One of the top memecoins in recent years is rallying after the announcement of a new free-to-play blockchain game. ApeCoin (APE), a memecoin associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT) collection, APE hit a high of $1.67 and a low of $1.44 on January 17th – a difference of approximately 16%. APE […]
The post Ethereum-Based Altcoin Leaps 15%+ in Hours After Announcement of a Free-To-Play Game for the Ecosystem appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Google Trends data shows interest in NFTs has waned, even as trading volumes are surging, while Korean multinational giant Lotte has partnered with Polygon.
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creators Yuga Labs has announced a new NFT collection on Bitcoin dubbed “TwelveFold.”
The move was announced via Twitter on Feb. 28, with Yuga Labs unveiling 300 tokenized computer generated artworks as part of the TwelveFold collection that will go up for auction later this week.
Introducing TwelveFold. A limited edition collection of 300 generative pieces, inscribed on satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain.https://t.co/aFWEIhzqcI pic.twitter.com/PjWABKKBr4
— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) February 27, 2023
In an accompanying blog post, Yuga Labs explained the concept behind the collection is based on mathematics, time and the Bitcoin blockchain.
“TwelveFold is a base 12 art system localized around a 12x12 grid, a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain,” the post reads, adding that:
“Satoshis are the smallest individually identifiable units of a Bitcoin. An inscribed satoshi can be located by tracking when that satoshi was minted in time via the Ordinal Theory protocol.”
“Inspired by this, our collection explores the relationship between time, mathematics, and variability,” it explained.
Yuga Labs cited the recent buzz around Bitcoin NFTs, or Ordinals, as the reason why it chose to drop a collection on the network.
“Stepping into the Ordinals Discord a month ago felt like getting a glimpse of the 2017-era Ethereum NFT ecosystem. It’s the type of energy and excitement we love at Yuga,” the firm stated.
Yuga Labs is launching an Ordinal Inscription collection on Bitcoin.
— Eric Wall | Taproot Wizard #2 (@ercwl) February 27, 2023
The instructions on how to acquire them involves running a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, requires an empty Bitcoin address, and all bids will be in bitcoin.
They also provide a guide to Bitcoin UTXOs. pic.twitter.com/NQJeZQaagp
According to Google Trend data, search interest for NFTs has fallen to levels not seen since early 2021 — before the NFT boom — suggesting interest could be waning for nonfungible tokens.
NFT trading volume data from February however, suggests otherwise.
Google Trends uses a metric of 0-100 to display interest in various keywords that people look up in its search engine. Between Feb. 19 and Feb. 25, the keyword “NFTs” scored a mere seven out of 100.
Such levels haven’t been seen since early-to-mid January 2021, while it has been a steep decline since the all-time high of 100 between Jan. 23 and Jan. 29, 2022.
NFT trading volume in February paints a different picture however.
According to data from CryptoSlam, there has been $997.14 million worth of global NFT sales for the month, following on from the $1 billion posted in January.
These levels bring the NFT market back to that of June 2022 and its $982 million worth of sales, before dipping to a low of $460 million in October 2022.
More recently, sales volume has been on a significant incline, with the launch of the trader-friendly marketplace Blur being a key contributor behind this.
The man who won the Golden Key NFT for posting the highest score on the BAYC-affiliated Dookey Dash game has sold the token for 1,000 Ether (ETH), or roughly $1.63 million.
Twitch streamer Kyle Jackson, also known by his pseudonym Mongraal online, initially received the key on Feb. 16 after notching a hefty 928,522 points during the Dookey Dash competition hosted by Yuga Labs.
Wasting no time, Mongraal announced on Feb. 27, that he had agreed to sell the key to Adam Weitsman, BAYC NFT hodler and CEO of scrap metal shredding company Upstate Shredding.
I have agreed to sell the key for 1000 ETH to @AdamWeitsman. Super nice guy and thrilled the sale went through with him.
— Mongraal (@Mongraal) February 27, 2023
A special thank you to @yugalabs for hosting an incredible competition. I look forward to competing in future events. Royalties will be paid in full.
1/2
The Golden Key is bound to unlock something special from Yuga Labs, however, the specific details have not yet been revealed.
Polygon Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Ethereum-layer 2 scaling network Polygon, has partnered with South Korean multinational conglomerate Lotte Group to host the firm’s NFT projects.
