NFTs Weekly News #33- Ecosystem: NFT Warm Up Cluj Event is coming this Friday

Metaventis -

NFT Bucharest is a major Web3 event set to put Romania on the international map. However, its success will only be possible with a joint effort from all stakeholders. The warm-up event held in Bucharest was only the first step; the next is in Cluj, where the date of the main event in October will be announced.

More information about this event and other news from the crypto indutry can be checked in the article below.

Contents

📈 Macro - NFT Cluj;
🗞️ Last week's news - Blend, Sports Illustrated, Alibaba, Sotheby's, Meta, Mastercard, The Sandbox and more;
💰 Investments/Financing - Neowiz, Vibe, NFTGo and AlienSwap;
📣 Projects news/Updates - Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, Opepen, DigiDaigaku, TwelveFold, OnChain Money, GoblinTown & more;
⚖️ Legal - The conviction of OpenSea's former Head of Product for wire fraud and money laundering in an insider trading case 😱;
🐈 Veefriends - "Please Take a Step Back";
⚙️NFTility, by Mtk - Claynosaurz;
📚 Dictionary - 2FA and ATH;
💸 Sale of the week - BAYC #811;

📈 Macro

As much as we would like, Romania cannot be put on the international map without its own major Web3 event. And NFT Bucharest has just the lane to do it. But it can't happen without a joint effort. To make it happen it takes all of us. And you and us and your friends. Man by man. The first step was the warm-up in Bucharest. The next step is the warm-up in Cluj on Friday. There will be NO more warm-ups before the main event. In Cluj we will also announce the date in October.

No matter how successful an individual project or a person may be, for Romania to be noticed from the outside and respected for what it does in Web3, we all need to keep close. We know there are many of us. If we show that now, in bear market, we have a much better chance of being relevant.

Are you from Cluj? We come to your home. Are you from Sibiu, Oradea, Satu Mare, Târgu Mureș, Deva, Timișoara, Brașov, Iasi? Get in a car with some friends. It takes 2-3 hours. We've just announced Sabin Sărmaș as a speaker, who is the chairman of the IT&C committee in Parliament. We'll also have on stage the director of ICI, the first government institution in Europe to launch an institutional NFT marketplace. We'll again have 30 speakers, of which 20+ are announced. We've also got some BIG surprises. Some of them you will find out before NFT Cluj starts, others during the event!

We tell you this: under promise over deliver. You will be proud to have participated in a piece of history. See you in Cluj, frens!

🗞️ News from last week

  • Blur Lending aka Blend, Blur's latest innovation is a P2P lending platform for NFTs. Think of it as a mortgage for your digital assets.

  • Sports Illustrated unveils, an NFT-based ticketing platform on the Polygon blockchain. No more fake tickets!

  • Alibaba has created the Cloudverse launchpad. The platform helps companies create their own Metaverse spaces and virtual experiences using the Avalanche blockchain.

  • Sotheby's auction house launches its own marketplace for digital art. The platform will run on Ethereum and Polygon, and users can pay in ETH or MATIC.

  • Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape, has named a new CTO, Mike Seavers, a former VP of Epic Games.

  • New York-based Neobank Cogni is using Soulbound NFT technology to revolutionize the banking industry.

  • In the fraud trial against former OpenSea employee Nate Chastain, jurors have begun deliberations. Read more in the Legal section.

  • According to a PwC India report, nearly 70% of Indian business leaders plan to integrate Metaverse into their organizational activities.

  • Meta reported a loss of nearly $4 billion from its Metaverse division with Reality Labs.

  • OpenSea Pro enhances the trading experience of ERC-1155 NFTs.

  • RTFKT has begun shipping SZN 1 clothing parcels, and the "un-hubbing" process for Cryptokicks IRL will take place later this month.

  • FTX, filed for bankruptcy, is giving up NFTs worth more than $4 million.

  • Mastercard is partnering with public blockchain developers Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and The Solana Foundation to create new standards called Crypto Credential.

  • The number of Bitcoin transactions has risen to over 2.5 million, setting a new daily record.

