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September 13, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Nifty News: DJ Paul Oakenfold to launch album on Cardano, NFL confirms NFTs, and more

October 1, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Cardano

The NFL has official confirmed its partnership with Dapper Labs to drop NFTs, renowned DJ Paul Oakenfold is dropping a tokenized album on Cardano, DC is giving away free comic book cover NFTs.

Cardano’s daggy dad turns DJ

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has teamed up with legendary electronic dance music (EDM) DJ Paul Oakenfold to launch a tokenized album on Cardano.

Oakenfold is a three-time Grammy Award nominee and his career in the music industry spans back to the early 1980s. His upcoming album dubbed “Zombie Lobster” was announced during the Cardano summit on Sept. 27.

Every aspect of the album will be tokenized on the Cardano blockchain, including cover art, tracks, sleeve notes and remixes. The album is part of a release from an NFT project named “Starship Universe”, which is operated by music entrepreneur Alon Shulman, who manages DJ’s such as Carl Cox.

Starship Universe will reportedly release thousands of NFTs on Cardano, as part of the collaborative partnership. “I’m excited to welcome Starship Universe as it lands on Cardano and we open up new frontiers together,” Hoskinson said.

While a release date for the tokenized album hasn’t been set, Hoskinson teased on Tuesday that it is coming soon, after he changed his Twitter profile picture to a photo of himself working a DJ turn-table.

Become a Stoner Cats star

Mila Kunis’s Stoner Cats — the NFT project tied to an animated cartoon series that clogged the Ethereum network during its first drop — is offering two members of the community a chance to feature as guest stars for the second episode.

The audition was announced on Oct. 1 and is calling for people to read lines for two guest characters named “Employee” and “Delivery Guy.” The chosen voice actors will also receive a free NFT from a future Stoner Cats drop, and receive an acting credit on IMDb.

EXCITING NEWS: you can be a part of Stoner Cats episode 2!! directions on how to apply below. winners will also get an NFT from a future drop pic.twitter.com/DNhgjlCXe9
— Stoner Cats (@stonercatstv) September 30, 2021

Wannabe voice actors have until midnight on Saturday (PST) to submit their line reads and must record three different variants of each line.

The Stoner Cats show is voiced by a long list of celebs such as Kunis, her husband Ashton Kutcher, Jane Fonda, Seth MacFarlane, Chris Rock and even Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The first collection of 10,420 NFTs was dropped in July, and sold out within 35 minutes.

NFL confirms partnership with Dapper Labs

The NFL and Dapper Labs have confirmed rumors they are parnering to launch tokenized collectibles.

According to a Sept. 29 announcement, the partnership will see the creation of digital highlight NFTs in a similar fashion to the widely popular NBA Top Shot marketplace.

“The irreplaceable nature of the NFT captures what is special about sports fandom," said Steve Scebelo the President of NFL Players Inc. "Our players are immensely excited for the NFLPA [...] to make this significant push into the digital collectibles market.”

fans, get ready to take @NFL fandom to the next level. We’ve announced a partnership with @NFL @NFLPA to create exclusive digital video highlight NFTs for NFL fans to celebrate the game they love on @NFLxDapper

https://t.co/HoUW3cdEpk pic.twitter.com/ZjcxyBfSOb
— Dapper Labs (@dapperlabs) September 29, 2021

Henry Lowenfels, the chief product officer at OneTeam Partners, who handles digital licensing for the NFL Players Association, said in an interview with GamesBeat they are hoping to replicate the “provenance” of NBA Top Shot with the NFL’s collectibles.

“The games are played pretty much every Sunday during the season, and these moments can be dropped at the same time and be the topic of conversation for the week,” he said.

“I view this as the early innings of blockchain-based products in the same way that people were using the internet in 1993. It was mostly technologists and early adopters of the technology. People want to spend on the things they love,” he added.

DC enters the NFT sector

WarnerMedia’s superhero comic giant DC is giving away free NFTs as part of its upcoming DC FanDome event on Oct. 16.

According to a Sept. 29 report from Variety, DC has partnered with Palm NFT Studio to release tokenized comic book covers depicting superheroes such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn.

“This drop pays homage to our 87-year history while visualizing a future in which NFTs play a foundational role in novel ways of interacting with DC content and unlocking new experiences,” said Jim Lee, DC’s publisher and chief creative officer.

The NFT drop will go live on Oct. 5, and the tokens will be issued to users who register for the free virtual FanDome event that will be hosted on multiple platforms this month including Twitch and YouTube.

Palm NFT Studio chief content officer Matt Mason, told Variety that varying rarity levels “will make the less-common NFTs more valuable, and the entire collection will grow in importance to fans as it becomes clearer that this drop represents the start of an entirely new chapter for DC Comics, and the use of blockchain as a medium for fan engagement and storytelling.”

Roundup

Social media platform TikTok has announced its first foray into the NFT market with a new collection inspired by its leading trendsetters such as Lil Nas X, Bella Poarch, Brittany Broski and Curtis Roach.

Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 30 that Twitter unveiled an in-development tool that will enable users to display a verified NFT as their profile picture.

Mila Kunis’ ‘Stoner Cats’ NFT Sale Pulls in $8M — Animated Series Can Only Be Watched by NFT Holders

July 29, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Cats cause chaos on Ethereum again as Mila Kunis project sells out in 35 minutes

July 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Animated NFT series

Data from Dune Analytics shows there was a total of 344.4 ETH ($793,000) in value lost to failed Stoner Cats transactions.

Tokenized cats have once again caused chaos on the Ethereum network after an NFT project from actress Mila Kunis sold out in 35 minutes.

It echoes the launch of another cat-based NFT project CryptoKitties, which famously gummed up the Ethereum network in 2017.

The launch Stoner Cats was initially delayed by a day after the team found a bug in the underlying art layers. However, the second attempt has been successful and sold out in just “35 meow-nutes” according to a catastrophic pun from Stoner Cats.

We SOLD OUT in 35 meow-nutes!

If you got a TOKEn, drop it here!
— Stoner Cats (@stonercatstv) July 27, 2021

Gas prices soared as NFT collectors snapped up the first tranche of Stoner Cats that had a cap of 10,420 NFTs at a price of 0.35 ETH each, worth roughly $804 at the time of writing. According to the project’s website, another 3,000 new NFTs will be released over the course of the first season.

Decentralized finance analytics firm DeFiprime joked that “as usual cats clogged Ethereum” on Twitter, and shared on-chain data that showed a sharp spike in ETH gas fees ranging between 200 Gwei ($9.50) for a slow transaction and a hefty 709 Gwei ($33.67) for a rapid transaction.

$700k lost in Cats' failed TXs https://t.co/RczxG4xeAh
— defiprime (@defiprime) July 27, 2021

According to data from Dune Analytics, there was also a total of 344.4 ETH ($793,000) in value lost to failed Stoner Cats transactions.

Stoner Cats is an animated series that is backed by NFTs, and the characters are voiced by celebrities including Kunis, Jane Fonda, Ashton Kutcher, Seth MacFarlane, and Chris Rock. The NFTs grant the owner access to watch the show, and the project uses NFT sales to finance its production.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is also a voice actor for the character dubbed “Lord Catsinton” who is described as a “spirit guide.”

lmao someone just paid 5.8 ETH (and used up 20% of a block in gas) for a failed tx trying to mint 20 stoner cats https://t.co/JfvRtiGkm9
— jimmy (@jimmyjames198) July 27, 2021

Investors have now flocked to list the NFTs on OpenSea, and a StonerCat NFT depicting Buterin’s character is currently on sale for 77 ETH worth roughly $177,000 — a percentage markup of around 9500%. An NFT depicting Seth MacFarlane’s character is on sale for 420 ETH, or more than $960,000.

The short lived surge pales in comparison to CryptoKitties however, which famously “broke Ethereum” back in 2017 after its launch was met with overwhelming demand.

Cointelegraph reported in May 2020 that a surprise CrypoKitties drop overwhelmed the Nifty NFT marketplace after an abundance of collectors flocked to the platform and resulted in a series of service issues such as slowness and failed transactions.

NFT animation ‘Stoner Cats’ preps for launch following delay

July 27, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Business

After a false start yesterday, the Stoner Cats team say they're now ready for take two.

A cat-themed animated series, featuring prominent entertainers and personalities from the crypto space, is reportedly back on schedule after an unexpected delay.

Stoner Cats is an NFT series launched by actress Mila Kunis in partnership with CryptoKitties co-founder Mack Flavelle, CryptoPoops NFT creator Jonathan Howard, and others through their recent endeavor Big Head Club. The project is scheduled to launch at 5:00 PM EST today after a false start prevented the tokens from dropping on Monday. The project's NFTs, which feature characters from the show, will allow holders to watch episodes as they're produced and, at some future point, may also allow some form of governance over the studio's production decisions.

"We are ready for the launch tonight and excited,” Flavelle told Cointelegraph, before going on to acknowledge the difficulties experienced during yesterday's not-quite-launch:

"People's time is the most valuable thing they have and we took their time. So I totally understand their frustration."

Yesterday, Flavelle told disgruntled cat fans on Discord that “we f--ked it up” after the team found a bug in the underlying art layers which could have affected the project's NFTs. The group's Twitter account said it was “working on some tech issues” before eventually announcing the sale would be pushed to Tuesday.

Many crypto users were seemingly frustrated at the delay, with some in Europe and Asia reporting they had stayed up late due to the time zone difference for the project that “failed to mint.”

Despite the issues, the project continues to attract a lot of attention due to the involvement of major celebrities including Mila Kunis, Jane Fonda, Ashton Kutcher, Seth MacFarlane, and Chris Rock. All cast members will reportedly be paid in Ether (ETH), including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who said he would donate his pay for the project to the SENS Foundation — a non-profit organization researching the applications of regenerative medicine to aging.

