Page One #31
A day late, but Page One is back again. We’ve seen a string of hacks and compromises in the NFT space this week including Zeneca’s Twitter account and PREMINT’s webiste. Yuga Labs said their security team has been tracking a “persistent threat group that targets the NFT community,” warning everyone to remain vigilant about what you click on. So, remain vigilant about what you click on. Read the transaction type on MetaMask and use contracts when possible, especially for garbage mints. Keep your jpegs safe.
As always, thanks for reading, subscribe above, come hang out below and let me know what I missed on Twitter.
TLDR:
Factura reignites interest in GM Studio collections
Gangster All Star begins rolling out details
Goblintown prepares the burger bait
Kingship dips on reveal before regaining ground quickly
Moonbirds Oddities set to hatch today at 12PM EST
Nina’s Super Cool World kicks off GODA’s portfolio
Pudgy Penguins announce toys with IP licensing
The Otherside sees 4,500+ take the First Trip
Rugrats & Hey Arnold headline Nickelodeon’s new market
STEPN makes Ethereum debut with new Shoeboxes
Tableland Rigs usher in decentralized data storage
wassieverse mints July 29 (for real this time)
Webaverse announces Metadrop launch details
News and Notes:
Factura reignites interest in GM Studio collections
GM Studio released its newest collection, Factura by Mathias Isaksen, on the 16th. Defined by rigid shapes and lines arising from a grid, the 999 piece collection found success on the secondary market almost instantly, reaching a floor above 3Ξ at some points over the weekend. Its release brought attention back to the first three collections from GM Studio - Plasticity, Mind the Gap, and Kōripo, all of which saw increased trading volume and rising floors over the weekend. While Art Blocks is the first platform that comes to mind when you think about generative crypto art, GM Studio has quickly made a name for themselves in the space.
Goblintown prepares the burger bait
The next phase of Goblintown’s master plan will start sometime over the next two weeks, according to a typically illegible teaser they posted on Twitter last week. The post contained a photo titled “grumpl trap reeserch” which displayed a burger in front of a cage-like trap. It implies that multiple burgers may be used to increase the trap’s effectiveness. While we can likely assume that burgers will need to be burned in this process, what exactly is being trapped is unclear. Goblins and burgers both saw increased volume after the post, although they’ve slid back down to around their prior floor prices. Expect more info over the next week or so.
Moonbirds Oddities set to hatch today at 12PM EST
Nearly two months after they were airdropped to nested Moonbirds, the Oddities are set to hatch. Little is known about them, besides the fact they were designed in collaboration with Nouns and Cryptoadz artist Gremplin. Their reveal nearly coincides with the first opportunity for Moonbirds holders to earn a silver nest, which requires 90 straight days of nesting. The Oddities reveal will be livestreamed on Twitter today at 12PM EST.
Pudgy Penguins announce toys with IP licensing
Pengoos will soon grace toy store shelves. The Pudgies struck a partnership with manufacturer PMI, who have worked with Fortnite, Nerf and others, to produce a line of toys that will debut around Q4 2022. Holders interested in including their penguin made into a toy can submit a licensing form on here, although only a few select Pudgies (and Lil Pudgies) will make the cut. The penguins traded up on the news, briefly reaching 3Ξ floor price late last week. The announcement comes ahead of their one-year anniversary on the 22nd - which could feature additional surprises, judging from this tweet.
The Otherside sees 4,500+ take the First Trip
Yuga Labs gave us a look at their impressive metaverse over the weekend as over 4,500 Otherside holders ventured into the browser-based game for the first demo. The First Trip saw players explore a bit of the environment, meet their (larger than expected) Koda friends and work together to complete a few different objectives. The demo was well received, and while many will continue to shrug off Yuga’s progress, it is undeniably an impressive feat. The “group selfie” above showcases the sheer scale, which reportedly ran smoothly despite its huge player count. Alongside the demo, they released a litepaper detailing the goals, engine, ODK, and more - read it here. Check out a video of the demo here and read Degentraland’s Otherside thread for a breakdown of the litepaper.
Recent Launches:
Kingship dips on reveal before regaining ground quickly
After minting last week and running up to a high of 0.35Ξ pre-reveal, Kingship revealed on Tuesday. Each token has a tier and features one of the four band members, while rares are bestowed with a signature. The collection dropped to a low of ~0.13Ξ after reveal but rebounded rather quickly, currently sitting within its pre-reveal range. Collecting each of the four band members grants access to their lounge in the sky - presumably the Kingship - but the benefits of this remain unknown.
Nina’s Super Cool World kicks off GODA’s portfolio
The first project from the Gallery of Digital Assets, Nina’s Super Cool World sees renowned painter Nina Chanel Abney embrace NFTs as a way to connect with a community of collectors in new ways. Since starting her art career over 15 years ago, Nina has created dozens of pieces that sit in collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Super Cool World features her characteristically large-scale, colorful style and each piece is can be viewed as a profile picture on the GODA website.
