November 16th’s NF3: Barbados Goes Meta, Genie Swap, NFTfi and More NFT News

Thanks for joining us for today’s NF3 recap. If you haven’t already checked out our past NF3 recap, you can find it here.

Today’s NF3 is going to cover some very interesting topics that will not disappoint. Barbados is set to become the first sovereign nation with an Embassy in the Metaverse. Also, there’s a new NFT marketplace aggregator in town. Lastly, South Africa’s NFTfi raised an impressive $5 million so people can use NFTs as collateral for loans.

You can read all about this news plus more, in today’s NF3.

This article does not constitute formal financial advice. Always do your own research before investing.

On Sunday, the Barbadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade inked a deal for the formation of a virtual embassy with Decentraland, one of the most popular metaverses to date.

Barbados will become the first government in the world to recognize digital sovereign land with the opening of the embassy, which is set for January.

The proposals were evaluated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and many other governmental entities for several months.

Barbados is one of the most welcoming countries when it comes to crypto and has been a leader in the creation of a central bank digital currency. It will be interesting to see how a virtual embassy will operate in the metaverse, and what the general guidelines will be. 

Will the VR aspect allow the process to be more frictionless, or will it lead to unforeseen complications? Only time will tell. Either way, it’s exciting and without a doubt a huge leap for the metaverse.

Genie Swap is Ethereum's first NFT marketplace aggregator. Genie users may purchase, sell, and trade across all major NFT marketplaces with a single transaction, no matter how many NFTs they have. Currently, Genie Swap supports ERC-721’s and ERC-1155 support is coming very soon.

Genie Swap has been in private beta testing since August. Users of the Genie Swap platform will benefit from four primary advantages:

1. In a single interface, you can access all of the major NFT markets
2. In a single transaction, you may purchase and sell NFTs in bulk
3. When buying and selling NFTs in bulk, you’ll likely save money on gas
4. When purchasing and selling, more efficient routing is possible

Moreover, Genie Swap has what they call their Genie List. The Genie List allows users to batch their NFTs together and list them all on one or multiple marketplaces at the same time.

As of now, Genie only supports OpenSea and Rarible, but plans to bring more marketplaces online in the near future.

These batch listings are known as Meta Listings, which allows sellers to optimize their NFT listings and exposure, leading to faster sales and fairer pricing.

NFTfi is a marketplace where users have the option to acquire a cryptocurrency loan on their NFTs and give loans to borrowers on their NFTs. Essentially, users may use their NFTs as collateral to obtain loans from other users.

The startup was founded in February 2020 by Stephen Young, and has received a seed round of $5 million to continue innovating and exploring the financial opportunity found within NFT technology.

The financing was provided by early-stage crypto fund 1kx, with participation from Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Maven 11, Scalar Capital, and others.

Some of the most popular NFT loans on NFTfi are for Art Blocks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cryptopunks, Autoglyphs, Meebits, and VeeFriends. NFTfi completed its first loan in May 2020, and has since seen more than 1,500 transactions occur on the platform.

NFTfi isn’t the only NFT-backed cryptocurrency lender in the market, and we are beginning to see more of these types of businesses emerge. However, with such strong investors like Ashton Kutcher, NFTfi definitely looks promising.

If you haven’t been keeping up with all the crazy updates throughout the NFT and crypto community, then it’s possible that you have missed quite a bit. That’s why we enjoy mentioning other cool events that are going on, in and around the space.

One thing that we covered in our recent article is the ConstitutionDAO. This DAO has been on a mission to raise at least $20 million before Thursday, November 18, in order to purchase one of eleven original copies of the US Constitution, which is being auctioned off at Sotheby’s.

This is the only privately-owned US Constitution left, and the ConstitutionDAO is aiming to put this artifact back into the hands of the people. It’s expected to bring in anywhere from $20-50 million, hence the intense goal.

Currently, the DAO has raised an outstanding $5.9 million at the time of writing this article, and that’s within 48 hours of initiating the funding. 

I’m personally rooting for the ConstitutionDAO and everyone involved, as I believe this is an important example of how DAOs can give the power back to the people, and provide a way lower cost of entry for something that is generally recognized as unattainable.

Well, that’s it for today’s NF3 recap. Thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again for our next NF3. Feel free to join our amazing Discord community, and as always: stay curious friends.