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
📈 Macro - ICI D|Services representatives on the NFT Cluj stage;
🗞️ Last week's news - CS:GO, Coinbase, European Parliament, Marvel Studios, Bluesky, Bitcoin Stamps, Ordinals, Azuki, Vatican Library & more;
💰 Investments/Financing - TinyTap, Find Satoshi Lab, Tribe3, Microsoft & Activision Blizzard;
📣 Projects news/Updates - Yuga Labs, Proof, Doodles, MadLads, Floor App, Mattel, DeGods & y00ts, Renga, OnChainMonkey, Marvel Studios;
⚖️ Legal - Coinbase lawsuit against the SEC ;
⚒️Tools - Gabi writes about Gamma.io;
🐈 Veefriends, by FreeFly - Road to VeeCon;
⚙️ NFTility, by Mtk - Doodles;
📚 Dictionary - Bag holder;
💸 Sale of the week - The monkey with trippy fur;
📈 Macro
As we told you last week that Metaventis would be represented at the CIP Forum, where the first institutional marketplace for NFTs in Europe (if not the world) was to be launched. We were there and want to reinforce that it was a historic event. In the few hours we spent at the Palace of Parliament we can say that we’ve heard the expression NFT spoken by an impressive number of representatives of the Romanian state. And all of them were enthusiastic and happy to contribute to the digitization and writing of history. It seemed to me that they were perfectly aware of the importance of the moment and, what's more, they were also well-informed, so they didn't misspell the word NFT. From the Minister of Digitisation to the Director of ICI, or those of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, Agerpres, romfilatelia, Central University Library or the father of world champion David Popovici to dozens of other people representing the Romanian state raised NFTs on the podium on Wednesday. It's a moment that makes us proud and grateful that both those of us who write this newsletter and especially you who read it are on the right track! The state is with us! Even if just shy, at the beginning of the road.
Why was it a historic moment? In short, not just at the level of ICI or the ministers in the Romanian Government, but beyond that, this achievement was possible even with the agreement of the Prime Minister and published in The Official Monitor.
We write weekly in the newsletter about the NFT ecosystem. We generally write about what's happening out there. But Romania has taken on not just Europe, but the world.
Like a sneak peek into the future? Representatives from ICI Bucharest, the people who were the main actors that set the wheels in motion for the institutional marketplace for NFTs, will be present on the NFT Cluj stage on May 12.
🗞️ News from last week
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Recently, a skin for CS:GO was sold for over $200k in a public auction on Twitter. It seems that gaming skins are just the beginning in the gaming industry, with users preferring to own digital assets rather than rent them.
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"Space Junk," a new animated series starring "Napoleon Dynamite" star Jon Heder and "Workaholics" co-creator, is to be enhanced with NFT technology. This approach is a departure from the traditional methods used by Hollywood.
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Coinbase launches NFT "Stand Strong With Crypto" campaign highlighting SEC regulatory policies.
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The European Parliament has approved rules on the transfer of funds and the licensing of cryptocurrencies.
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David Maisel, the founder of Marvel Studios, has announced the launch of a 1-of-1 NFT digital art collection from his entertainment company, Mythos Studios.
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Bluesky attracts NFT creators, artists, builders, and collectors in the Web3 field.
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Over the past 17 days, the Bitcoin Stamps community has grown at lightning speed. Over 10,000 Bitcoin stamps have been issued on the blockchain, bringing the total to over 18,000 collections.
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IMPLY has published a report entitled Metaverse Platforms to expect in 2023. It's worth taking a look here.
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In addition to Ethereum, there are other popular options for creating and trading NFTs, taking into account cost, security and community. Here's a summary of the most important information about blockchains in the NFT space!
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Recently, nearly 2,000,000 "digital artifacts" have been created using the Ordinals protocol developed by software engineer Casey Rodarmar. This article outlines the many tools and features of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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A guide to Azuki NFTs. Few projects have reached such popular and infamous levels as Azuki.
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Vatican Library uses NFTs for digital archiving! NTT DATA, a global technology services provider, and the Vatican Library have joined forces to digitize the library's vast collection of cultural assets.
💰 Investments / Financing
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Animoca Brands' edtech subsidiary, TinyTap, has attracted $8.5 million in investment.
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Find Satoshi Lab commits to lead with ProDigital Future Fund the strategic funding round of HypeSaintsNFT.
