor and Dallas Mavericks owner said.

«NFTs, while they’re hot right now and everybody is talking about them, they’re really more just a proof of concept for what you can do with smart contracts and decentralization,» Cuban told Suarez.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to «Shark Tank

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Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s non-fungible tokens (NFT) platform, Lazy. com, has joined forces with Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution offering cheaper transactions.

• Polygon’s NFT-centric and gaming and metaverse hub Polygon Studios announced the integration on Thursday, stating it would help drive mainstream adoption of digital collectibles.
• Launched in March, Lazy.com is a digital art gallery designed to showcase NFTs as traditional art galleries work.
• NFTs are all the rage this year, with sales volume surging to $2.5 billion in the first six months. That’s a 180-fold increase from the sales figure of $13.7 million in the first half of 2020.
• The trading volume of NFTs on Ethereum reached a record high of $171 million last week, up 338% from the equivalent week in the previous month.
• Several decentralized finance giants and NFT and gaming projects, including WeNew, NFT marketplaces Rarible, and OpenSea have partnered with Polygon to bypass high Ethereum transaction costs.

Also read: NFT Markets Post Record-Breaking Week

CORRECTION (Aug 5, 15:08 UTC): This article has been corrected to reflect the accurate spelling of Mark Cuban’s first name. A previous version of this article contained an incorrect spelling.

Mintable – the non-fungible tokens (NFT) marketplace backed by billionaire celebrity Mark Cuban – has raised $13 million in a series A funding round from investors, including digital asset issuer Ripple.

• Mintable said the round was oversubscribed. Investors also included Animoca Brands, Metapurse, the NFT investment fund backed by crypt enthusiast MetaKovan, Jon Oringer, the founder and executive chairman of Shutterstock, and Doug Band, a founding partner of investment bank Teneo.
• NFTs are digital assets that represent a wide range of unique tangible and intangible items, from collectible sports cards to virtual real estate and even digital sneakers.
• Ethereum NFT marketplaces such as Mintable, OpenSea and Rarible are popular for digital collectibles.
• Other investors in the round included Expedia Group, Double Peak Group, 7 O’Clock Capital, 640 Oxford Ventures, Digital Finance Group, Spark Digital Capital, Reimagined Ventures and 840 Venture Partners.

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The cryptocurrency market is in the midst of a broad sell-off, with bitcoin and ether — the top two tokens by market cap — falling below $26,000 and $2,000, respectively, early Thursday morning.

In the late 1990s, speculative investing led internet-based companies’ valuations to soar wildly, which sent the Nasdaq Composite stock market index up 400% in a five-year span before a steep crash in 2001 and 2002.

Now, «crypto is going through the lull that the internet went through,» Cuban tweeted on Monday.

The Dallas Mavericks owner and investor on ABC’s «Shark Tank» said that «after the initial surge of exciting apps» and NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, crypto is entering an «imitation phase» where too many companies are failing to bring new utility to the market.

«The chains that copy what everyone else has, will fail,» Cuban tweeted. «We don’t need NFTs or DeFi on every chain

As for if more lulls are down the road for crypto, Cuban isn’t sure. «I have no idea,» he told CNBC Make It.

Don’t miss: Do these 3 things as soon as you get your paycheck to keep your finances in good shape

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s non-fungible tokens (NFT) platform, Lazy. com, has joined forces with Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution offering cheaper transactions.

• Polygon’s NFT-centric and gaming and metaverse hub Polygon Studios announced the integration on Thursday, stating it would help drive mainstream adoption of digital collectibles.
• Launched in March, Lazy.com is a digital art gallery designed to showcase NFTs as traditional art galleries work.
• NFTs are all the rage this year, with sales volume surging to $2.5 billion in the first six months. That’s a 180-fold increase from the sales figure of $13.7 million in the first half of 2020.
• The trading volume of NFTs on Ethereum reached a record high of $171 million last week, up 338% from the equivalent week in the previous month.
• Several decentralized finance giants and NFT and gaming projects, including WeNew, NFT marketplaces Rarible, and OpenSea have partnered with Polygon to bypass high Ethereum transaction costs.

