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The founder of tech giant OnlyFans is to launch a trading platform for celebrity NFTs.

Polygon has backed Zoop, which is hosted on its decentralised Ethereum scaling blockchain and allows users to buy, sell, collect and trade 3D digital playing cards of their favourite celebs.

Fans can acquire officially licensed cards on the platform and are also able to sell and trade them in a secondary market.

NFTs – non-fungible tokens – are a virtual product increasingly pushed via celebrity marketing. Unlike traditional celeb-related merchandise – such as custom stickers, custom posters or custom pins – there is no physical product.

The team will be led by co-CEOs Tim Stokely, who founded OnlyFans in London five years ago, and RJ Phillips. Stokely will join in time for the launch this summer.

OnlyFans, which allows people to pay for user-generated content via subscriptions and tips, grew exponentially on the back of adult content. It generated $1.2 billion in revenue last year.

“Zoop is the trusted home for authentic celebrity card drops, enabling all fans, regardless of their technical expertise, to participate in the web3 space,” said Phillips.

“We hold users’ hands as they compete in acquiring digital collectables in the auction process, show off their holdings to friends and ‘collect-to-connect’ with their favourite celebrities of today and tomorrow. 

“Zoop provides access to communities based on the cards users own, and rewards points to users for their interactions with each other and within these communities.

“It’s a win for the celebrities, creates excitement for the fans and a new way for brands to connect with their customers.”

Fans will also have the ability to compete in competitions and challenges to gain points, ‘unlocking special rewards including access to like-minded communities’. 

Michael Blank, COO of Polygon Studios, added: “We’re delighted to be working with the Zoop team as they build out their platform on Polygon. 

“Zoop aligns with our mission to bring Web3 technologies to a much broader demographic, and allowing fans to connect to their favourite celebrities via Polygon is another step towards this goal.” 

EY: Ethereum is the Windows of blockchain

The blockchain leader at Ernst & Young Global expects Ethereum to be the “industry standard” in much the same way as the internet TCP/IP protocol or Microsoft Windows.

Paul Brody told MarketWatch’s Distributed Ledger that he expects Ethereum to eventually “take over everything”.

He said: “We’re very selective at EY about which ecosystem to work in. We audit across many ecosystems, but we only do development in the Ethereum ecosystem.

“Ethereum is just the largest ecosystem, right? If you’re going to be only good at one thing, you should be good at the one thing that has the biggest market.

“People talk about multi-chain as if it was some kind of given, like oh, we’re all headed for a multi-chain future. That’s really strange. We don’t have a multi-network Internet, we have TCP/IP over Ethernet.

“The technology industry loves standards. TCP/IP is a standard. Windows is a standard. It’s very rare that you have truly heterogeneous ecosystems, because that imposes a lot of overhead.”

Cryptocurrency shorts

US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard says it would take the country five years to create a digital dollar – but that a CBDC can co-exist with stablecoins and “we recognise there are risks of not acting, just as there are risks of acting”.

UK musician Knucks shared a bitcoin with two of his fans – whose wristbands changed colour under dark lights at a gig – and hopes they will use it to create a fund for investing in NFTs and cryptocurrencies with him rather than cashing it in.

Chinese crypto exchange Huobi has acquired Latin American crypto exchange Bitex to expand its presence in the region.

Here is a website which looks at the best trading app UK.

Crypto prices

The overall market cap of the more than 19,500 coins is at $1.19 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), a decrease of 5.2% in the last 24 hours.

Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – lost 3% to around $28,800. BTC is 4% down in a week.

Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – lost 10% to $1,730. ETH is 14% 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 lost 8% to $293, leaving it 5% down 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 lost 2% to drop towards 39 cents and is 9% down over seven days.

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, shed 10% to 45c. It is 15% down over the course of 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 lost 14% to $40.36 and is down 22% compared with 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 dropped 5% below 8c, leaving it 11% down in a week.

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, lost 11% to $8.64 and is 14% lower than its price a week ago.

Avalanche is a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments. Its AVAX token shed 15% to $22.12 and is 27% 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.