NFT winter? Not so fast. While NFTs had a colder start to the week as some big projects saw selling activity, by the end of the week most mainstream projects held fairly strong. While the past week has been a quieter week than some of the action-packed stories we’ve seen over the past few months, there’s still a lot to review.
Let’s take a look over everything that happened in the wild world of NFTs over this past week.
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
OpenSea Adds ERN
In last week’s Nutshell, we covered OpenSea’s massive volume boom lately. This week, OpenSea added support for Ethernity Chain token ERN. The token joins the ranks of USDC, ETH, and DAI.
The Hottest Loot In NFTs
Emerging NFT project Loot has smashed it’s way into the top three in volume charts this week. Loot was brought to market by former Vine creator Dom Hofmann and has been all the rage in NFT discussion this week.
Part of the draw to Loot is it’s ambiguity. Users are paying only for gas fees, and are receiving a list of “randomized adventure gear” as part of an NFT game. No images, no stats, no descriptions. The floor price for Loot is already in the thousands of USD, and nearly a quarter billion dollars worth of sales have already occurred. Safe to say things move quick in the NFT space.
Despite no established game rules yet, a massive community is already being formed around Loot.
CryptoPunk Creators Larva Labs Sign Agency Deal
Larva Labs have created an unbelievable legacy with CryptoPunks. Now, the Punks IP (along with others in the Larva Labs umbrella) are headed to Hollywood.
Larva has signed with United Talent Agency (UTA) in a deal that will include representation for opportunities across film, television, video games and publishing projects.
Don’t be too shocked if you see a CryptoPunk on the big screen one of these days.
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Andy Milonakis Is All-In
Our team at Bitcoinist has been covering the early journey of Andy Milonakis’ exploration into NFTs. Andy purchased his first NFTs this week, and went on his Twitch livestream to discuss. Check out this and more from our latest coverage on Andy’s expedition here.
NFTs Help Power MetaMask And Solana Growth
Two stories this week that we covered here at Bitcoinist show the impact of broad market growth for NFTs.
First up is MetaMask, who recently crossed 10MM daily active users. MetaMask has become a popular tool for both NFT and DeFi consumers in crypto.
Solana broke into uncharted territory this week, with NFTs to credit as well. The token surpassed Dogecoin in market cap, and there are now over 36 unique projects building on the SOL blockchain.
When The Pranksy Becomes The Pranked
Earlier this week, prominent NFT collector Pranksy placed a bid of nearly 100 ETH on a fraudulent auction for art of popular artist Banksy.
An anonymous individual notified Pranksy on Discord that the sale was likely to potential hackers. Surprisingly, within a matter of hours, fraudsters returned the funds to Pranksy after it seemed that Pranksy identified the hacker and followed them on Twitter. It is likely that the pressure Pranksy was applying in looking for the fraudster was enough for them to return the funds.
Check out the full story from our coverage earlier this week here.
Blockchains such as Solana (SOL) have found strong footing thanks to crypto communities, particularly around DeFi and NFTs, that have found immense value in the chain's technology. | Source: SOL-USD on TradingView.com
Crypto Exchange OKEx Announces NFT Marketplace
While OpenSea has dominated the NFT marketplace positioning to date, don’t expect other traditional crypto players to sit idle. Growing crypto exchange OKEx announced a move of their own this week, creating a new NFT marketplace. The market will allow users and creators to select their own royalty fees, and users can buy, sell, and trade their NFTs with no commissions or fees for the platform.
OpenSea certainly has established a “first-mover” advantage to the market. Can other marketplaces beat out cost-efficiency and user interface to aggressively position themselves against OpenSea? Only time will tell.
When The Croissant Speaks… We Listen
Our good folks over a sister network NewsBTC covered a great piece on sentiments from pseudonym analyst CroissantETH. The croissant’s theory? That GameStop could leverage Ethereum-based NFTs to onboard millions of users onto their upcoming NFT platform, as the gaming company looks to be the “Amazon of gaming.”
Grab a plate and check out the full story on the croissant’s perspective here.
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Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com