CORRECTION (Aug 5, 15:08 UTC): This article has been corrected to reflect the accurate spelling of Mark Cuban’s first name. A previous version of this article contained an incorrect spelling.

NBA team Dallas Mavericks, owned by billionaire and crypto enthusiast Mark Cuban, has begun issuing players profile pictures as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), The Mavs. A total of 20,000 NFTs are minted per basketball game, and fans are given it as a reward for attending the game in person. Just two weeks ago, The Mavericks had its first full-capacity game since the start of COVID. With the exponential growth of NFTs in the sports industry this year, it is surprising that the Mavericks are one of the first clubs to consistently use NFTs as a direct reward for attendance. Minting NFTs has minimal production costs and since the rewards are distributed digitally, there are few logistical concerns other than usability. The rewards scheme is also very accessible, with fans only needing to scan their Ticketmaster ticket at the stadium before the end of the first quarter to receive one of the minted NFTs for free. The NFTs are collectible and there are additional rewards for completing collections, such as gathering ten NFTs. According to Mark Cuban, the purpose of the project is to truly reward fans attending the games, which is why unclaimed NFTs are burned at the end of the game and the scan of the ticket needs to happen inside the stadium. That means people can’t just buy a ticket and not attend the game to receive a digital asset. It also fosters a sense of community around regular attendees and helps the club analyze the consumption behaviors of its target attendance market. “The whole idea is not to try to sell (the NFTs) and try to make some money off them. The whole idea is to reward fans for coming,” said Mark Cuban in an interview with Forty Eight Minutes. “Let’s say Luka has a 30 assist game. There are going to be 500,000 people that say they were there, right? But the reality is, the people that are actually there and scan in are the ones that are going to get the NFT commemorating that game. And we’ll do something special for anything that happens in that game and the fan can hold it as a collectible or they can sell it somewhere else. We want it to be a value add for all Mavs fans that go to games. ”The Mavericks also launched a platform where fans can sell and trade their NFTs. As of now, there are 20,000 NFTs of six different team players that are trading from $200 up to almost $10,000. It’s also not just about rewards. Profile picture NFTs have proven to be one of the most popular NFTs, but it hasn’t been fully embraced in sports. CryptoPunks and Bored Apes might be the most famous, but there are many more. Sports are tribal, so fans want to identify with their teams. What better way to do it than with profile pictures?Mavericks partnered with NFT. kred to mint the NFTs. Meanwhile, the club’s owner has been investing in a series of other projects in the industry, including intelligent NFT Alethea, NFT customization platform AlchemyNFT, digital marketplace Mintable, and NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam.

CryptoSlam’s development

Cuban is referring to Randy Wasinger, founder and CEO of CryptoSlam. Wasinger started developing the website in 2018. He did this primarily as a way to organize and track NFTs from MLB Champions. These were the first NFTs to be officially licensed by a major professional sports league.

Wasinger said it was life-long affinity for sports cards and memorabilia that drew him to the collectability of NFTs. He realized there needed to be a way to organize NFT data, “in a way that made sense to both collectors and those who saw NFTs as an investment opportunity

After launching the first version of CryptoSlam in early 2019, an enthusiastic response convinced him that “we could be on to something special”.

“Mark’s investment comes at the perfect time for us, as we scale up to support the accelerating growth of the NFT industry

Strategic partners Aloomii Inc. , Troon Technologies, and GeoAds LLC. also made additional investments.

Mark Cuban the crypto advocate

While his basketball team has accepted bitcoin as payment as early as 2015, he announced recently that they have become the largest Doge coin merchants in the world, after processing over 20,000 DOGE transactions.

In a fireside chat with Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, he discussed investments he made in different decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

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What are NFTs?

The simplest answer is that NFTs are digital collectibles. If you collect sports trading cards, you can now do it digitally. The same goes for art, music, videos, and much more.

