💰200 ETH & 0.75 ETH Bored Ape sales, 🥇 Elon is the Person of the Year
💰200 ETH & 0.75 ETH Bored Ape sales, 🥇 Elon is the Person of the Year
APES x PUNKS - the big flip? Welcome Pepsi, AMC, Marriott, UNICEF, White Castle, and… CIA? 🤔🤨
Dear NFTimer,
I want to start with an announcement I read last week that excited me. The team behind the NFT-based game Parallel launched an end-to-end encrypted messaging service for Ethereum wallets called inb0x. People in U.S. mostly use iMessage, while in Europe, it’s mainly WhatsApp. Of course, as the tech ethics lover that I am, I don’t like my messages being watched. In a blog post, Parallel described inb0x as a “simple messaging tool built for web3” that allows users to “securely communicate to and from their Ethereum address.” This starts to resolve such a big issue, a lack of communication channels in web3. While we transact on web3 platforms, we’re on Twitter & Discord for communication. I can’t wait for this idea to grow! Next stop: Web3 Discord.
Dive in👇🏼
🎨 NFTs
An augmented reality startup Anima wants to bridge metaverse and IRL, and they launched HASE MN:01 Mirror, a digital sculpture that is also a gateway to the metaverse.
Open Earth Foundation launched hologram NFTs titled OceanDrop NFT, with funds raised going to a program called OpenOcean which supports local nongovernmental organizations and park ranger operations.
UNICEF is launching an NFT collection titled Patchwork Kingdoms to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the UN agency and raise money for school internet connections.
Pepsi launched its genesis collection, Mic Drop, which sold out in less than a minute.
OpenSea hired Lyft’s CFO Brian Roberts. This resulted in an IPO hint (because the new CFO said he’s working on the company’s upcoming IPO), but this caused a backlash from collectors expecting a OpenSea token drop instead. Gotta agree.
Former MLB player and artist Micah Johnson created a character named Aku. Aku became famous, being the first NFT artwork to travel to space, getting a TV and movie deal, and a partnership with Visa. During Art Basel in Miami, Johnson created an experiential installation around Aku. Attendees could enter a giant astronaut’s helmet to view video footage of his intergalactic journeys. 👩🏿🚀
American fast-food chain White Castle now owns the whitecastleofficial.eth address and changed its Twitter name. Upcoming NFT drop?
AMC Theatres and Wax are launching “I Own AMC” NFTs to every existing and new members of AMC Investor Connect.
Marriott Bonvoy entered the NFT space with a drop during Miami Art Week, becoming one of the first hospitality brands to do so.
Kaigani is launching a new generative art platform MxtterArt.
Cool Cats are having a competition for both holders and non-holders.
Alpha Race #3 of Hyype is live.
🔮 Metaverse News
List of Metaverse Coins.
Decentraland is joining Blender Developer Fund as a patron.
Drop your favorite spots in the metaverse in the thread below👇
Museum of Crypto Art will launch an NFT program that enables them to create exhibition spaces in any virtual world. MOCA’s tech director said, “We assume lots of virtual worlds come up. We want to be there, we want to be available with open APIs so all these worlds can feed their world with content, with art exhibitions right from the start.”
👾 NFT Games
Wolf Game came, and then so many forks. Wizard & Dragons became one that is becoming successful with high trading volume on OpenSea. Wizards & Dragons is a strategy game where players will use NFTs to acquire the game’s currency, Gold Pieces (GP).
Startup Rainmaker Games, which is building a platform for play-to-earn games, raised $6.5 million in a seed round from Animoca Brands and Alameda Research.
Axie Infinity shared a development update.
Ubisoft introduced Quartz, the first energy-efficient NFTs playable in a AAA game, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
Bored Apes had an upcoming p2e game, but they got held up by Apple.
🎶 Music
🔥 What else is hot?
RARA.social launched NFT RA!CE, a daily like-to-earn competition to discover the best NFTs, according to fans, and not the price.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she does not hold any Bitcoin or any other financial assets and argued on Instagram, “Because we have access to sensitive information and upcoming policy, I do not believe members of Congress should hold/trade individual stock and I choose not to hold any so I can remain impartial about policy marking.” If bankers can’t, so shouldn’t the congressmen and women?
CIA Director William Burns said his predecessor started several “different projects focused on cryptocurrency.”
The NFT series of painted Stormtrooper helmets from the Star Wars, The Art Wars Collection, has come under fire for launching without the consent of the artists who created the original works.
Immutable X is integrating with Mintable.
NounsDAO is staking 1500 ETH ($5,703,870) at Lido Finance.
Mirror has an updated website.
📖 Reading List
“Permissionless Brands” by Chu and Fancy
“Product vs. Protocol: Finding a Balance in Web3” by Jesse Walden
“Crypto Theses for 2022” by Messari
“What’s their Game?” by Kevin Buist
🤪 Cool fun beans
Punk Sponsorships:
Keanu Reeves is “into cryptocurrency personally” and holds some crypto himself in this interview with the Verge. He also says, “Can we just not have metaverse be invented by Facebook … I’m just like, come on man.”
SushiSwap CTO Joseph Delong resigned following problems with the team. He shared a thread telling why, as well as this funny gif.
Palm NFT Studio announced a $27M Series B round from Microsoft’s M12 venture fund and Warner Bros.
Meta is testing the waters with its digital wallet Novi as it will roll out a trial to a “limited number of people in the US” to send cryptocurrency payments via WhatsApp.
The hardware wallet brand Ledger will launch a debit card.
“Right-click and Save As guy” by XCOPYART bought by Cozomo de Medici for 1600 ETH ($7,022,000).
World of Women floor was swept by somebody.
Bored Ape #3415 was bought for 200 ETH. ($802,000) Meanwhile, Bored Ape #3547 sold for 0.75 ETH, instead of 75 on accident.
Elon Musk is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.🥇
🧵 Threads
Tell me what you’re working on in the discussion thread! I’ll make sure to check it out, and you might get a feature in the next NFTimes edition!
If you like this newsletter, please share it with your friends!
Follow NFTimes on Twitter here & you can follow the Author here.
💃🏼
💃🏼
💃🏼
Disclaimer: Investing in NFTs comes with inherent risk including technical risk, human error, platform failure and more. This newsletter is strictly educational and nothing we offer is financial advice. We are not professionals or licensed advisors. Views my own and not any other company I’m affiliated with.