According to a Feb. 27 announcement from Lotte’s marketing and NFT hub, Daehong Communications, the partnership will see Lotte’s avatar-based NFT project BellyGom ported over to Polygon from the Klatyn network.
The project will be rebranded as BellyGom season 2, and the NFTs offer hodlers benefits relating to Lotte’s product and service lines such as shopping discount coupons and hotel vouchers. New additionally benefits have been teased moving forward, but details were sparse in the announcement.
Lotte has nearly 100 different business units across areas such as fast food, candy manufacturing, electronics and hotels. As of September 2022, the firm is estimated to have around $15 billion worth of assets on its balance sheet.
Looking more broadly, the firm has outlined intentions to develop its Web3 initiatives in partnership with Polygon, as Lotte looks to expand its NFTs to a global audience and develop “a new NFT business model rather than simply issuing NFTs.”
Related: Blur runs after OpenSea market share, but its success depends on upcoming governance proposals
The move adds to Polygon’s growing list of partnerships with major brands such as Startbucks, Adidas, Adobe and Prada.
According to a survey from metaverse platform, Metajuice, almost three out of four of the NFT collectors on its platform purchase NFTs for status, uniqueness and aesthetics.On the other hand, 13% percent of the survey participants said that they are buying NFTs to resell them in the future.
A group of well-known Japanese tech companies agreed on Feb. 27 to forward the creation of the “Japan Metaverse Economic Zone. Along with creating the Japan Metaverse Economic Zone, the agreement focuses on building an open metaverse infrastructure called “Ryugukoku,” which will spark the next wave of metaverse development.
Donald Trump’s NFT collection started out strong but then started looking lifeless up until a few days ago.
Former United States President Donald Trump’s nonfungible token (NFT) trading card collection has witnessed a massive resurgence in daily sales volume in recent days.
Compared to Jan. 17 sales volumes, Jan 18. and Jan. 19 saw spikes of 800% and 600% respectively, according to market metrics aggregator Cryptoslam.
Some pundits believe the renewed interest could be due to his imminent return to social media networks, following reports that the former president was seeking to rejoin Facebook and Twitter ahead of the 2024 presidential election campaign.
NFT Watch: Trump Digital Trading Cards see 88% increase in floor price in the past 24 hours following news of his plans to return to Twitter.
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) January 19, 2023
: https://t.co/P6W2uHx0Sr pic.twitter.com/IJogZR6yR4
The collection of 45,000 self-themed trading cards was launched on Dec. 15 and initially priced at $99 each.
Buyers of the collection were automatically entered into a sweepstake which included “1000s of prizes,” including one-on-one dinners, zoom calls and rounds of golf with the former President.
They quickly sold out and recorded daily sales volumes of over $3.5 million, but then plummeted to a baseline of around $26,000 by the end of 2022.
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs has blocked secondary trading of its “Sewer Pass” NFTs on marketplaces that do not fully support creator royalties.
Wow not only is Yuga Labs blacklisting Blur they have also blacklisted LooksRare, SudoSwap, and NFTX. Royalty war is heating up. https://t.co/afAnovk9ND pic.twitter.com/UEd3dtw0w4
— Simon Cousaert (@Merkle3_) January 18, 2023
The NFT project was first announced on Jan. 12 and became available for minting on Jan. 17.
Only Bored Ape Yacht Club or Mutant Ape Yacht Club holders are able to mint the Sewer Pass, which acts as an entry pass to its new skill-based NFT game, called Dookey Dash.
The sewer is open. Sewer Pass holders, go to https://t.co/ItKXBwrs9t to Dookey Dash as many times as you want until February 8th. pic.twitter.com/3h0qaKggKJ
— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) January 19, 2023
A royalty is a fee which is taken from the price of a sale and sent to the content creator, and Yuga Labs has been vocal about its opposition to broader shifts within the market to royalty-free marketplaces.
The Sewer Pass has seen a high volume of trades on secondary marketplaces, with a floor price of 1.81 ETH ($2,809) and sales volumes of 15,627 ETH ($24,267,411) according to data from NFT Price Floor.
Based on Yuga Labs’ 5% creator royalty fee, secondary sales for the collection have already netted them revenues of over $1.2 million.
Virtual pet website Neopets — which was popular throughout the 2000s — has raised $4 million from the gaming and blockchain investors with plans to create its own metaverse.