  • The digital artist Trevor Jones is offering a free collection of NFTs on Nifty Gateway. The collection, called "Coronation", celebrates the coronation of King Charles III, which took place on 6 May at Westminster Abbey.

  • The Solana Foundation's "NFT Showdown" hopes to attract competitors who want to create collections that offer "real utility" for industries such as fashion, entertainment and gaming.

  • ERM Labs has partnered with The Sandbox to bring escape room experiences to the Metaverse.

  • Palm NFT Studio launches Palm Generative Art Maker, a tool that helps creators produce NFT generative art collections.

  • LACMA Art Museum continues to explore the world of NFTs through the experimental Deafbeef project, which interprets the 19th-century work of Eadweard Muybridge.

  • With the increasing popularity of NFTs in the art world, it is not surprising that the literary industry is exploring the potential of text as NFT. This article will explore the concept of Text NFTs, from books to poetry.

  • Jeremy Cowart created 10,000 unique NFTs in a live show in Nashville.

💰 Investments / Financing

  • Neowiz and Polygon launch $10 million grant program for blockchain game accelerator Intella X.

  • Vibe, a new NFT-to-product platform that helps creators customize and manage their tokens, has raised $4 million in seed round funding.

  • NFTGo has announced that it has succeeded in attracting a $4 million investment. The investment received by NFTGo amounts to more than $10 million.

  • AlienSwap, a community-based marketplace platform and NFT aggregator, has closed a $12 million strategic funding round.

📣 Projects news / Updates

  • Pudgy Penguins announce "The Workbench", the latest chapter in their story. It is full of surprises and hidden secrets waiting to be discovered 👀 click here.

  • Pudgy Penguins is also working with Hollywood talent agency WME to expand into film, TV and games.

  • The NFT Doodles platform has announced the opening of applications for two community oversight positions within Doodle Watch.

  • Jack Butcher announced that Opepen will be using an opt-in mechanism and drops 001 and 002 will take place soon.

  • According to a tweet, DigiDaigaku Bitcoin Ordinals will be available soon.

  • Michael Figge, Chief Content Officer of Yuga Labs, presented updates on the TwelveFold collection.

  • My Neighbor Alice unveiled its 2023 development plan, which includes land sales, multi-chain NFTs and more.

  • OnChain Monkey (OCM) has updated its tier system to prioritize Super Set collectors ahead of the release of the OCM Dimensions mint.

  • In 2018, Nate Alex bought a CryptoKitty NFT for $600,000, but now its value has dropped 99% to just $3,752.

  • Frank DeGods held an AMA in the y00ts Discord and revealed some alpha news.

  • 0N1 Force has announced the formation of a strategic partnership with Horizen Labs Ventures (HLV).

  • The creators of the NFT Goblintown collection are launching Season 2 called Big Inc, offering a 50% discount for those who mint using the $PEPE coin meme.

OpenSea's former Head of Product has been convicted of wire fraud and money laundering in an insider trading 😱 case.

Credits: Nate Chastain

Nate Chastain has earned approximately $50,000 by buying and trading NFTs using knowledge gained from his position at OpenSea.

He was convicted Wednesday of money laundering and wire fraud in a New York federal court, according to Reuters.

Chastain was forced to resign from her position in September 2021 after allegations of insider trading spread on social media. Chastain was accused of abusing his position - which included selecting NFTs to be featured on OpenSea's homepage - to illegally profit.

Chastain made more than $50,000 between June and September 2021 by buying NFTs she knew would be featured on the company's website for a small amount of money and then selling them at inflated prices after the increased attention caused prices to jump, prosecutors alleged. Chastain tried to hide his purchases using anonymous wallets and OpenSea accounts.

Basically, the 32-year-old Chastain was responsible for selecting NFTs to be highlighted on OpenSea's homepage, which usually led to an immediate spike in asset prices.