To give you a more technical explanation, NFTs — or non-fungible tokens — are like a certificate that authenticates your item and makes it unique. You could copy an image onto your desktop or watch a clip on YouTube for free. But if you bought an NFT, it would be like owning an autographed copy of that image or video clip. The token gives it value and allows the creator to make money from their work.

Why is Mark Cuban so excited by them?

Speaking on the Delphi Podcast, Cuban explained it’s the smart contracts contained in NFTs that got him excited. They mean that a creator can get royalties when an NFT is resold, which Cuban describes as a «game changer

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Cuban uses the example of a farmer who could take out insurance against certain weather conditions that would damage crops. The smart contract would automatically pay the farmer if its monitors show those conditions have been met, without any need for a claim or an intermediary.

It’s early days, and Cuban believes NFT collectibles are only the beginning.

How Mark Cuban has gone big on NFTs

If you want to see which NFTs Mark Cuban owns, check out his gallery on lazy. com. The website is an NFT gallery and Cuban’s latest NFT project. He launched the site this year to give people a space where they could easily show off their collections.

• Mintable.app: A site where you can make, buy, and sell digital assets.
• CryptoSlam: A data aggregator you can use to get market data, including NFT sales histories and market rankings.
• nft42: This company is working to ensure NFTs are durable and won’t disappear if, for example, the third party hosting the item takes its website down.
• Nifty’s: In March, Nifty’s announced it would launch an NFT-focused social media platform which will go live later this spring.
• OpenSea: This is a marketplace for NFTs and other digital goods.

Should you invest in NFTs?

If you’re a collector, NFTs could be an exciting way to collect. As you can see from the companies above, the way you buy, store, and display NFTs is improving all the time.

But think twice if you’re buying because you’re scared of missing out on the next big thing. Investing in art or collectibles takes a lot of knowledge, whether you buy physical items or digital ones. And the whole world of cryptocurrencies, including NFTs, can be risky. It is highly volatile and, like any investment, you might make a profit — but you could also lose your money.

Buying your first stocks

Buying NFTs brings its own challenges. It’s not like using a stock broker to buy stocks: The NFT market is still extremely undeveloped and at times unwieldy. For a start, you’ll almost certainly need to buy Ethereum to invest in an NFT, and you’ll need to put it in a wallet that connects with the NFT exchange.

There are also other risks. Do your due diligence and research before you spend any money. One thing to watch out for is NFT fraud — you don’t want to buy a piece that wasn’t actually made by the artist it claims created it. A good exchange should check the credentials of the artists it displays.

Just as it’s good to buy crypto from a reputable cryptocurrency exchange, make sure you buy from an NFT exchange you trust. That way you reduce the risk of theft, fraud, or accidentally falling foul of U. regulations. Also, think about where you’re going to store your NFT. You might need an NFT wallet to protect your asset.

Polygon

In a recent blog post, Cuban explains why he likes Polygon. He thinks the way crypto projects use third parties to provide the necessary computing power is brilliant. Where non-crypto businesses might need a lot of capital to host servers and pay for computing costs, projects like Polygon use token holders who earn rewards for participating — requiring minimal capital.

Our top crypto play isn’t a token — Here’s why

We’ve found one company that’s positioned itself perfectly as a long-term picks-and-shovels solution for the broader crypto market — Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and all the others. In fact, you’ve probably used this company’s technology in the past few days, even if you’ve never had an account or even heard of the company before. That’s how prevalent it’s become.

«If Polygon, or any of their competitors, took a traditional, centralized business path where they controlled and owned everything,» says Cuban on his blog, «they would have had to raise not just millions but potentially much, much more

Aave

Aave (AAVE) is a DeFi lender that’s controlled by smart contracts. Cuban explains on his blog, «Aave is a completely automated, permissionless platform where there are no bankers, no buildings, no toasters, no vaults, no cash, no holding your money, no forms to fill out, no credit ratings involved

Aave borrowers need to put down crypto collateral to take out a loan. And crypto investors deposit money, which is then lent out. By doing this, they’ll earn higher returns than they’d get with a traditional savings account. (Though there are also increased risks. ) The industry is still in its infancy, but Cuban is convinced it’s the way forward. «Banks should be scared,» he says.