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Tribe3 has secured $2.1 million in funding from major investors for future development, including the public beta launch of the platform on May 3, 2023.
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UK regulators have blocked Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a key move in the development of the Metaverse.
📣 Projects news / Updates
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Yuga Labs has a new CTO as of May 22, Mike Seavers, former Executive Vice President of Development at Epic Games. Former CTO Kerem Atalay will remain with the company as a strategic advisor.
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Proof is collaborating with Mona to create Moonbirds Monaverse, a 3D virtual world for community members. NFT holders will be able to participate in virtual experiences, town halls and art exhibitions.
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For Doodles fans: 'The Stoodio' has been launched, allowing Doodles enthusiasts to create personalized avatars using the Doodles 2 collection. The platform promises a unique experience and beta access starts on April 28.
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Yuga Labs announced on Tuesday new information about Legends of the Mara. In LoTM, the number of Mara workers you can allocate to an Otherdeed will be determined by the Environment Tier held.
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The Mad Lads team managed to fool the scammers who overwhelmed the mint process with bots, leading them to a fake mint that requested a SOL payment worth over $250k.
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Floor App has announced a collaboration with the Solana Foundation to bring Solana NFTs to its portfolio tracking platform.
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A message was left in the block number 666.666 of Bitcoin.
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Mattel has announced the launch of a marketplace. At the same time, the Series 5 launch of the Hot Wheels®️ NFT Garage took place.
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Doodles is teaming up with luxury fashion house BBC Ice Cream to launch a new collection of NFTs. It will be launched this week during the “Something In The Water” festival.
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Non-Custodial staking is available for DeGods and y00ts.
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RENGA Updates: the team gets new members, the YouTube channel is launched, Twitter Space is held weekly, and the game will be updated.
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OnChainMonkey will launch the "OCM Dimensions" collection, a high-end generative art collection on the Bitcoin blockchain.
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Marvel Studios founder David Maisel talks about comics, Stan Lee and NFTs (add-on to Weekly News article)
⚖️ Legal
Coinbase takes another official step to seek regulatory clarity from the SEC for the crypto industry.
In short, on April 24, 2023, Coinbase filed a restraining action in federal court to compel the SEC to do one simple thing: answer yes or no to Coinbase's pending regulatory petition asking the SEC to provide long-overdue guidance to the crypto industry.
This is a July 2022 petition in which Coinbase requested that the SEC use the formal regulatory process to provide guidance to the crypto industry. The regulatory process exists so that agencies can develop regulations with the benefit of public input and have their position tested through judicial review. To date, more than 1,700 entities and individuals have submitted comments to the Coinbase petition, virtually supporting the call for regulatory clarity.
The Administrative Procedure Act ("APA") requires the SEC to respond to Coinbase's petition "within a reasonable time". If the SEC denies Coinbase's request for rulemaking, Coinbase could challenge this decision in court and explain in this formal setting why rulemaking is necessary. Thus, it is important that the SEC and any other agency to which a petition for rulemaking is addressed respond to the petition once the agency has made a decision, especially if the response is negative - otherwise, the public can never exercise its right to ask a court whether the agency's decision was correct.
From the SEC's public statements and enforcement activity in the crypto industry, it appears that the SEC has already decided to dismiss Coinbase's petition, but has yet to notify the public. So Coinbase's April 24 filing simply asks the court to require the SEC to communicate its decision. This step may seem unusual, and it is because usually, this step is not necessary. But it is also unusual for an agency to take enforcement action based on a view of the law that it has not yet formally communicated to the public. _Shame on you, SEC _😝.
Coinbase is not asking the Court to instruct the agency how to respond but is simply asking that the Court order the SEC to respond, which it is legally required to do.
Coinbase doesn't mess around and does well! We all need CLARITY. You can read the rest of Coinbase's arguments here.
⚒️ Tools: Gamma.io
Gamma is a tool for trading Bitcoin-based NFTs, originally created for Stacks NFTs, and later introduced support for Ordinals NFTs.
Gamma provides a platform for creators to launch their own NFTs using their "no-code" portal for Ordinal inscriptions and collection minting.
What are Ordinals inscriptions? In short, these are native Bitcoin NFTs. You can write data per Satoshi directly to the Bitcoin blockchain. This data can be anything from text to an image, and once it's inscribed, it's immutable and stored directly on the Bitcoin Layer 1 blockchain. This makes them incredibly secure and through Gamma you can trade Ordinals just like regular NFTs.
