FTX and Entertainment Giant Dolphin to Launch NFT Marketplace

August 4, 2021 Bitcoin.com

NFT Roundup: Beeple’s We.new Platform, DeLorean DMC-12 NFTs, Jerry Garcia’s Music Art

June 26, 2021 Bitcoin.com

NFT Marketplace Rarible Raises Over $14 Million, Plans to Launch on Flow Blockchain

June 24, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Dapper Labs-backed NFT avatar platform raises $65M in funding

May 4, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Avatar developers Genies are set to launch an NFT marketplace on Flow later this year after closing a Series B funding round with $65 million.

Digital avatar developer, Genies, has raised $65 million to build an NFT marketplace for digital avatars on the Flow blockchain led by several heavyweight investors, including Flow’s developers, Dapper Labs.

SEC filings dated May 3 reveal the California-based company recently closed a $65 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Bond, alongside Coinbase Ventures, Tull Investment Group, Breyer Capital, and Dapper Labs.

The $65 million is slated to fund the development of Genies’ NFT Marketplace, which will allow users to create and trade tokenized avatars, in addition NFT clothing worn by the avatars. Genies expects to launch its marketplace in beta during the third quarter of this year.

In a tweet revealing the funding, Genies stated it hopes to become the single “virtual portable identity across the digital world,” offering users a means to express themselves within the virtual metaverse.

Genies launched in 2017, initially targeting for its avatars to be used on centralized social media and messaging platforms. On April 29, Genies announced it would be teaming up with Dapper Labs to launch a Genies marketplace on the Flow blockchain.

Move over NBA Top Shot @dapperlabs has a new pet project. The Genies Marketplace is on track for a beta release this summer⚡️https://t.co/Oui29g1sqa
— GENIES (@genies) April 28, 2021

In an interview with VentureBeat’s gaming division, Genies’ CEO, Akash Nigam, noted the firm is transitioning to target a broader audience after initially planning to offer celebrities customized avatars to use in the context of digital events and launches.

Nigam stated the platform will host simple and intuitive tools allowing kids as young as six to “create their own digital wearable and goods collection and then release it in the marketplace and sell to the masses as well.”

In March, Genies released a series of NFTs in March commemorating pro-soccer player Mesut Ozil’s move from Arsenal F.C to Galatasaray in the firm’s first foray into nonfungible tokens. The tokens were auctioned on Nifty Gateway, with Genies selling out of 518 tokens for $670 each, or roughly $347,000.

Hip-Hop Legend Eminem Launches Beat-Inspired Animated NFTs for Stans

April 26, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Nifty News: Playboy’s revealing tokens, SNL’s NFT skit sold as an NFT, and more …

April 7, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Playboy bunnies are set to hop into the NFT market, Saturday Night Live sold that NFT sketch for more than $360,000 with all the proceeds going to charity.

Playboy centerfolds will be sold as NFTs after the classic men’s magazine announced a partnership with Nifty Gateway today.

The entertainment and lifestyle brand, famous for its Playboy bunnies, distinctive logo, and the dubious claim that men “only read it for the articles”, is planning to tokenize its art, cartoon and photography archive built up over 67 years, as well as release onew original artworks.

According to a April 6 announcement, the brand does not reveal specific details for its NFT Drops on Nifty, but did state plans to “support emerging and underrepresented artists entering the NFT art community,” with the first set of NFTs to drop in collaboration with former playboy magazine contributor “Slimesunday”, better known as Mike Parisella, and a following drop set for June, with 3D artist Blake Kathryn to create a pride-focused series of NFTs.

Slimesunday X @Playboy coming soon to @niftygateway ☺️ pic.twitter.com/1GXG0z8udY
— slimesunday (@grimemonday) April 6, 2021

Speaking to Business Insider, Rachel Webber, Playboy's chief brand officer and president of corporate strategy, relayed her enthusiasm for adopting NFTs:

"We see the digital asset revolution as an enormous business opportunity, we see huge growth potential in integrating tokens into our streetwear business, our live experiences, and events, creating a social token economy with our network of talent."

"In the first issue of Playboy magazine, there's this line, 'Picasso, jazz, Nietzsche, and sex, those are the four ideal conversation topics for any sophisticated person'," she added. "Right in the core of Playboy's DNA is appreciation for art and for great artists."

SNL’s NFT skit sells as an NFT

Saturday Night Live auctioned off their one-of-one “What the hell's an NFT?” skit for 171.99 ETH worth roughly $360,000 on OpenSea yesterday.

The NFT depicts a 10-second clip of the skit — a comedic rap by Pete Davidson that breaks down tokenomics — with the NFT including two tickets to an episode taping in season 47. The highest bidder was “Dr_Dumpling”, who is yet to re-list on secondary markets and has kept the NFT locked up.