Rugrats & Hey Arnold headline Nickelodeon’s new market
Nickelodeon brought a dose of nostalgia to the market with their Rugrats & Hey Arnold collection on Tuesday. The collection, launched alongside their own marketplace, sees 12 characters from across the two shows sporting a variety of goofy traits. The marketplace and collection were launched in collaboration with Recur, a web3 infrastructure company that has worked with legacy brands like Care Bears and Hello Kitty in the past. About 3,000 tokens have been withdrawn from the Nickelodeon marketplace and are tradable on OpenSea and other sites.
STEPN makes Ethereum debut with new Shoeboxes
In an effort to expand their community and encourage participation, the popular move-to-earn protocol STEPN has come to the Ethereum blockchain by means of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Ape holders were eligible to claim a free STEPN shoebox last week, each containing a shoe with random traits. The protocol has found incredible success on Solana and BNB and hopes to replicate it while finding new opportunities on Ethereum. Read more about the new APE Realm in their Medium post here.
Tableland Rigs usher in decentralized data storage
These desert-trekking automobiles hide something beneath their Mad Max-esque apocalyptic appearance. The debut NFT collection from Tableland, Rigs function as a unique ticket to their community of coders, builders and teachers. Tableland is a protocol for creating decentralized relational databases, enabling on-chain items like NFT metadata to be stored in a trustless, decentralized fashion without sacrificing mutability. Owning a rig allows holders to earn badges through coding, learning or validating the network. While it’s a bit technical to explain here, Tableland pursues the lofty goal of decentralizing blockchain data - that is, freeing it from AWS servers - while increasing its usability. Read more in their docs here.
Upcoming Launches:
Gangster All Star begins rolling out details
After months of hype-building on Twitter, Gangster All Star has opened their Discord to the public and will begin rolling out more details about their mint in the coming weeks. Founded by lead artist Duang and lead developer 0xInuarashi, GAS is an anime avatar collection comprised of 50 gangs, each with distinct characteristics. The project’s primary objective is to create a long-running manga series featuring characters from the collection and building upon Duang’s 2014 release Blackboy. Follow their socials for more info regarding the mint as it is released.
wassieverse mints July 29 (for real this time)
The development problems that caused their early-June mint to be delayed have been solved and the wassieverse is ready to welcome the world. Lil shid and team have Canvas, their photo-booth experience, up and running in demo form right now and minters will be able to use their wassies in it on mint day. Canvas is the first of their planned experiences which include wassie bull riding and pinball, while AR, VR, and v-tuber wassies will follow.
Webaverse announces Metadrop launch details
The next generation of the composable metaverse will be coming to an internet browser near you soon. Webaverse has provided a few more details surrounding their upcoming mint, although a price and date are yet to be announced. The Season Pass NFTs will be released on Metadrop in two phases, with 10,000 tokens allocated to allowlisters and raffle winners and 10,000 tokens allocated to a one-day public auction. Webaverse is an open-source metaverse creation tool, putting the ability to craft worlds in the hands of its community. They are creating their own world known as Upstreet but also plan to assist partner projects in the creation of other worlds. Read a bit more about Webaverse in this thread and look out for more details soon.
NFT Market Overview:
Although it hasn’t been the most entertaining few weeks, the market has been humming along at a steady pace since finding a local bottom in early June. The Nansen Blue Chip 10 index illustrates this bottom particularly well, as it is up nearly 50% since. Volume doesn’t look dreadful, at least when measured in Ethereum - we’re sitting around the same levels as November ‘21. When measured in USD, though, things still look rather bleak. Total volume in the month of June was painfully low compared to May and the months before and volume in July looks like it won’t even match June.
It’s hard to say when increased volume might return and impossible to predict whether we’ll reach Q1 levels within the year, but coin prices have taken a turn to the upside and that could embolden some to venture back into the jpeg market. A number of high-profile projects have abstained from announcing a mint date despite seeming rather prepared to launch, potentially signaling they are waiting for the dust to settle a bit more. The debut of some exciting, big-name projects is one of the best bets on returning volume, so maybe things do start to look up sooner rather than later.
Other Stuff Happened/ing
NFTs:
Animoca Brands raises $75M at $5.9B valuation
Chimpers roll out The Dojo
CryptoPunk 4156 was purchased for 2,691Ξ
PROOF acquires Divergence Engineering, team behind their smart contracts
General News:
Akutars grace the cover of TIME Magazine
NFL expands ticket stubs NFT program to over 100 games for 2022 season
PREMINT, Zeneca both hacked as Yuga Labs warns of advanced attacks
OpenSea fires ~20% of their employees
Snapchat investigates adding NFTs as AR filters