Gamma also offers support for Stacks NFTs, which are secured by Bitcoin and stored on the Stacks blockchain. Stacks is a layer of smart contracts that brings additional functionality to the Bitcoin base layer. This means that through its programmability, it enables development from DeFi to Bitcoin-secured NFTs.
Gamma's no-code platform for Stacks NFTs is extremely user-friendly. This makes it easy to create and launch your own Stacks NFT collections in a short time.
Creators can launch 3 types of collections: Public Mint, Continuous and Editions.
Continuous is best suited for gradually building a collection over time, while Public Mint is ideal for PFP collections and keeping artwork as a surprise. Editions is intended for holders to receive recognition, access, or utility for something outside of the NFT collection itself. Best suited for proof of attendance, tickets to events or experiences, and software licenses for access to a service or platform.
Each collection has its own unique features and requirements, and Gamma charges a 10% commission on initial mint and 2% on secondary sales.
To interact with the Gamma platform, either to collect or to create, you need Hiro Wallet.
🐈⬛ Veefriends
"To burn or not to burn?" This is the question that has been nesting in the minds of VeeCon 2022 ticket holders. The GaryVee and Snoop Dog collaborative track is only available by burning a ticket. So far approx 650 copies of "Please Take a Step Back" have been minted. The mint window remains open until 8 May. The activation has 3 phases, the initial mint which is running now, and 2 more phases where it is necessary to burn one of the newly minted "Please Take a Step Back" tokens. In the next phase, a Trivia contest, the prizes are substantial from the BAYC ecosystem. Each round played requires the burning of a token. The rounds consist of 10 multiple-choice questions, and the questions are from the VeeFriends, Bored Ape Yacht Club, GaryVee, and Snoop Dogg areas. Points are awarded for the speed of answers and correctness of answers.
A new series of Twitter spaces titled "Road to VeeCon" kicked off last week, and community leaders who have applied for the VeeCon Community Stage are invited on stage. The next event on May 3 is focused on working in web3. Follow the official Veecon account to participate in this space.
As for my Road to VeeCon, the other day I had an interview and was accepted as a volunteer at VeeCon, and I also checked off my plane ticket purchase. Two more weeks until the long-awaited event!
⚙️ NFTility - Doodles
"Floor it and gtfo; I'll take the L on this one". That's how Poopie (Jordan Castro) ended a tweet on March 16, explaining why Doodles is (no longer) an NFT project. The message created enough debate on crypto Twitter and became headline news in all niche publications for a short time.
Launched in October 2021, Doodles was the project that gave an extra boost to that year's period known as NFT Summer. Hosted on the Ethereum chain as a collection of 10,000 multicolored avatars, Doodles instantly became a blue chip. Part of this success was also due to the fact that the project promised to be an environment focused on supporting creators in the community. Thus, with the help of the talented people drawn around the project, they can achieve their ultimate goal: to become a Web 3 media and entertainment company.
Since its launch, the project has managed to attract the attention of investors and a few public figures. In the summer of 2022, Pharell Williams became Chief Brand Ambassador; in September 2022 they secured a US$54 MM funding round led by Seven Seven Six; in January 2023 they acquired animation studio Golden Wolf and last week they launched the beta version of The Stoodio, an app where owners can become creators by styling their own avatar.
Doodle continues to build with and for those who want to pull in the same direction, and while Poopie apologized for his message, there was a lot of truth in it: in order to move to the next level of development, NFT projects need to break away from the speculative aspect of the industry and integrate into an economy that can create more value for a very large number of people. Whether the Doodles strategy was right or not, we will only find out when we have enough dots to connect.
P.S: if you're a Doodle owner and have access to The Stoodio, you might not want to miss this. It's coming on May 5.
Until next time, I want you to scribble some doodles on the paper. You never know where creative genius springs from.
📚 Dictionary
- Bag holder - an individual who is left with some tokens or NFTs that he/she doesn't want to give up even though the price has dropped 20 times since ATH when he/she bought it. Even though the team is gone, no one talks about, so on and so forth. Word to the wise, what if it gets there again? No, Endi, the Mekaverse will never reach 8 ETH again. You can sell them :)
💸 Sale of the week
BAYC collection monkey with 'trippy' fur sold for 212 ETH.
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