Zapper

Cuban invested in Zapper this May when the company held a $15 million funding round. It’s a digital management tool that lets investors manage all of their crypto assets in one place. Let’s say you’ve deposited crypto with Aave or have tokens staked with multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. (Staking is when you tie up your coins to earn interest. ) It can be hard to keep track of your overall portfolio and know what coins are earning interest on which exchange. Zapper lets you see everything in one place.

Moreover, you can use it to manage your investments. For example, you might own Ethereum and see that you could earn 15% APR on an ETH-MATIC pair with SushiSwap (a popular decentralized crypto exchange). With Zapper, you wouldn’t need to go to the SushiSwap site or convert some of your ETH to MATIC. Zapper will do everything for you.

Lazy. com

This is one of Cuban’s most recent investments. The billionaire announced in June that he’d gotten involved in the project both as an investor and advisor.

For smart contracts to work, they need information. For example, a farmer might get an insurance policy that pays out automatically in the event of certain weather conditions. The smart contract would need reliable data to trigger a payout. That’s where data providers like dClimate (also called oracles) come in.

dClimate collates and standardizes climate data, making a decentralized platform for businesses that need accurate weather forecasts and information.

Do your own research

Mark Cuban’s investments give some insight into the range of cryptocurrency projects available right now as well as the specific areas he’s excited about. But Cuban is also a strong believer in the importance of doing your own research — and investing in projects that interest you.

«I never really thought that I would be in a position to own anything. I just wanted to have a good life and try to find my way to college

«From the time I was 9 or 10, I was hustling. I was one of those kids that was always selling something. » (Cuban flipped baseball cards and sold garbage bags door-to-door

«Selling isn’t convincing somebody to do something they don’t want to do. Selling is understanding what they need, and then finding a way to provide it in a better way

«I had been going to Mavs games, and there was nobody there. It was opening night and the place wasn’t sold out, and I’m like, ‘I can do a better job than this. ‘ Then it hit me — ding, ding, ding! — now I can afford this stuff. » (Cuban, who sold his internet-radio startup to Yahoo for $5. 7 billion in April 1999, officially owned the Dallas Mavericks by January 2000

«I always say I don’t own the team, I just handle the finances. Mavs fans everywhere own the team — that’s what makes basketball and all sports so much different than traditional businesses. Look at Apple, multitrillion-dollar market cap, but no one’s throwing a parade in Cupertino when they have a super quarter

«I think it’s a big part of the future, I really, really do. But people are looking at it the wrong way. They get really amped up about the price of the cryptocurrencies, and they think that’s really what crypto is. But that’s the noise; the signal is, ‘If I were going to start a business, how can I use this new technology to give myself a competitive advantage and disrupt an industry?'»

«Everybody’s all amped about NFTs, and you see guys with their Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars all day long. It’s a collectible just like anything else. To me, NFTs are just a proof of concept and an example of how smart contracts work

«Know your business. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be the best at it. I’ll tell them, ‘Look, if I come in and compete with you, I’m going to kick your ass, are you ready to compete with me?’ You’ve got to work. There’s someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you. » (Cuban was sharing some of the advice he gives to entrepreneurs

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Exposing the Shady Mark Cuban-backed @NFT Instagram Account

Let’s Talk About the Numbers

Unfortunately, the numbers contradict this.

Despite all the red flags, the page earns a minimum of $100k per campaign!

What’s Next?

All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening. com are not recommendations.

This article is educational material.

As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.

What Is Mavs NFT?

According to their product page, a Mavs NFT can serve as a special reward or memento for the games fans attended. Note that the more games a fan attends, the better collectibles they can get. Fans can boast their growing collection on social media.

The most iconic Mavs NFT is called a MetaLegend. This can be a special picture created by a local artist, or a snapshot of the game ticket. The development team said they plan to be creative with their upcoming NFT giveaways and tokens.