Some of the companies providing the funding are venture capital firm Polygon Ventures, investment firms HaskKet Capital and IDG Capital, gaming company NetDragon Websoft and Avalanche's development fund Blizzard Avalanche Ecosystem Fund.
According to the announcement, ‘Neopets Metaverse’ will be a play-and-earn virtual pet game based on the original, and would allow players to “raise, care for, customize, and battle with their Neopets” on the blockchain.
In the announcement, HashKey Capital’s investment director Xao Xiao notes: “We believe that GameFi plays a crucial role in the larger metaverse narrative, serving as the interactive layer in the value chain and a key driver of traffic across web 2 and web 3.”
Neopets was founded in 1999, and the company is hopeful that Neopets Metaverse will bring “the magic of Neopets in a positively fresh light to old-time players, as well as attracting and nurturing a new generation of Neopians.”
The community has had an underwhelming response to the announcement, with some suggesting its previous effort at creating a Neopets metaverse had been a flop.
actually hilarious news on the migration considering being based on solana was one of their main selling points to avoid the environmental controversy. desperate rats trying to squeeze something out of a big fail
— no (@RED0KT0BERFEST) January 16, 2023
The company had initially launched an NFT collection using the Solana network on Nov. 12, 2012, which allegedly went so poorly it resulted in the hashtag #NoNeoNFT trending on Twitter.
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have created a pair of haptic gloves which it believes can bring the sensation of touch to the metaverse.
The invention, called the HaptGlove, is an untethered and lightweight glove that will allow metaverse users to interact with virtual objects in a much more realistic fashion by conveying touch and grip.
When users put on the HaptGlove, they are able to sense when their virtual avatar’s hand touches something, as well as tell how hard and what shape the object is as a result of the HaptGlove restricting the user’s finger positions.
NUS claims that the HaptGlove will also be useful in other areas, such as education and medicine, by allowing surgeons to prepare for surgeries in a “hyper-realistic environment” or giving students a hand-on learning experience.
While the concept of haptic gloves is not new, for example Meta is working on their own version of them, NUS claim that theirs is able to provide users with a much more realistic sense of touch compared to others that exist today.
Those working on metaverse games have suggested that as virtual reality is such an immature technology, it is difficult to incorporate it into metaverse products, so existing games like The Sandbox and Decentraland are yet to fully incorporate virtual reality clients.
On Jan. 18 NFT marketplace Rarible announced that it would be expanding its marketplace builder to include Polygon-based NFT collections. The builder will allow artists and projects to customize their own marketplace, with its CEO Alexei Falin believing that community marketplaces would become the future of NFT buying and selling.
Crypto exchange Binance announced on Jan. 19 that it would be tightening its rules for NFT listings, requiring sellers to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and have at least two followers before listing on the platform. The firm plans to “periodically review” NFT listings that do not “meet its standards” and recommend them for delisting.
Foot fetishists and crypto degens have taken interest in an NFT collection boasting 10,000 unique pixelated trotters with over $1 million in trading volume.
Feetpix.wtf’s newly launched nonfungible token (NFT) collection, “Feetpix” has seemingly taken the NFT community by storm with surging trading volumes, prompting some to suggest the return of “degen” season.
Feetpix.wtf’s collection soared ahead of the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) on Jan. 11 with the fifth-highest trading volume recorded on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
The project — which released 10,000 Feetpix NFTs — has traded over 825 Ether (ETH)($1,157,000) across nearly 18,000 transactions since its release on Jan. 8.
Crypto Twitter is still split on what inspired the surge in foot fetish-NFT trading volumes, though Feetpix noted the absence of a roadmap, promise and marketing scheme suggested a “love for feet” is not just legitimate but also clearly monetizable through the use of digital art.
0 Roadmap
— feetpix (@feetpixwtf) January 10, 2023
0 Promises
0 Marketing
0 Paid influencers
1 Common love for feet pic.twitter.com/Z8R8BWTXFh
Several Twitter users highlighted the absurd, short-term success of the project, suggesting a return of “degen szn” (season) which entailed a mass trading volume of high-risk NFT collectibles at the peak of the bull market in 2021.
But even the creators themselves implied something could be mentally wrong with collectors, suggesting buyers “stop buying feetpix” and instead “use that money for therapy.”
Game of Thrones’ highly anticipated "Build Your Realm" NFT collection launch has received a hefty dose of criticism despite completely selling out in seven hours on the NFT marketplace Nifty’s.
