BLOCKCHAIN BATTLES

REAL ESTATE NFT INVESTING PLATFORMS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. Algorand and Cardano initiatives in real estate investing via NFTs are being built on their blockchain networks. 
They represent utility use cases for NFTs that go beyond the digital art and collectibles market.
GoKey, which is set to launch by the summer, bills itself as a project “on a mission to help everyday people access the wealth building benefits of property ownership.”
The interface is designed to offer functionality similar to a real estate rental / purchase search interface:

But would-be buyers / renters / investors can choose to purchase and hold an NFT that contains “bundled rights” that are normally acquired more onerously through traditional avenues, including the rights of possession, control, exclusion, disposition, etc. 
And would-be sellers can choose to offer their properties—or certain rights of their properties—via tokenization, as NFTs.
Lofty, an Algorand blockchain based project, recently launched. It’s geared to allow users to use crypto to purchase and hold NFT shares of real estate properties.
Users can begin investing for as little as the equivalent of 50 dollars, and sell anytime, retaining liquidity of their investment.
In a time when real estate is both a hot investment prospect for mega investment companies like BlackRock and others, projects like Lofty and GoKey are set to empower cost-effective options to small investors, renters and buyers, while also offering potential advantages to sellers.
According to GoKey’s explanatory litepaper:
“GoKey is designed to help renters build a new type of mobile, financial equity in the space between renting and owning, while also empowering sellers to confidently ‘be their own bank.’ By bypassing traditionally slow, expensive and sometimes untrustworthy middlemen, individuals and families can build and preserve real property wealth more effectively than at any time in recent history.”
The usage of NFTs to encapsulate information and confer ownership, combined with the “software” of smart contracts to route crypto payments and rewards, and perform other functions, is only in its infancy.
But projects like GoKey are out to leverage the utility of a new paradigm of exchanging value and unlocking liquidity that crypto networks can enable.
In the case of real estate, the rental business in the U.S. is currently a half-trillion dollar yearly industry.
By directly linking vendors and customers, blockchain real estate ventures can provide value and efficiencies that may help them gain a portion of that market. 
ETH 2.0 STAKING UPGRADE TO RELEASE SUMMER CRYPTO BULL MARKET? Ethereum, long the number two crypto in market cap, may be set to usher in an upturn in the sector.
The impending 2.0 network upgrade will move the blockchain from a “proof of work” to “proof of stake” method for processing transactions, writing to the blockchain and earning ETH.
In addition to lowering energy consumption, the proof of stake upgrade will help the network in terms of scaling and transaction times.
It will also offer earning yields to those who choose to stake their ETH, which can be done from exchanges and wallets. Staking involves essentially lending crypto into a pool, where it can be used by borrowers to perform network tasks like authenticating and processing transactions. Borrowers can make a profit, and so can lenders.
“I am very bullish on ether for the summer as ether staking would offer returns better than real or inflation-adjusted yields in traditional markets after the merge,” crypto trader and analyst Alex Kruger told CoinDesk.com about the coming upgrade.
By some estimates, Ethereum holders who choose to stake their crypto might earn yields as high as 10 percent or more, payable in more ETH.
Another benefit of the upgrade? According to outlet theblockcrypto.com, it’s expected to further tighten the supply of ethereum, due to a mechanism where validators have to “burn” (or digitally use up) a certain amount of ETH to perform certain functions.
The effect will be deflationary, and continue to move Ethereum in the direction of Bitcoin, which achieved deflation via a hard cap in its code that limits the number of bitcoins that can ever be mined.
CHINA NIXES NFT TECHNOLOGY. China again finds conflict between its growing economic authoritarianism and innovating crypto technology. First they cracked down on Bitcoin, after years of threats and uncertainty.
Now it appears they’re looking askance at NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
According to cointelegraph.com, WeChat, the Chinese social media behemoth, has apparently terminated numerous digital collectable platform accounts due to rule infractions.
Xihu No.1, a digital collecting platform that was one of the market’s most heralded NFT initiatives, was one of the platforms that was eliminated. Another site, Dongyiyuandian, has had its official app removed.
WeChat and other Chinese social media platforms are reportedly reacting to fears of government retaliation.
As Trends In Cryptos has consistently detailed, NFTs represent much more than just trading in digital art; for more on that, see “A TOKENIZED PLANET” (15 Mar 2022), “NFTS: MUCH MORE THAN DIGITAL ART” (15 Feb 2022) and “THE CRYPTO ‘AGE OF UTILITY’ HAS JUST BEGUN” (12 Oct 2021).
As far as China’s system being ill-equipped to capitalize on many of the innovations crypto technology represents, we predicted and noted this in “THE GEOPOLITICS OF BITCOIN” (27 Jul 2021), “HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION HEAD SAYS ‘BITCOIN IS THE REVOLUTION’” (29 Jun 2021), “CHINA MADE A TRILLION DOLLAR MISTAKE, SAYS MICROSTRATEGY CEO” (29 Jun 2021) and other articles.