A few MetaMavs currently available on store are Jay Vincent, Jason Kidd, Rolando Blackman, Derek Harper, Brad Davis, Michael Finley and Sam Perkins. It is worth noting that the NFTs cost between $180 to $9000.

Also, keep in mind that since they are registered NFTs, fans can trade or gift it to any of their friends interested in cryptocurrency.

Read Also: Fourth Stimulus Check Study Says New Payment Is Critical: Will $2000 Online Petition Be Completed Before 2022?

How to Get Mavs NFTs Free Giveaway

The Mavs NFT giveaway is available for every game. Fans must scan their tickets before the end of the game’s first quarter to get their free collectible.

Fans also need a Ticketmaster account to scan their tickets.

A little bit of reminder, though: giveaways will only be limited to one NFT per Ticketmaster account.

Mavs NFT said any unclaimed NFTs would be burned once a month, reducing the number and increasing its scarcity—making it a limited-edition collectible.

The most recent Mavs NFT giveaway was the free Michael Finley.

To access the NFT collection, fans have to open their Ticketmaster account information. There will be a subcategory called «My Mavs NFTs. » Fans can also «Browse Mavs NFTs» to check on the earlier releases.

This new development shocked and hyped up many fans. The Mavs’ program is notably a unique and innovative way to distribute fan tokens. It also opens up a lot of potential for the future of cryptocurrencies. Fans definitely have a lot to look forward to the incoming games. Related Article: Crypto Will Rapidly Grow in 2022: Where to Invest Aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum

Here’s why people trust Mark Cuban on NFTs

Put simply, Cuban was one of the first well-known investors to start talking about NFTs — way before they became the billion-dollar business they are now. He says he had a lightbulb moment when he minted his first NFT.

One reason Cuban saw so much potential in NFTs is because of the way a creator might earn royalties when an NFT gets resold. This doesn’t happen with every NFT, it’s something the person who mints an NFT can choose to build in. For example, an artist might state that they are paid 5% every time their work gets sold on. Cuban was excited because it isn’t possible to do this with physical items.

The well-known investor has put money into various NFT projects, including his own NFT gallery project called Lazy. com. Lazy makes it easy for people to show off the NFTs they own. Cuban has also invested in top NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, Mintable, and Nifty Gateway.

Don’t rely only on influencers

There are a number of reasons for this:

• Your financial circumstances are likely to be different. Investment decisions depend a lot on your personal situation, and what’s right for a billionaire investor may not be right for you. When you research an NFT or crypto project, one thing to consider is how it fits with your investment strategy, existing portfolio, and risk tolerance.
• Influencers don’t always get it right. Even Cuban has fallen victim to crypto scammers. Last year, he bought TITAN tokens, but the project turned out to be a rug pull, and Cuban lost his investment.
• Some celebrities get paid to pump projects. It’s very unlikely Cuban has ever taken money to promote a coin, but other celebrities and influencers have. For example, in 2018, the SEC charged boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. for shilling coins and failing to disclose he had been paid. More recently, Kim Kardashian was paid to promote EthereumMax (EMAX), though she did include «#AD» to show it was a paid promotion.
• Information changes. This is a fast moving business, and information that was correct three months ago may not be accurate today. It’s always useful to understand why an influencer has given a particular piece of advice so you can check whether it still holds true.

The technology behind NFTs could change the way we own things online, but the industry is still in its infancy. Cuban’s dominance as an NFT influencer could be a sign that there aren’t yet many credible sources to rely on. This makes it all the more important to tread carefully if you’re considering investing in NFTs.

Two key updates post-merge, according to Cuban

To Cuban, the merge is important for two key reasons.

First, he mentioned the importance of Ethereum going to proof of stake.

Ethereum currently relies on what’s known as proof of work, under which miners must complete complex puzzles to validate transactions. This process requires a huge amount of computer power and is often criticized due to its environmental impact.

