‘Wild west’ as developers MacGyver highly popular NFTs on Cardano

April 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Even without smart contract functionality, Cardano developers have found ways to mint and sell NFT collectibles.

Despite not yet having functional smart contracts on the layer-one, intrepid Cardano developers have recently hacked together methods to mint bootleg nonfungible tokens. These experiments in hosting unique data on the blockchain are reminiscent of the pre ERC-721 standard era for Ethereum — and, what’s more, so far they’ve proven to be enormously popular with token drops routinely selling out.

In a post on Reddit today, ADA Technology Management (ATM), a staking pool operator for Cardano, revealed what they claimed to be two NFT images they’d minted on the chain. In the thread the company said they were planning to offer NFT minting as a service to pool delegators.

The so-called NFTs come with a number of caveats, however. Because Cardano doesn’t yet support smart contracts or have a NFT token standard, in order to create a NFT users mint a native token one-of-one native token.

“Tokens on Cardano are native and are on the same level as ADA. Instead of smart contracts, so called "minting policies" control the flow of a certain token group. NFTs are basically tokens on Cardano with a quantity of 1,” explained Alessandro, the self-described “brains” behind SpaceBudz, a Cardano-native collectibles project and the author of a Cardano Improvement Proposal to establish a Cardano NFT metadata standard.

@spacebudzNFT sales are starting to get a little bit crazy

Big shoutout to @StaleDev for making this bot! pic.twitter.com/UW7iwCUL6J
— NFT Room (@NFTRoom) March 30, 2021

Developers can then embed in the token metadata a link to an Arweave and/or InterPlanetary File System address where an image is stored. One example NFT shows that the “metadata” section of a mint transaction includes a link to a IPFS address which displays the associated SpaceBud. The end result is a wholly unique token permanently recorded and transferrable on the Cardano blockchain — a NFT by many, if not all, definitions.

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Despite the extra hoops developers have to jump through to create them, the NFTs have proven to be enormously popular with users.

According to Alessandro, SpaceBudz sold out all 10,000 NFTs in just three days at a price of 50 ADA per, and there’s already an eager secondary market where especially rare SpaceBudz have sold for as high as $40,000.

Even before SpaceBudz, CardanoKidz was working on Cardano-native NFTs as early as August 2020. Multiple pre-sale rounds sold out “within hours of launch,” according to Zac, a member of the CardanoKidz marketing team. One Satoshi-inspired Kid sold for 32,000 ADA even before the tokens were minted, and the NFTs themselves went live in late March.

First Full Colour (FC) 001 minted. @IOHK_Charles pic.twitter.com/FThPDvDNZX
— CardanoKidz | Cardano NFTs (@CardanoKidz) April 2, 2021

Zac credits tools like a community-developed token and minting policy tracker for helping to make developers’ lives easier. The official Cardano developers, IOHK, appear to be embracing the new vertical as well, as lead engineer Polina Vinogravoda gave a quick tutorial on minting NFTs on the chain on Tuesday.

A host of other projects round out the upstart ecosystem, including CryptoPunk-inspired CardanoBits, and minting platform CNFT. While still rudimentary, the NFTs on Cardano are cheaper than those on Ethereum as well: minting a native token costs roughly 2 ADA, or $2.50.

While the developers working in this nascent community have managed so far, ultimately they’re excited for smart contracts to make their lives easier.

“We can’t wait for smart contracts to arrive for more functionality but we had JUST enough tools and experience to make NFTs work on Cardano,” said Zac. “It’s been an incredible journey so far.”

Collectibles giant Funko shares surge after acquiring NFT app Tokenwave

April 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Among the first publicly-traded companies to jump on the NFT bandwagon, they won't be the last

In a flurry of price action reminiscent of 2017 mania, shortly after announcing that they had acquired NFT display and tracking platform Tokenwave, pop-culture collectibles giant Funko’s stock (NYSE: FNKO) rallied over 20%.

Unlike many price-pumping announcements heavy on hype and sparse on content from the last bull run (and the dozens inevitably to come over the next few months), Funko and NFTs may be a perfect fit, however.

On Thursday the creator of the widely popular Funko Pops collectibles line announced in a press release that they had acquired a majority stake TokenWave, the developers of the TokenHead NFT app built on the WAX blockchain. The release notes that the investment is their “initial entry into the NFT market,” and that the company will be releasing digital collectibles at a $9.99 price point starting in June.

