Stay up-to-date with the latest news from the NFTs and Metaverse industry. We've prepared an article series that presents the newest projects, events, ideas, and legal news.
Let's start below.
Contents
π Macro - Europe's first government institution to launch an NFT marketplace dedicated to institutions;
ποΈ Last week's news - ENS, Metaversity, Trump, Ledger, Opensea, Soulja Boy, The Sandbox, Outlaws NFT, BAYC;
π° Investments/Financing - Krafton, EVEN, Playbux;
π£ Projects news/Updates - Opepen, Cool Cats, Suky, Gala Games, Yuga Labs, Nakamigos, Moonbirds, Azuki, The Memes, Opensea PRO, Invisible Friends;
βοΈ Legal - Metaverse Lawyer writes about the regulations on cryptocurrencies adopted by the European Parliament on 20 April;
π Veefriends - by FreeFly issues a challenge;
βοΈ NFTility, by Mtk - .SWOOSH;
π Dictionary - EVM;
πΈ Sale of the week - Back to monkeys;
π Macro
ICI, the National Institute for Research and Development in Computer Science, a government institution is launching a marketplace for digital assets (NFTs) on MultiversX. The marketplace will be dedicated, in the first instance, to public institutions that want to launch a collection of NFTs.
News is much more important than that. It's the first government entity in the world (at least in Europe) that we know of to launch a marketplace for NFTs. An institutional one even. The NFT ecosystem cannot grow without getting out of our bubble. And the fact that there is a Romanian state authority that has the green light to help other institutions launch a collection of NFTs is a great thing on two counts:
- Someone (a man and subsequently a team - ICI) had to take on this journey and at least someone else with greater decision-making power had to agree.
- Public institutions in Romania will have an open corridor to be creative. Valentin Θtefan, director of the Romanian Post Office, kicked off last year, with the Post Office being the first public entity in Romania to launch a collection of NFTs.
How many collections, how many NFTs and who launches them?
We are talking about 6 collections totaling only 205 NFTs. We underlined only because we are used to collections of 10,000 NFTs, and the fact that 5 entities of the Romanian state, each with a longer history than we have years and a world champion are launching a number of only 205 NFTs, shows us that it is more a statement than the desire for profit.
The 5 institutional collections of NFTs will be minted in an auction and come from: the National Press Agency AGERPRES, the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee - COSR, Romfilatelia, the Central University Library "Carol I", ICI Bucharest, and, of course, the NFT of the world champion David Popovici.
The launch of ICI D|Services takes place on 26 April, at the CIP Forum, an annual event that will be opened by people such as the Prime Minister of Romania, the Ministers of Digitalisation, Economy, Finance, Environment, and many other impressive names. Metaventis will also be represented. Full list of speakers here.
ποΈ News from last week
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Nathaniel Chastain, the former head of product at OpenSea, will go on trial on April 24 on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.
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An NFT investigator, ZachXBT, has revealed that US rapper Soulja Boy has been scamming buyers of NFTs by endorsing 16 releases and 73 promotions on Twitter.
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Ledger has announced the Ledger Pro Season 2 team! It consists of five members representing various Web3 communities (Verbal + Yoon, Champ Medici, gMoney, Brycent and Dan Held).
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AI NFTs change the game! This guide covers everything you need to know about AI and its impact on NFTs.
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Playground and The Sandbox are collaborating to introduce a new virtual universe called "Meloverse", inspired by NBA player LaMelo Ball.
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A conflict has arisen between Outlaws NFT and Jeremy Booth. After its successful launch, the Outlaws NFT collection is also facing copyright issues.
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A trio of Australian founders is betting that a single account will give gamers access to multiple Metaverse and attract the next billion users to Web3.
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The trading volume of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) exceeded 1 million ETH or $2.1 billion on April 15, 2023.
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Have you heard of Frankinisbored? If not then this thread is a must-read. I'm sure you'll learn something from there.