Second, Cuban said he’s interested in less Ether issuance after the merge, and how “that will possibly make it deflationary

By this, he’s referring to how the supply of Ether is also expected to decline post-merge, because fewer coins are expected to be issued.

If demand increases as the supply declines, the price of Ether may rise. But it’s impossible to predict the future price of any asset.

Nonetheless, some think Ether may become a deflationary asset, or one with declining supply that can be used as a store of value, after the merge. Bitcoin is already considered such a safe haven.

Cuban confirmed to Fortune that he doesn’t have any money invested in the Beacon Chain, although he does own Ether, along with Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He has also invested in many companies building on, looking to scale, or interact with Ethereum.

Mark and Soulja

Both the rapper and the billionaire have released crypto-collectibles on Mintable in the past few weeks. Why? Because they have fans, they have content, and they love crypto.

Mark Cuban made 5 NFTs for his basketball team the Mavericks — a promo video of an upcoming game — and sold them for $750 each.

Both of them sold out — and now those NFTs are being resold for 5x+ their original price.

Enter NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. NFTs are touted as being the basis for the emerging “digital collectible” market, and come in a few different flavors technically. Suffice it to say, each NFT is a unique “thing,” which is what makes it “non-fungible” — it can’t necessarily be exchanged 1:1 with another unit. It’s a little like a baseball card, though there may be multiple copies of a card or of an NFT.

Minting

Minting means to create an NFT, or another way to say it is “you mint a new item”. Minting is a great way to earn crypto with NFTs because there is little to no upfront cost at all when using the gasless minting on Mintable.

It’s quite simple to get started, but it takes a bit of experience to get good at selling. Most artists don’t sell their first NFT right away because:

• No one knows them
• They haven’t marketed it so no one has seen it
• It’s overpriced

The key to success here is doing the opposite of these 3 things. In order for your NFT to sell after you’ve made it, you need to:

Trading

Trading is the quickest way and most risky to make money with NFTs. When you trade an NFT you’re expecting the price to be higher at a later date, or to be able to find someone you can sell the NFT to for a higher price.

Let’s look at the Mark Cuban NFT again.

This seems like a great buy — so when the first 5 people bought all the NFTs Mark created— it made sense. You can see above just 3 reasons why there is probably a good chance these can be resold for a profit.

And they did get resold for a profit — this is trading NFTs 101, look for a set of qualities in your collectible, and then start marketing it once you start selling it again.

Collecting

There are many NFTs out there. And people are finding their own ways to make money, whether its buying art, buying game items, buying utility NFTs like $MINT, or flipping items.

When looking at what is a potential buy — I run through this checklist:

• Is the NFT high quality?
• Is the NFT scarce or very common?
• Does this NFT have a purpose?
• Does this creator know how to build hype and market themselves?
• Is there a base of people for this creator/NFT I can market it to?
• Is this innovative (first to do something never before done)?
• Do I like this (if its art)?

There is no set number required — but this is a good example of what you need to consider when thinking about buying an NFT. If some of those are a “yes” then it might be worth buying/bidding on. And if some of them are “no” that’s okay — it still might be worth the risk.

Investing/trading NFTs is like investing in startups as a Venture Capital fund 99 out of 100 may lose money, but that 1 out of 100 will do 100x. So cast your net wide and build a base of collectibles that you own.

Buy in bulk

If you have 1 ETH to spend, instead of buying 1 NFT that is 1 ETH — try to buy 20 NFTs that are 0. 05 each, or 10 NFTs that are 0. 1 ETH.

If you can cut a deal with a seller to buy even more for a discount — try to do that. Mintable has a DM feature so you can talk directly to the seller or buyer and discuss the trade. This could easily make you thousands by getting a discount on bulk orders.

List them all for sale

List them all for sale and keep them up for sale — then promote your portfolio of items for sale on social media. People can browse your store/collection and you don’t have to do anything, over time you’ll wake up one day and have ETH in your wallet from sales happening overnight.

