Crypto Trends Weekly – Aug. 27 – Sept. 2

Breaking crypto news from the last week (Aug. 27 –Sept. 2, 2022):

Aug. 27: Forbes’s new analysis of 157 crypto exchanges reveals that 51% of the daily Bitcoin trading volume is likely fake. “Wash trading” also benefits exchanges, allowing them to appear to have more volume than they actually do and encouraging more legitimate trading.

Aug. 29: Iran is allowing businesses to use crypto for import transactions amid the country’s efforts to circumvent sanctions, the local news agency Tasnim reported. The approval for crypto use in imports appears to be part of a broader policy regarding crypto regulations.

Aug. 30: Meta now allows users to include digital collectibles on Facebook. Meta’s move expands NFT features from its initial launch point on Instagram to Facebook, with more than 2.9 billion users.

Aug. 31: Event ticketing giant Ticketmaster announced that it will adopt the Flow blockchain for minting tickets as NFTs for select events. Five million Ticketmaster NFTs were already minted in a pilot program over the past six months.

Sept. 1: Amid confusion over intellectual property (IP) rights, VC giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is releasing a free licensing system for NFTs to address current challenges and ambiguities over the use of crypto collectibles. With help from Punk6529, the new licensing system attempts to standardize options, aiming to help the NFT sector fulfill its “economic potential.”

Sept. 2: BlackRock announced it will use Kraken’s CF Benchmarks Bitcoin index pricing product for its first crypto offering. Previously, the world’s biggest asset manager launched its own Bitcoin private trust following announcing a partnership with Coinbase.