"Nathanial Chastain exploited his advanced knowledge of which NFTs would be featured on the OpenSea website to make profitable trades for himself," said prosecutor Damian Williams. "While this case involved novel transactions with crypto assets, there was nothing particularly innovative about his conduct - it was a fraud." And I'd add that he didn't even make that much money😆

Prosecutors in the Southern District Court of New York (SDNY) filed wire fraud and money laundering charges against Chastain in June 2022. According to the SDNY, the case against Chastain was the first insider trading case involving digital assets.

A group of more than 300 defense attorneys filed a letter in support of Chastain's motion to dismiss the indictment, saying a finding that confidential business information is proprietary would expand how fraud is prosecuted and "incriminate a wide range of conduct." I think it's pretty obvious that what he did was illegal. Just saying.

After trying and failing to get the case dismissed on procedural grounds, Chastain went on trial in Manhattan on April 24. After three days of deliberations, the jury found Chastain guilty on both counts.

Chastain faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Sentencing will take place on 22 August.

🐈‍⬛ Veefriends

"Please Take a Step Back" is GaryVee and Snoop Dogg's endorsement! The track and collection of NFTs were released exclusively through the Burn Island platform. The mint ended yesterday with no less than 2438 VeeCon 2022 tickets burned. The biggest burn ever!

PTaSB holders will have the opportunity to participate in a Trivia competition from 31 May to 5 June. By burning the token and correctly answering the questions in the shortest possible time they will be entered into the race for prizes in the BAYC ecosystem. The more PTaSBs burned, the more rounds played, the more chances for the grand prize, BAYC#1452!

The participants have been announced on the Community Stage at VeeCon, they have prepared a series of engaging talks and wisdom-filled lectures.

⚙️ NFTility

The entertainment industry is one of the industries that could benefit the most from the integration of blockchain technology. And while so far we've heard a few influential people claiming to want to build the new Disney with NFTs, there are some smaller, quieter people in the industry who, while they haven't expressed ambitions in that direction, have enough cumulative talent under their umbrella that they can do it.

With a team made up of people from renowned creative studios such as Disney, Illumination, Industrial Light & Magic, Marvel, Netflix, Riot Games, Sony and Warner Bros, Claynosaurz's initial stated goal is to create quality content via Web 3 and explore new ways of using intellectual property rights for both this project and future creators.

The team is focused on creating short animations, but they are considering expanding the content to longer formats, or even feature films.

Claynosaurz is a collection of 10k 3D animated plasticine dinosaurs that launched last year on Solana and quickly became one of the most beloved collections by the community, especially after they decided to stay there when the announcement of DeGods leaving Ethereum seemed like it would destabilize the chain.

And if we're talking about the community, people really know how to create a strong one, both through native Web 3 methods (airdrop of Clay and Claymaker collections), but especially through IRL events.

Participants in the live events received an NFT, with each new location coming with its own token or artifact that will have a defined role. Here you can see all the collections created around the project, and because there's more to say than space allows, I'll leave you with a great article from nftnow that will give you a better understanding of why this project is of long-term benefit to the whole industry.

In an era of ever-shrinking attention spans, there's only one way you can stay consistent in the game: by being serious about underpromise & overdeliver, and the folks at Claynosaurz seem to understand that very well.

Until next time, see you at NFT Cluj...the after party I don't know how many of us will survive.

📚 Dictionary

  • 2FA- Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is a security method for identity and access management that requires two forms of identification to access resources and data. In addition to the user and password, another application is required, which automatically generates unique codes. These change every 10 seconds in general. They can be used for anything. In the crypto space for exchanges in general. But they can also be used for access to Discord, mail, Twitter & so on. Among the most commonly used are Google Authenticator and Authy. They are free. And we recommend you use a 2FA absolutely, if you don't do it a little. Even if we're not in the bull market, it's really good to take care of funds.
  • ATH - All Time High. While we're on the subject of bull markets, we're far from ATH. In reference to the price of a token/NFT, it means the highest price that token/NFT has ever had. Relative to parity with a stable currency, $usdt for example.

💸 Sale of the week

No wonder they all tell us that NFTs are "just" those monkey pictures. For 345 ETH (approx $638.250) the one with number #811 was sold.

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