“I think people are starting to understand it’s not about access to the first piece of content,” said Kutcher in a discussion with Howard today. “It’s about access to the ongoing content that will be created as a result of this.”

The actor added:

“Anybody who’s holding the NFT fundamentally has their own theater. They are the owner of the ticket kiosk for the future.”

There will be 10,420 initial cat NFTs available at a price of 0.35 ETH — roughly $784 at the time of publication. The price of Ether jumped to more than $2,400 yesterday but has since dropped to the $2,200s.

The first episode of Stoner Cats — titled "Stoned Awakening" — is set to premiere on July 29, and will be available to participants of today's sale.

Vitalik Buterin to Voice Over in Mila Kunins’ “Stoner Cats”

July 26, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Vitalik Buterin’s surprise cameo in Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ living room

July 22, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher has uploaded a video featuring Vitalik Buterin explaining Ethereum from his lounge room.

Actor and venture capitalist, Ashton Kutcher, has published a video to Twitter featuring himself, his wife Mila Kunis, and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, to explain the project to newcomers

For the first minute, the video shows Kutcher quizzing Kunis on basic terms relating to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in a living area of their home.

After Kunis offers simple one-sentence definitions to explain “crypto,” “blockchain,” and “decentralization,” Kutcher asks for a description of Ethereum. The camera then pans to the right, moving past Kunis to reveal Buterin seated at a table.

Welcome to kutcher kitchen talks EP 1 #KryptoWithKunis #StonerCats #nft #eth ⁦@stonercatstv⁩ ⁦@VitalikButerin⁩ https://t.co/uuejuNJZp9 pic.twitter.com/qd5QUqRn3z
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) July 21, 2021

Buterin launches into a lengthy explanation of Ethereum’s fundamental components, articulating how the smart contract protocol differs from “single-purpose” chains, citing Bitcoin as an example of such.

“Ethereum is a general-purpose blockchain [...] an open platform that allows people to build their own applications on top, and anything built on top of Ethereum is protected and secured [...] by an entire network of thousands of computers around the world,” Buterin says.

“Because [Ethereum] supports a programming language, developers have this unlimited creativity in what kinds of things that they actually create on Ethereum. So you can use Ethereum to create cryptocurrencies, or NFTs, or many other kinds of things.”

Kutcher responded: “Yeah, that makes sense.”

The links and hashtags accompanying the video suggest it was created to promote Kunis’ “Stoner Cats” series of nonfungible tokens. People who buy a Stoner Cats NFT also receive access to stream episodes of Kunis’ animated series by the same name. It bills itself as “The first NFT animated series.”

Kutcher is no stranger to NFTs, having tokenized a notepad scribbling in August 2020, with the physical original being incinerated before the token was put up for auction.

His venture capital firm, A-Grade Investments, has also backed top firms in the crypto space, including payment processor BitPay in 2013 and blockchain security company BitGo in 2014.

Calling the crypto space ‘a very masculine area,’ Mila Kunis launches NFT project

June 18, 2021 Coin Telegraph

animations

Following a deep dive, the actress said she found the crypto space to be "really empowering," which led to the creation of the Stoner Cats animation.

An actress famous for her roles in That '70s Show and Family Guy, Mila Kunis has now launched an animation on the blockchain, which developed from an interest in crypto during the pandemic.

Speaking with comedian Conan O’Brien on his Thursday show, Kunis said she had done a deep dive into cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, during her time in quarantine. However, she was seemingly concerned about the apparent dearth of women in the space.

“I felt like it was a very masculine area — like everybody that I knew that knew anything about it at the time was always a man and I was like ‘this can’t be that hard,’” said Kunis. “I just deep dived into it and surrounded myself with two incredibly smart women that know everything about it.”

The actress said she spoke with women behind the Facebook-backed Libra, now Diem, token project. After learning more about crypto and its role in a decentralized marketplace, Kunis said she found the whole crypto space to be "really empowering," which led to her new NFT project, Stoner Cats.

Partnering with CryptoKitties founder Mack Flavelle and CryptoPoops NFT creator Jonathan Howard through their recent endeavor Big Head Club and others, Kunis described the Stoner Cats project as allowing crypto users to buy NFTs featuring images of cats sometimes drinking and smoking marijuana — recreational cannabis has been legal in California since 2016. The token then allows them to “watch a five-minute long piece of entertainment.”

“Everybody just did [the project] because they thought that it was different and fun and we all wanted to do it for the right reasons,” said Kunis, who voices one of the cats. “It brings ownership of content back to the artist and cuts out the middleman.”

The price of the tokens is not yet listed, but NFT offerings from celebrities have often netted millions in sales. Canadian musician Claire Elise Boucher, better known as Grimes, auctioned off her own line of NFTs in March — users paid $5.8 million for the tokenized artwork in 20 minutes.

According to Kunis, the cat NFTs will be available by early July.

Actress Mila Kunis Reveals ‘I’m Using Cryptocurrencies’ After Getting Into Bitcoin With Ashton Kutcher 8 Years Ago

May 1, 2021 Bitcoin.com

mila kunis