Rap superstars Eminem and Snoop Dogg are to perform their first collaboration in 20 years at the MTV Music Video Awards on a stage inspired by Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.
The video for the track, From the D 2 the LBC, features content from the popular NFT collection. Both rappers, who are up for the ‘Best Hip Hop’ award, are owners of BAYC NFTs.
The floor price of BAYC NFTs are at an eight-month low.
Eminem owns 29 total NFTs under the name Shady_Holdings, while Snoop has launched ‘The Doggies’ NFT collection in partnership with The Sandbox.
Snoop also recently featured in an electronic dance single called BAYC by Esther Anaya, which features an animated video of Bored Apes and other NFTs.
Warning – the video below contains swearing and references to drugs
The MTV VMA performance is in partnership with Otherside, a joint Metaverse project between BAYC creator Yuga Labs and NFT gaming giant Animoca Brands.
The Awards have also added a ‘Best Metaverse Performance’ category, with nominees including Justin Bieber, Rift Tour (featuring Ariana Grande) and Twenty One Pilots.
Cryptocurrency shorts
Developer backend Alchemy has acquired blockchain educational platform ChainShot, creator of an entry-level Ethereum builder bootcamp.
Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal has raised $50 million for a new startup fund dedicated to Web3 companies.
Encrypted Web3 chat app Comm has raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by CoinFund.
Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber has had five of its premises searched by anti-money laundering agents over alleged violations of foreign exchange trading laws. The unicorn raised $260 million in a Series C funding round led by Coinbase venture capital arm Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz last year and has more than 18m registered users.
Police have reportedly closed down at least 16 cryptocurrency exchanges in the Herat province of western Afghanistan in the last week. Central bank Da Afghanistan Bank imposed a ban on crypto trading three months ago as ‘there is no instruction in Islamic law to approve it’.
US-based crypto ATM provider Bitcoin Depot is set for a $855m SPAC to list on the Nasdaq early next year. Canada-based crypto marketplace WonderFi has also applied to list its common shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
The US has the most owners of crypto, 46m – almost twice that of second-placed India – according to Triple A research. In percentage of population terms, the US is third with 13.7%, while Vietnam leads the way with 20.3% of people owning crypto.
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the more than 20,700 coins is at $1.03 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 0.7% decrease in the last 24 hours.
Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – lost 1% to $21,415. BTC is 6% down on a week ago.
Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – dropped 1% to $1,660. ETH is 8% down over the course of a week.
Binance Coin is a cryptocurrency created by popular crypto exchange Binance to assist its aim in becoming the infrastructure services provider for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Its BNB token fell 1% to $296, leaving it 1% up over seven days.
The XRP token of Ripple, a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, acts as a bridge for transfers between other currencies. XRP remained around 35c, with its price 4% down on seven days ago.
Cardano is an open source network facilitating dApps which considers itself to be an updated version of Ethereum. Its ADA token, designed to allow owners to participate in the operation of the network, added 1% to close 0n 47c and is 6% down in a week.
Solana is a blockchain built to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale – and capable of processing 50,000 transactions per second. Its SOL token shed 3% to $34.76 and is 9% lower than its price a week ago.
Meme coin DOGE was created as a satire on the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies but is now a major player in the space. DOGE fell 1% to 6.8c and is 8% down over seven days.
Polkadot was founded by the Swiss-based Web3 Foundation as an open-source project to develop a decentralised web. Its DOT token, which aims to securely connect blockchains, fell 2% to $7.45 and is 5% down on its price a week ago.
Polygon aims to securely connect blockchains as a sort of decentralised internet. Its MATIC token dropped 1% to 81c, while it is 3% down in a week.
Avalanche is a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments. Its AVAX token dropped 3% to $22.61 and is 3% down in a week.
To see how the valuations of the main coins have changed in recent times – and for round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments – click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.