EthHub Weekly #188

Arbitrum Nitro preview, UniSync released, Coinbase NFT platform announced, Gnosis Safe on Arbitrum and much more!

Oct 19, 2021

Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)

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News of the Week

🎨 Coinbase Announces NFT Waitlist, Following Lead of Rivals Binance and FTX

Coinbase is breaking into the market for non-fungible tokens, announcing Tuesday the waitlist for access to Coinbase NFT — making it the latest crypto firm to dive into the speculative frenzy.

The new offering — which is being spearheaded by Coinbase's VP of Product, Sanchan Saxena — will allow users to mint, purchase, and showcase NFTs. To start it will support Ethereum-based NFTs, but it has plans to expand to other chains after it launches.

"Our ambition with Coinbase NFT is to allow everyone to benefit from their creative spark; to contribute to a future where the 'creator economy' isn’t a small subset of the 'real' economy, but a central driver," Coinbase said in marketing materials.

💰 SEC Said to Allow First Bitcoin Futures ETF to Trade in US

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is said to be allowing the first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), per a Bloomberg report.

The publication said in a report on Thursday night that the U.S. regulator "isn't likely to block the products from starting to trade next week," citing people familiar with the matter.

The report came several hours after the SEC said in a tweet through its investor education account that "Before investing in a fund that holds Bitcoin futures contracts, make sure you carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits."

Bitcoin futures ETFs are different from Bitcoin ETFs in that they are based on futures contracts and are filed under mutual fund rules.

Project Updates

Arbitrum Nitro Sneak Preview

Arbitrum Nitro is next iteration of Arbitrum, which the team has been working on for months. It’s built on standard technologies like WASM and Geth, so it’s more EVM-compatible, an order-of-magnitude faster than the current tech, and adds another 0. When it’s ready it’ll be deployed as a seamless upgrade to Arbitrum One.