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The Sandbox, one of the most advanced projects in the Metaverse, has released the update for the Land Roadmap.
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ENS now allows registration of .eth domains using a credit or debit card via Moonpay. The aim of the partnership is to make ENS more accessible to the general public.
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A Miami college has launched Metaversity, a virtual version of the campus created by VictoryXR that will allow students, faculty and visitors to register for classes, take tours of the Miami Dade campus, attend events and more in Metaverse.
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Donald Trump has launched a new collection of NFTs. 47k at $99/piece. The new series has sold out and has seen a volume of over 700Ξ, causing the first edition floor price to drop a massive 50%+!!! Yikes, that's gotta hurt! To holders, because he earned between $500,001 and $1 million.
π° Investments / Financing
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Studio Krafton, the creator of the popular PUBG game, is preparing to launch a new game in the metaverse: Migaloo. Together with Naver Z, Krafton has invested $36.8 million in the game's development.
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Creative platform EVEN raises $2.2 million in a funding round to help artists sell directly to fans.
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Metaverse e-commerce platform Playbux closed a $2 million funding round led by Binance Labs, followed by Gate.io, Tron, CertiK, Ankr, IMO Ventures, LIF, Math Wallet and OFR
π£ Projects news / Updates
- A snapshot for Opepen holdouts took place on April 21 at 7:00 PM ET.
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Cool Cats has introduced Shadow Wolves NFTs, an extension of their competitive games in the Cool Cats ecosystem.
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The Suku platform has reached a major new milestone: over 6,000 tweets have been turned into NFTs using Sukuthis.
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Gala Games, a blockchain gaming giant, has announced plans for a free token distribution event!
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The company Yuga Labs has obtained the proprietary rights to CryptoPunks Wrapper as part of the Punks Restoration Project.
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Following a teaser post on Twitter, the Nakamigos collection is up over 30% from the last floor price.
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Moonbirds has unveiled its rewards system, called Talons, which will replace the current nesting system and will be earned daily for owning a Moonbirds NFT.
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Azuki has announced his "Follow The Rabbit" event in Las Vegas on June 23, 2023, open to all, and registration is now available.
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The Memes by Punk6529 platform introduces season 3 (SZN3) with new artists, expanded experiments and new developments. In addition, the platform launches NFT Delegation, an open-source project available for free.
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In a recent tweet, OpenSea Pro announced that Gemesis NFT holders should check their wallets and verify NFT metadata.
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The Invisible Friends project joins the Little Atlas platform to organize real-life meetings between NFT owners.
βοΈ Legal
The European Parliament approved on Thursday the first EU rules for tracking crypto-asset transfers, preventing money laundering and common rules on supervision and customer protection!
On Thursday 20 April, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) approved by 529 votes to 29, with 14 abstentions, the EU's first piece of legislation to track transfers of crypto-assets such as bitcoin and e-money tokens. The text - which was provisionally agreed upon by Parliament and Council negotiators in June 2022 - aims to ensure that transfers of cryptocurrencies, as with any other financial transaction, can always be tracked and suspicious transactions blocked. The so-called "travel rule", already used in traditional finance, will in the future cover transfers of crypto assets. Information on the source of the asset and the beneficiary of the asset will have to "travel" with the transaction and be stored by both parties to the transfer.
The law would also cover transactions above EUR 1000 from so-called self-hosted wallets (i.e. a private user's wallet address) when they interact with hosted wallets managed by crypto-asset service providers. The rules do not apply to person-to-person transfers made without a provider or between providers acting on their own behalf.
It's about time we had uniform EU market rules for crypto-assets! The plenary gave the final green light, by 517 votes to 38 with 18 abstentions, to new common rules on supervision, consumer protection and environmental safeguards for crypto-assets, including cryptocurrencies (MiCA). The draft law informally agreed with the Council in June 2022 includes safeguards against market manipulation and financial crime.
