LooksRare Launches Phase 2 of LOOKS Emissions
The LooksRare secondary NFT marketplace has taken the space by storm in the past several weeks. This is predominantly due to its lucrative LOOKS rewards program. However, as per the initial roadmap, Phase 1 of LOOKS emissions has now come to an end. Therefore the volume of rewards paid out to NFT traders has decreased significantly.
With the completion of block 14,172,012, the amount of LOOKS emitted will reduce from 800 LOOKS per block to 380 LOOKS per block. This is a significant decrease, which will have an effect on the potential earnings NFT traders are looking to secure. Block 14,172,012 was reached on February 9th, which means LooksRare is now officially in Phase 2 of the emissions plan.
The reduced amount of LOOKS emissions will have an impact on the NFT trading and on staking rewards. According to the official announcement, trading rewards will reduce from 441.00 to 209.475 LOOKS per block. Additionally, staking rewards will reduce from 189.00 to 89.775 LOOKS per block.
An important note from the LooksRare team points out that while the volume of rewards has been slashed, this also means the supply of LOOKS tokens will increase more slowly. In this sense, the price for one LOOKS token might be affected positively by the newly introduced scarcity. To check out what the next phases of the campaign will look like, head to the official LooksRare documentations page.
Will wash trading on LooksRare decrease?
LooksRare has definitely had a successful run so far, however, it is not all rainbows and unicorns. A recent DappRadar report revealed that a lot of the trading activity on the marketplace can be associated with wash trading. Wash trading is the process of ‘selling’ an asset to yourself for personal gain. In the case of LooksRare, many NFT collectors were tempted to sell their own NFTs to themselves using two different wallets in order to generate more LOOKS rewards.
In the traditional financial world, wash trading is a crime, however, as the crypto space is still largely unregulated such activity goes unpunished. Consequently, LooksRare quickly became one of the most utilized secondary marketplaces, surpassing OpenSea by trading volume. Unfortunately, a lot of this activity came from artificial trading activity in pursuit of LOOKS rewards.
Now that the marketplace has entered Phase 2 of its LOOKS emissions program, this might no longer seem like a lucrative activity. Of course, only time will tell whether LooksRare will be able to wash off the stigma of wash trading.
DappRadar will continue monitoring LooksRare as it battles with competitors like OpenSea and SuperRare. You can also track the activity on the Top NFT Marketplaces on DappRadar. Additionally, check out the DappRadar PRO membership, which will give you access to exclusive content, up-to-the-minute NFT trading data, and members-only Discord channels.
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