Additionally, the company has physical-and-digital hybrid products in the works, such as pairing the “rarest of the Funko NFTs with exclusive redeemable Funko Pop!s.” The company will also be leveraging its extensive licensing agreements — an increasingly important source of NFT platform traction.

The company’s stock rallied as high as $24.81 on the news on Thursday before retreating into the afternoon. FNKO stock closed at $20.96 per share, up 6.5% on the day and over 100% on the year.

When reached by Cointelegraph, a representative for Funko declined to comment.

The move should be familiar to industry veterans. At the tail end of the last bullrun, multiple companies, such as Kodak, saw massive stock price increases following blockchain-related announcements. Given the spate of C and D-list celebrities looking to make a quick buck on NFTs, it was inevitable that companies would follow suit.

Funko may well be an exception to the rule, however. NFTs are an ideal collection vehicle, and digital collectibles provides a new way for the company to connect fans to brands, meaning that the company could have staying power in the blockchain space. Likewise, Funko's chosen platform, WAX, has already seen some success with licensed NFTs, including with a recent Godzilla vs. Kong release.

Nilicoins, Rare Pepe and Curio Cards- A Look at the OG Collectibles That Started the NFT Madness

March 28, 2021 Bitcoin.com

MoonCats users are voting to destroy the keys to its final 160 ‘Genesis’ tokens

March 22, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Axie Infinity

The MoonCats community are worried its final 160 "Genesis" collectibles will all be accumulated by bots, with more than 70% voting to destroy the tokens' private keys.

MoonCats, the long-dormant tokenized collectibles platform that was re-discovered earlier this month, now has a problem on its hands — trading bots.

MoonCats collectibles depict 8-bit cats that live on the moon that can be traded or "adopted" by users. The project was launched on Aug. 9, 2017 by developer Ponderware, with a hard limit of 25,500 MoonCats set to be created through a process similar to Ethereum mining.

However, the MoonCats community is now fearing the upcoming release of the final 160 Genesis cats may be hijacked by trading bots, with users complaining that Mooncats has become overrun by bots programmed to accumulate new cats the moment they can be purchased.

MoonCats was rediscovered earlier this month amid the booming growth of the NFT industry. When collectors recently became aware of the project, it was reported that MoonCats NFTs were going for between $50 to $200. However, prices have since increased rapidly, with MoonCats now trading for 1 ETH on averag.

The most sought-after breed of tokenized space cats are “Genesis MoonCats” — tokens that were among the first 256 mined on the platform. A Genesis MoonCat sold for 100 ETH worth roughly $180,000 earlier this month.

With the final 160 Genesis cats currently awaiting release and the MoonCats community fearing they may be all bought by bots, Ponderware is looking to the MoonCats community to decide how to proceed next.

On March 17, the developer launched a smart-contract poll for MoonCats users asking: "Should the MoonCatRescue developers destroy their private key so that no future Genesis MoonCats can ever be released?”

A “yes” outcome will prevent Genesis MoonCats released in the future, as the private key to the wallet holding the cats will be deleted. A “no” outcome will see the private key preserved and further discussions between Ponderware and the MoonCats community to establish a "fair" method for distributing the final Genesis cats. The developer stated:

"A fair distribution of those cats may prove technically, socially, and/or economically impossible. We will work with the community to meet the challenge, but it is likely to be a complex and drawn-out issue."

As of this writing, the poll shows that 72% of respondents are in favor of destroying the private key, while 28% are opposed.

Bots have been causing problems across the NFT space for many months. On Feb. 26, NBA Top Shot was forced to delay the launch of their Premium Pack due to high levels of botting activity on the platform. Dapper Lab’s CEO, Roham Gharegozlou, addressed the delay, noting the firm is not interested in quick sellouts generated by trading bots.

every decision has tradeoffs, and we'll always prioritize real fans – i am sorry for the delayed drop today i know 100k+ of you were super excited, but for many this will be their first rare pack drop in @nba_topshot – we didn't want a super fast but unfair sellout https://t.co/6npaHKbd92
— Roham (@rohamg) February 25, 2021

In March 2020, the Ethereum-based collectible game Axie Infinity sought to discipline botting activity by issuing 30-day bans for any accounts associated with the use of bots.

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