Cuban’s First NFT

Last month, Mark Cuban, swashbuckling entrepreneur and media mogul, best known for pioneering radio-on-the-internet in the early days of Web1, discovered he had prematurely entered the broadcasting business on Web3

— when his personal financial history on Ethereum was unveiled for the world to browse.

But It Soon Unravelled

He knew this address must be controlled by one of:

• A centralised wallet / exchange
• TornadoCash
• Mark Cuban himself

Cuban’s funding address identified

It was immediately obvious that Cuban himself controlled the funding address.

From this, Cuban’s financial history was laid bare.

When we use Ethereum, we leave a tangled web of transactions that’s burned into the network forever. It can haunt you a little now, and can haunt you a lot later, as data accumulates, and the transaction graph thickens.

A small amount of knowledge lets observers retrace our unbroken steps through DeFi, forwards and backwards. To demonstrate, let’s pick through Cuban’s “financial tattoo” (that quote courtesy of The Defiant).

Cuban’s Brief Financial History

Cuban’s address became active last month (January 2021), and here’s his trading book on etherscan:

His first transactions involved DAI and WETH, via AAVE. Notice:

• He deposits and withdraws a number of times at first
• Initial amounts are modest for a billionaire — 1000 aDAI and 1 aWETH

Both features suggest he’s a DeFi newbie.

This was probably his only DeFi address, at the time. In a few days, he was comfortable enough to deposit 1000 aWETH into AAVE — and began earning his first yield.

The Trivial Problem

When a celebrity’s home address is revealed, the paparazzi, the merchants, the fanatics, will congregate.

On cue, mischief-makers and door-to-door salesmen came calling at Cuban’s address, dumping novelty tokens.

Address visual from DeBank

Cuban also became the owner of several ENS domains — some useful, others significantly less useful.

ENS domains gifted to Cuban

Grim sentiments aside, it’s just the start of the problems Cuban would have faced, if he’d continued broadcasting his data.

The Real Problem

Imagine that Cuban now re-routes his Aave income — funding projects, streaming salaries, paying for subscriptions, services etc.

So now Ethereum watchers can see:

• his business activities
• his personal activities
• his financial strategies and opinions
• a widening window on his asset base
• in time, his location in time and space

All readable straight off etherscan — and that’s before machine learning, and its eerie ability to pick features from ‘barren’ datasets.

To solve it, you’re back to trusting centralised parties again — at the cost of your data, if not your assets.

This Is All Of Us, Right Now

Convenience premiums are everywhere in crypto today — high costs on dexes, borrow-lend spreads in DeFi, privacy costs on mainnet.

But innovation is steadily bringing them down.

What About TornadoCash?

TornadoCash is a good way to break your transaction graph, and it’s an important public utility.

• It’s fully decentralised
• It breaks your transaction graphs, and gets better the longer you wait

As with everything, it has its drawbacks:

• Expensive: ~1m gas
• Withdrawal times: relatively long, to allow the anonymity set to build

What’s Aztec Doing About Privacy On Ethereum?

Aztec 2. 0, our private rollup, is preparing for soft launch. We want to eliminate the trade-offs between usability, cost, and privacy.

• Deposits, withdrawals, and private sends for ERC-20s
• Anonymous Layer 1 DeFi: you will be able to do liquid transactions, e.g. DAI-ETH in Uniswap, as part of the Aztec anonymity set
• Private smart contracts: our language Noir will put smart contracts into the hands of developers, and we’ll build or fund an Aztec-native dex too

Our cutting-edge ZK-SNARK technology, PLONK, invented by our world-class research team, provides both gas-relief and privacy, so you don’t have to choose between the two.

Always Maintain Your Data Hygiene

• Awareness: remember every on-chain transaction is public, forever
• Address-Splitting: separately fund your wallets for different uses, without connecting these addresses directly on-chain
• Privacy Services: These services help protect you from leaving a permanent footprint on Web3

An NFT has value because the buyer and their community believe it has value —which is true for all art and collectibles. And as time goes by, an NFT gains more of its own character, based on factors like who’s owned it and how they’ve used it. 17 мая 2022 г