The proceeds will go to a good cause, with the late-night comedy show donating all of the money to Stop AAPI Hate, a non-profit reporting center that responds to incidents of Asain related hate, in light of the escalation in xenophobia and bigotry related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Top college basketballer drops an NFTs

Luka Garza has become the first college basketballer to drop an NFT, after he released a one-of-a-kind for auction on OpenSea yesterday.

The auction is due to close on April 9 and at the time of writing there have been fou bids so far, with the price moving from 0.25 ETH up to the highest bid of 0.67 ETH worth more than $1,400.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA currently prohibits college athletes from profiting from their name, image, and likeness. However, NFTs could now serve as a new revenue stream for graduating athletes, with Garza now free to capitalize after he recently completed his final year of college basketball.

Celebrating winning the Consensus National Player of the Year, Garza’s is dropping an NFT that depicts a collage of his career highlights, which includes an interesting set of real-world bonuses.

The top bidder will be granted the chance to meet the player, play him in a game of HORSE, share a meditation session and attend dinner and a movie. Additionally, the highest bidder receives a lifetime VIP pass to Garza’s future basketball camps and a signed pair of game-worn shoes.

NFTs after the bubble bursts

Peter Wood, CEO and co-founder UK-based crypto trading platform CoinBurp, thinks that NFTs will re-emerge stronger after the initial bubble pops.

During an interview with D-Corp on YouTube yesterday, the CEO drew comparisons to Bitcoin in 2017, when the price hit a peak of around $20,000 before it crashed, noting that:

“People called Bitcoin a bubble back in 2017 right? and when the bubble popped they thought it was the end of Bitcoin A few years later it was stronger than ever.”

Wood conceded that “I absolutely think it’s a bubble”, as he feels the exorbitant prices and sales in the NFT market are being “inflated by these guys who are trying to get into the space and trying to make a quick buck.”

However, he highlighted that booms and crashes are all natural parts of market cycles, and that investment into NFT infrastructure will stabilize the industry moving forward:

“When it does [burst], and it will eventually because every financial market has this decline, what’s actually left behind will be a ton of more investment, like our company, who are building specifically for NFTs. The products don’t completely flourish over three to six months. We’re building the infrastructure now.”

Coinburp’s exchange was founded in 2018, after Wood transitioned from his previous project BitBroker, a UK-based crypto brokerage website.

Lifestyle and Entertainment Company Playboy Plans to Launch NFTs With Nifty Gateway

April 6, 2021 Bitcoin.com

The Weeknd Raises Over $2 Million in First NFT Auction

April 4, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Abel Tesfaye just made around $2.29 million from his collaboration with Nifty Gateway.

The Weeknd Gets Tokenized

Abel Tesfaye, the platinum-selling R&B artist better known as The Weeknd, just made almost $2.29 million from his first NFT collection.

He sold the pieces through Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway, an NFT marketplace that’s recently sold tokenized work by Calvin Harris, Steve Aoki, and Grimes, among others. The collection was put together alongside visual artist Strange Loop Studios, who The Weeknd worked with to develop the creative direction. The collection also featured a previously unheard The Weeknd song.

The drop included three open editions, two silent auctions, and two raffles. The cheapest pieces priced at $100, while others were sold to the highest bidders. The open editions, which featured excerpts of The Weeknd’s unreleased track, raised $1.4 million in a 15-minute sale window.

The auction’s showstopper was a unique token of an animated video accompanied by the full song. Bidding ran for 24 hours and closed at $490,000 on Sunday evening. Adding in the open editions, the auction made just under $2.29 million.

When he announced the drop, The Weeknd said:

“I’ve always been looking for ways to innovate for fans and shift this archaic music biz and seeing NFTs allowing creators to be seen and heard more than ever before on their terms is profoundly exciting. I intend to contribute to this movement and can see that very soon it will be weaved into the music industry’s mechanics.”

NFTs Draw Criticism

Like many other artists who have recently used NFTs to release music, The Weeknd faced a backlash from some fans. Many of the technology’s loudest detractors have presented arguments related to the environmental impact of blockchain technology, often leaning on questionable statistics with little credible evidence to support their claims. Critics have also pointed to the speculative nature of the NFT market, accusing some artists of profiteering from their fans.

Though some of the bigger artists the space has attracted don’t likely need extra income, NFTs could hugely benefit artists with smaller fanbases. Due to the low royalty fees paid from music streaming, many lesser known musicians are dependent on touring for their main source of income. NFTs could change that through smart contracts, allowing creators to sell their work directly to fans rather than waiting until other intermediaries have taken a cut. These smart contracts can also be programmed to pay a portion of the revenue every time an NFT is resold, which is the norm for those listed on Nifty Gateway.