The collection was described by the pseudonymous co-founder of Web3 gaming project Treeverse, Loopify, on Jan. 11 as the “worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Game Of Thrones NFT reveal
— Loopify ♂️ (@Loopifyyy) January 11, 2023
this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/sMudsJgP2z
Loopify told their 200,000 Twitter followers in a separate post that some of the avatars possessed “salad fingers.”
NFT enthusiast Justin Taylor shared his criticism with his nearly 60,000 Twitter followers stating the launch lacked “creative vision” and was outright “terrible.”
This Game of Thrones NFT collection is just like the the last season of the show.
— Justin Taylor (@TheSmarmyBum) January 11, 2023
No creative vision and terrible pic.twitter.com/I0v7cXai5N
The first series NFT collection was born from a collaboration between Nifty’s and NFT production company Daz 3D, where each NFT is minted on Palm — an Ethereum-compatible sidechain — allowing collectors to create their own unique realms and avatars.
While the fast sellout came as little surprise due to the popularity of the show, many collectors reported issues with the minting process in addition to the widespread disappointment of the poorly designed avatars.
Yuga Labs — the creative team behind the BAYC — is set to expand its NFT ecosystem with the launch of a skill-based NFT game called “Dookey Dash.”
In order to participate, BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) holders will need to mint a “Sewer Pass” on Jan. 17 in order to start playing the game on Jan. 18.
Apes, stretch your eyeballs and warm up your scroll muscles — lots of new info about next week. Short version: monkey butthole, Sewer Pass January 17, skill-based mint begins January 18, new power sources. Video explainer coming soon, more at https://t.co/h8JXeLkC57, and the pic.twitter.com/bF1h2qAXrM
— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) January 12, 2023
The aim of the game will be to navigate the sewer, claim as many NFT rewards as possible and record the highest score until Feb. 8 when the leaderboard freezes.
“Sewer Pass holders will compete for the highest score and earn their new power source," the BAYC wrote, adding “the highest single-run score on your specific Sewer Pass and accompanying wallet that achieved the run will determine what it reveals."
However, it’s not clear what the prizes will consist of with Yuga stating on BAYC’s Twitter account that prizes will “evolve throughout 2023.”
The four-week Dookey Dash experiment also appears to be the first part of a narrative experience, with segments “It’s Alive!” and “Chapter 1” expected to proceed with the “Sewer Close” on Feb. 8, according to a roadmap set out by Yuga.
Tennis Australia has confirmed it’s still investing in the NFT space, by continuing its Australian Open (AO) Artball NFT collection it created last year as a means to engage NFT collectors and tennis fanatics.
The Artball NFT serves to “leverage live match data to deepen global fan engagement beyond a tournament” through the digital realm, according to the Artball website.
(1)
— AOmetaverse (@AOmetaverse) January 10, 2023
Players ready?
Want to get your hands on the ball that has it all? The #AO23 collection mints soon, with brand new plots on the court and a Membership Multiplier https://t.co/5djxX1Sm1b
Let’s swing into it pic.twitter.com/B3oxu5pfU2
With 6776 Australian Open Artballs sold in last year’s collection, an additional 2,454 Artballs will hit the market in time for the 2023 tournament, which officially kicks off next Monday, Jan. 16 in Melbourne.
According to the website each Australian Open ArtBall is linked to live match data corresponding to a 17cm by 17cm plot on the court.
If a winning shot from any match lands on a collector's plot the NFT metadata will be updated in real time and the collector will be rewarded.
One of the special ArtBalls is Artball SuperSight which enables an entire suite of exclusive 360-degree front-row viewing tools, a 3D stats explorer and personalized streams that has been “custom built” for members.
Collectors will also be in the running to win two free tickets to the equivalent live match in AO24 if their Artball scores a “Match Point” in AO23 in addition to being granted access to “exclusive behind-the-scenes streams.”
Artball minting is currently subject to a waitlist, according to the AOmetaverse Twitter page.
NFT platform Upshot has created a trading tool that scores and classifies wallets based on their trading success, which will enable crypto newcomers to get a closer look into the strategies adopted by successful collectors.
Blockchain security firm SlowMist revealed a sneaky trick scammers used in 2022 to steal NFTs was a “zero dollar purchase” scam where victims were tricked into signing over NFTs for basically no cost in a fake sales order, with scammers able to purchase the NFTs through a marketplace at a price they determined.
