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Metawatches conquer the NFT market

 


Coinbase continues to work on its own future. For this purpose, the derivatives platform FairX has now been taken over. Together they want to enable trading on the crypto exchange soon.



Coinbase has bought FairX , a derivatives trading platform regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The company announced this in a press release .

With the takeover, the US crypto exchange announced that it also wanted to offer derivatives trading in the future - but initially only for US customers.

“Creating a transparent derivatives market will open up further avenues into the crypto economy for both retail and institutional investors,” a tweet said .

The move brings Coinbase in line with competitors like Binance , FTX, Bybit , and OKEx . The US exchange currently has 56 million active users.

The news of regulated derivatives trading is also having a positive impact on Coinbase's stock price.  Skins, wearables, items: in addition to art, it is primarily digital collectibles that set the tone on the NFT market. New application possibilities resulting from the emergence of the Metaverse for non-fungible tokens continue to ensure record sales on the trading venues. So it's hardly surprising that the software company Axonic seems to have caught the spirit of the times with its Metawatches. The first collection was sold out within minutes. We spoke to Axonic founder and Metawatches CEO Martin Welker about the watches, what they can and should be able to do and why he believes in NFTs as a game changer.


In an environment that is clocked and synchronized by the coordinated world time, wristwatches no longer fulfill a purely purpose-related function. They are fashion accessories, investments and status symbols. But why should that only apply to physical clocks? The NFT market shows that the value of virtual goods is being renegotiated and burned into the “real” value chain. The latest trend: Functional and dynamic NFTs that can be worn in games or 3D worlds, change and adapt to new circumstances. This is also the case with the metawatches from software manufacturer Axonic, which are supposed to usher in the turning point.


It took just 34 minutes before the analog summer collection, comprising 1,234 NFT watches, was already sold out. The demand for the metawatches seems to be great. And that although you “actually buy a pig in a poke” Because “the assets are all sold undercover”. Buyers: First of all, they receive “a box in the wallet and you don't know what's inside”. Similar to trading cards, the NFT charade should serve as an incentive to buy, but it is done “for reasons of fairness,” explains Martin. To avoid speculation in advance and to give everyone the same chance. Only when the boxes open do the new Metawatches attendants know which watch model they have got hold of.


Exclusivity is therefore a factor that adds value to the individually designed NFT watches. For a special collection limited to ten watches and distributed by the Nagel Draxler Galerie, the Metawatch team was also able to win over none other than Kenny Schachter as a designer - the “enfant terrible of the New York art scene”, as Martin calls him. But what actually makes the watches so special?


Watches that move with the times


The metawatches are dynamic NFTs which “actually show the time on your device”. Dynamic because the development team can adapt the watches to new conditions and thus make them usable for many applications and end devices: as artwork on smartwatches or items in VR games and metaverse platforms. "If a metaverse allows dynamic content, we will adapt the NFTs so that they can be worn as wearables," explains Martin. The team keeps a back door open for this.


Ownership claims and transaction data are stored on the Ethereum blockchain and are therefore unchangeably secured. But: "What the watch does is done off-chain on a central server." In this way, the developers can equip the watches with new functions and update them for new environments. “We leave the artwork on our server for as long as possible to be flexible for new metaverses. If a new update comes from a Metaverse, someone has to program it”. The Metawatch team takes care of that: “If something new comes up, we will re-render the clocks and offer new interfaces to Metaverses.”


Grabbed by the NFT fever


On- and off-chain also describes Martin's relationship with the crypto market. The qualified computer scientist started early. In 2013 he bought his first ten bitcoins at a price of 80 euros each – and like every early adopter, he experienced some “embarrassing stories”. So he parted with some bitcoin again below the purchase price. Martin has also tried his hand at mining. "But it didn't all work that way," he says. The graphics card is still lying around somewhere today, “as expensive old metal”.


“That was my Bitcoin experience, so to speak,” remembers Martin, “the next step was Ethereum”. From today's perspective it is bizarre: “I got my first ten ethers because I registered somewhere”. After a few attempts at flirting, he finally tasted blood in the spring of 2021 when he was intensively involved with NFTs. And so the idea of ​​dynamic NFT clocks gradually matured.


“We are in an incredible bull market”

Martin has already “gone through a few crises”. After his studies, he witnessed the bursting of the dot-com bubble in San Francisco in the early 2000s, and a few years later the icy crypto winter, in which quite a few market prophets provoked the end of the crypto hype. But he is firmly convinced of NFT's success.


“I don't believe for a second that what we're experiencing is going back to zero in any way”. NFTs are not a fad, but a door opener for broad social changes that can break open power structures and establish new rights to have a say. Martin is certain “that with DAOs and Web 3.0 and with NFTs as the mapping of assets we will experience a radical transformation not only in the digital, but especially in the analog world.” Non-fungible tokens are changing our view of value creation in the digital age, "colorful NFT images are just the tip of the spear".



What can be read from the sales figures of trading places like Opensea is an expression of a radical change. “For me, watches are a wonderful means of expression of this revolution that is taking place there”. He is therefore not worried about the future of metawatches: “I firmly believe that digital assets can coexist alongside luxury watches.” And what’s more: “I believe that watch lovers’ passion for collecting can certainly be virtualized”. Especially since mainstream adoption is still pending despite massive growth rates on the NFT market. "That's why I'm very bullish on that." Not necessarily at the "micro level", there will also be setbacks and market corrections with NFTs. “But the overall movement” can no longer be stopped – the clock is ticking.At the time of writing, COIN is trading 3.5 percent up.

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