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Phew! The Merge has happened, and we are still here to tell the tale in what could be the biggest story since our inception!

Again, just like last week, we have some of the team away on a much needed holiday catching some sun before the winter freeze.

Today’s edition is brought to you by Co-Founder DAWA, feel free to give me a follow here:

The Merge Arrived🥳

Nowhere else to start this week than discussing the events of the last 24 hours.

On the morning of the 15th of September (middle of the night for our readers in America) the news finally spread like wildfire that the ETH merged had happened.

To a lot of our surprise the merge seemed to happen pretty flawlessly, and no real issues have presented themselves following the breaking of the story.

It’s probably important to give a little bit of background to the merge, for those that missed our previous newsletter covering the topic, here’s a brief synopsis of what was to go down:

• It's the foundation that most of your beloved NFTs live on so it’s good to know.

• Prepares Ethereum network for future scalability (growth & adoption)

• ETH will use a lot less energy -$ETH becomes ESG compliant

• ESG compliance makes $ETH a more attractive investment for big money

• Increase scarcity - Less issuance of $ETH - Perhaps one day... ‘Deflationary’

• Staking - Takes ETH of the market - Reduces available ETH on the market.

• Staking provides a yield for those who stake - Attractive for investors looking for a passive income.

Now breaking things down in a little more detail:

What we have witnessed in action goes all the way back to the Ethereum White Paper. Vitalik Buterin mentioned Ethereum switching to a proof-of-stake model for security 8 years ago. This has been a long and well thought out plan of action.

The immediate energy benefits have been disclosed with the impact of the merge reducing worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%. How much more ESG compliant do you want to be?

We are also witnessing the desired effect of burning more Ethereum than we are actually using, the knock-on effect increases the desire to invest due to the reduced opportunity to purchase. No real analysis for the below is required, just a pair of eyes. It’s easy to work out there is now a decreased supply. To keep tabs on the developments regarding supply - click here.

Now onto some of the more technical aspects regarding the merge including the price, how ETH reacted and what the future holds.

Prior to the launch and going back to 12 hours before the merge, ETH was sitting at $1648 and the closer the merge came the lower the price went and just before the official announcement was made the price bottomed at $1590. Well, following the announcement there was a sharp increase in the price, rising to just short of yesterday’s high, reaching $1642, this was expected as was the retrace that has since followed which at the time of writing currently leaves ETH at $1470.

Remember, staking rewards will be locked for another 6-12 months so the big dump from stakers selling was expected and is not drastic. As we told you last week, we do expect a price pullback for $ETH following the Merge, a typical buy the rumor sell the news situation. But one thing is for sure in the medium to long term, It’s very bullish.

Our position on this has not changed, Opensea is still functioning (even they didn’t have any issues following the merge) so all your NFTs are there to be purchased and ETH remains an attractive price to scoop up.

Scoops of the Week 🍦

🍦Coinbase Sentiment Scores For Legislators Available to All

🍦BNB Partners with Google Cloud

🍦Binance Hiring Spree in Paris

🍦China breaks back into top 10

Coinbase Sentiment Scores For Legislators Available to All

From 14th September 2022 Coinbase will begin integrating the crypto stance of legislators into their app.

The purpose of this move is to aid their 103M verified users to get educated on the crypto positions held by political leaders depending on where they live.

CEO and Co-Founder of Coinbase Brian Armstrong shared the following video showing how this will work in practice as well as a detailed thread explaining the reasoning behind the move in more detail.

Progression to Web3 is inevitable, it will be intriguing to see what politicians wish to remain in what will soon be the dark ages.

🍦BNB Partners with Google Cloud

In case you haven’t heard of them, BNB Chain is a blockchain closely linked to the crypto exchange Binance.

They are in the news this week as they have partnered with Google Cloud with the purpose of supporting the growth of early-stage Web3 and blockchain startups.

The advantages heading the way of the startups are endless. Main benefits include connecting with Google’s expert teams in departments such as AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning. Further, the startups will have access to workshops for web3 developers as well as joining Google Cloud’s global customer community group.

We attach a copy to the press release here

Binance Hiring Spree in Paris

It’s not quite the meteoric creation of jobs that Dubai has planned but the creation of jobs with the plan for more within the sector is always welcomed.

It has been announced that Binance has hired 150 people in Paris and plans to hire 200 more by the end of 2022.

This announcement was made at the Binance Blockchain Week where CEO Changpeng Zhao went on to say that Paris is “the financial hub for crypto in Europe and the larger part of the world expecting the crypto industry in France to take off within the next five years.”

Move over Euro Disney, there’s a bigger and better attraction coming.

China breaks back into top 10

Bitcoin illegal? not a problem, we will do it anyway.

This is the view of the Chinese as a recent report shows that the ban imposed on the County last year has not prevented the Chinese from using Bitcoin as the country returns to the global adoption rank’s top 10.

What’s important to note from the report is that us Degens are definitely here to stay as the following was used to conclude the findings: “Adoption is still well above 2020 bull market levels and even though markets have experienced bearish momentum, Bear markets can’t wipe out bull market adoption.”

The bulls charge on in a fashion Jordan himself would be proud of!

State of the Market ⚡️

Again, this is not something we want to ramble on with as things remain turbulent in all things NFT.

Keep the jumpers, scarves, gloves or whatever other item you use to keep yourself warm as we remain in the Cold Zone (no wonder some of the team went to go seek the sun)

Sellers are still outweighing Buyers but maybe people are loading up on ETH ahead of the possible surge following the merge, or is that just wishful thinking?

In terms of the Blue Chips Index, earlier in the week the index dropped to its lowest in the last month, we are happy to report that there has been a bit of an increase since then, so they weren’t in the dumps for too long!

In terms of ETH, we covered this above, it’s on a bit of a rollercoaster right now, as you’d expect following the merge. Nonetheless the current price of $1496 may remain a decent entry point for you to start reloading those wallets for the medium to long term hold which we here at Scoop remain bullish on.

Where we would blow our $ETH💰

It’s a tricky question right now so the safe bet is to go with something related to the Yuga Labs group.

This takes us to one of their lower entry projects that has over time presented the opportunity a solid profitable flip as well as a solid long term HODL.

The Bored Ape Kennell Club

The holders remain bullish on this project, of the 9.6k collection only 331 remain available to purchase. Over the last month the floor has gone from 5.7 ETH up to 7.85 ETH and everything in-between.

The current floor sits at 6.99 ETH with 26 items to an 8 ETH floor.

What’s Dropping 💧

Disclaimer

The NFT Scoop newsletter or podcast is not financial advice, it is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only.

NFT’s can be highly illiquid markets, causing sharp drops in prices due to changes in narratives and trends.

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