“NFT” stands for non-fungible token, which means that they are interchangeable. When someone trades a Bitcoin for another Bitcoin, the two assets don’t differ from one another. With NFTs, each piece is different. It’s worth noting that more than one edition of the same NFT can be printed, like the open editions The Weeknd released. The difference lies in the data recorded on the blockchain for each piece. This data is the core of an NFT: it’s what proves the owner and scarcity of an asset like a piece of music. NFTs mostly run on Ethereum, which is where part of the criticism for the space comes from. Ethereum uses proof-of-work, a consensus algorithm that places a heavy toll on the environment due to its reliance on computational power. Soon, though, the smart contract blockchain will move towards proof-of-stake, which should significantly reduce its carbon footprint.

With this weekend’s sale, The Weeknd has joined a growling list of artists who have recently cashed in on the NFT space’s growing momentum. The Weeknd has won three Grammy awards, performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, and collaborated with stars like Drake and Daft Punk. Since emerging onto the pop scene in 2012, he’s sold millions of records worldwide. His hit singles include ‘Starboy,’ ‘Can’t Feel My Face,’ and ‘Blinding Lights.’

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.

Nifty News: NFTs go carbon-negative, top banker calls NFT investors gamblers

March 30, 2021 Coin Telegraph

carbon-negative

Nifty Gateway is aiming to become carbon negative while BNP Paribas' CEO likens NFT investing to casino gambling.

The non-fungible token rush has seen every man and his Doge flock to the non-fungible market to cash in on the recent craze for tokenized collectibles. Even celebrities one would presume to have little engagement with crypto assets have been rushing to cash in, with the likes of John Cleese, Tony Hawk, Lindsay Lohan and Ja Rule cobbling together NFTs of varying artistic merit in recent months.

However, surging NFT adoption has led to public backlash over the perceived carbon footprint associated with crypto asset technologies.

Nifty Gateway pledges to go carbon-negative

NFT platform Nifty Gateway announced on March 29 that it has plans to become carbon-negative in the near future.

In a post shared on the website of Nifty investor Gemini, the platform’s co-founders announced plans to calculate Nifty Gateway’s carbon emissions over time and purchase twice as many carbon offsets at the end of each month — theoretically making Nifty a net remover of carbon overall.

While the post acknowledged the environmental concerns regarding NFT proliferation, Nifty’s founders characterized the concerns as the product of double-standards the crypto industry is often subjected to.

“Ironically, because blockchains give the world such a transparent and accurate accounting of the energy consumption of our industry, they provide a tangible number to focus and dwell on, which has led to a double standard being applied to our industry,” the post said, adding:

“There is no blockchain to account for the carbon footprint of the traditional art world.”

Nifty will also deploy a new token minting system that will utilize Ethereum’s recent EIP-2309 upgrade that it expects to improve the energy efficiency of its token creation by 99%.

Defunct music mag to tokenize back catalog into “sustainable” NFTs

Popular music media publication Spin has partnered with corporate liquidity firm Nax to issue NFTs depicting the magazine’s acclaimed photography, claiming the tokens are environmentally sustainable.

Spin, which now operates as a media company after running as a print magazine between 1985 to 2012, will provide its full content archive to be tokenized and collected.

While the two companies have announced they will work to launch an “energy-friendly” NFT marketplace and issuance platform to host Spin’s tokens, the announcement did not make any estimates as to the upcoming platform’s carbon footprint.

Investing in NFTs is like going to the casino: CEO of BNP Paribas bank

During an interview with Bloomberg on March 24, the CEO of French bank BNP Paribas, John Egan, described NFTs among the most “risky categories of assets.”

Likening NFT investment to visiting a casino, Egan urged collectors to only purchase non-fungibles for fun:

“I don’t think we could find many more risky categories of assets at this point. I think it’s probably akin at this stage, to going into the casino. You know you’re going to spend money but maybe you’re doing it for enjoyment, for the experience.”

“If you win, you’ve got lucky and I think it’s the way we need to think about it at this point; it’s in its initial phase,” he added.

Despite the gambling analogy, Egan predicted that NFTs will become a “bedrock economic infrastructure” within the virtual economy over the next decade.

Pamela Anderson hints at upcoming NFTs

Pamela Anderson has been active on social token platform BitClout after becoming verified on March 27. The former Baywatch star is handing out signed copies of her final Playboy magazine cover from 2016 to the three biggest holders of her creator coin.

BitClout is among several platforms that have emerged to facilitate celebrity NFT cash-grabs, enabling influencers to mint “creator coins” for their fans to trade and collect.

Anderson’s coin is currently valued at more than $12,000, with the celebrity hinting that token holders may soon receive an NFT airdrop:

“My sons told me about NFTs — Who knows… I might just give a Pamela NFT to all my coin holders when the time comes ;)”

NFT Criticism Heightens: Skeptic Calls Tech a ‘House of Cards,’ Claims NFTs Will be ‘Broken in a Decade’

March 21, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Nifty Gateway