MiCA will cover crypto-assets that are not regulated under existing financial services legislation. Key provisions for those issuing and trading crypto-assets (including asset-reference tokens and e-money tokens) cover transparency, disclosure, authorization and oversight of transactions. Consumers will be better informed about the risks, costs and fees associated with their transactions. In addition, the new legal framework will support **market integrity **and financial stability by regulating public offerings of crypto-assets.
Finally, the agreed text includes measures against market manipulation and to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and other criminal activities. To counter money laundering risks, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) should establish a public register for non-compliant crypto-asset service providers operating in the European Union without authorization.
To reduce the high carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies, significant service providers will have to make their energy consumption public.
The texts will now have to be formally approved by the Council before being published in the Official Journal of the EU and will enter into force 20 days later.
By adopting this legislation, Parliament is responding to citizens' expectations to establish safeguards and standards for the use of blockchain technology, as expressed in proposal 35(8) of the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
"This regulation brings a competitive advantage to the EU. The European crypto-asset industry has regulatory clarity that does not exist in countries like the U.S.," said Stefan Berger, the MEP who led the rules through parliament.
πββ¬ Veefriends
Details have emerged about the long-awaited collaboration between VeeFriends and Snoop Dog, announced at VeeCon last year! And on April 28 the track "Please Take a Step Back" is released, you can register here to hear GaryVee sing with Snoop Dog first. The same date also sees the release of the NFTs collection associated with the track, the release is via the Burn Island platform only and is exclusive to VeeCon 2022 ticket holders. "Please Take a Step Back" can be minted until May 8 by burning tickets, with the size of the collection determined by the number of tickets burned.
Issue #5 of Burn Island ended on April 24 with 278 VF2s burned, more than half burned on the last day alone. The winner will be announced in the next 3-4 weeks after reviewing all the uploaded videos, most of which you can find on social media with the hashtag #VeeFriendsChangeMyMind, worth watching to see the ingenuity of people in the community and their courage to step out of their comfort zone! Cynical Cat has certainly changed his mind about people! We have a few brave ones in the community who posted a video, let's see who finds them first!
βοΈ NFTility
In the 7th edition of the newsletter, our readers could learn about Nike's next venture into Web 3: the launch of the .SWOOSH community.
Those who have been on the alert, or who wanted to go a step further, had the opportunity to sign up for a list to get their own .SWOOSH ID, a username specific to this medium, still in beta.
It comes in the form of a soulbound NFT, or as they like to call it: solebound NFT. It gives owners access to the .SWOOSH community where they can interact with other members and collect digital items, but most importantly, they are in a creative space where they can co-create with Nike. To do this, they have created the .SWOOSH Studio where creators in the community have the opportunity to participate in creative competitions and winners become collaborators.
The folks at .SWOOSH understands the role of communities well and is using the ones already created around the Nike brand to promote .SWOOSH Sessions, a series of IRL campaigns that help raise the visibility of the entire digital industry through educational sessions. So far, these have only taken place in the US, but they promise they will go global.
.SWOOSH ID holders also got their first surprise: 106,453 of them received OF1 posters in their wallets, offering the opportunity to mint the platform's first native collection: The Our Force 1 Collection which is a tribute to the first 50 years of Nike's history, and its transition into the digital realm.
Through the culture born around the designs created, and through the memories imprinted by athletes in the hearts of millions of fans, Nike has succeeded in creating history and nostalgia; .SWOOSH has the opportunity to create the future, together with each of us.
Until next time, I wish you to identify and seize every opportunity you cross paths with.
π Dictionary
- EVM - Ethereum Virtual Machine exists as a single entity maintained by thousands of connected computers running an Ethereum client. The Ethereum protocol itself exists solely for the purpose of maintaining the continuous, uninterrupted and immutable operation of this machine. It is the environment in which all Ethereum accounts and smart contracts come to life. More directly from the source.
πΈ Sale of the week
Back to a monkey from the BAYC collection for 300 ETH. Almost $600k at the time of sale 4 days ago. It had been minted 2 years ago. At 0.08 ETH.
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