NFT Update
7 min readFeb 10, 2022
2022–02–09
Summary
There’s never a lack of drama in CryptoTwitter, but recently, it’s been more exciting than usual (Sifu not Safu, Wormhole, Cancel culture, Bitfinex rap lady)
- According to DOJ, US government seized 94,000 bitcoin from Bitfinex haack in 2016. Bitfinex said that it would be working with DOJ to establish their rights to the return of stolen bitcoins, and that it will, within 18 months of the date it receives that recovery, use an amount equal to 80% of the recovered net funds to repurchase and burn outstanding UNUS SED LEO tokens; $LEO token is +55%
- There was also hearing on stablecoins overnight titled “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ Report on Stablecoins
On the price action side,
- BTC (+12%) briefly broke above $45k, and resistance level of $45.5k was quickly rejected. Funding continues to be largely neutral (7dma perp funding rate @ -2%) despite the last 7 days of rally, implying spot-driven rally and broader indecisiveness of the market
- Upbit listed AVAX and IMX yesterday, which resulted in irregular (i.e. pump-and-dump) price actions
- Outperformers have been: XRP (+35%), SHIB (+43%), LEO (+77%), GALA (+81%),
On the NFT side,
- OpenSea volume (Chart 1, 2) and transaction count (Chart 3) are both normalizing from blockbuster performance in start of the year — Jan’22 set the record for $4.96bn in OpenSea trading volume
- Google search volume for ‘NFT’ dropped for the first time in 2022 — this makes sense given number of exciting developments have died down going into February vs. January when we saw LooksRare vampire attack + Twitter adding NFT profile pictures, etc.
- As a function of tapering off of interest, NFT prices are also normalizing (Chart 4, 5, 6). Floor prices of 4 blue-chip NFT projects we closely monitor (CryptoPunks, BAYC, Artblock, Meebits) have all fallen by >10% in the last 7 days
1. Non-crypto-native Partnerships
Bud Light partners with Nouns DAO for its upcoming Super Bowl ad
- What’s the partnership: As part of the partnership, Nouns (a generative NFT project on the Ethereum blockchain, with avatars based on nouns, e.g. people, places, things) gifted Bud Light NEXT (the brand’s new no-carb beer) with a Nouns NFT in exchange for the Nouns glasses to be featured in Bud Light’s Super Bowl commercial
- Aside from the Nouns/Bud Light partnership, crypto exchanges will reportedly run ads during Super Bowl
- What else has Anheuser-Busch (parent-company of BudLight) done: Bud Light launched NFT collection sale, Budweiser launched NFT collection and bought an ENS domain (beer.eth)
Gamestop x Immutable X
- What’s the collab: GME has partnered with IMX to launch its own NFT marketplace later this year. They have also set up a $100mio grant fund (denominated in IMX tokens) to support developers who will launch their gaming NFT projects on the marketplace. Immutable X will also provide up to $150 million (in IMX) to GME upon the achievement of certain milestones (NFT marketplace launch, $1.5bn in sales volume, $3 bn sales volume)
- Controversy: Of course, it will never be a complete story without drama in the crypto space. Following the announcement and concomitant pump in IMX token price, GME proceeded to sell 15mio IMX almost immediately, leading to a classic pump-and-dump price action.
IOC x nWay
- What’s the scoop: IOC is collaborating with game developer nWay (subsidiary of Animoca Brands) to launch Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022, a play-to-earn multiplayer game. The game is available on Google Play and Apple App Store, and players can compete in a series of winter sports to earn Olympic NFT digital pins, which can be used to gain exclusive access to higher tiers of play and character skins. Once the game is live, in-game utility of the NFT digital Pins will extend to extra superpowers for the characters like greater speed and tighter control.
Ubisoft x Hedera Network
- What’s the deal: Ubisoft announced on 2/3 that it has entered into an agreement with the HBAR Foundation to support the growth of the Hedera network by joining its Governing Council and be a HBAR validator. Ubisoft has been one of the earliest traditional game publisher to be involved in crypto, and public support the industry. Ubisoft has:
- Launched Tezos-powered in-game NFT items (and has been XTZ validator since Apr’21);
- Invested in Animoca Brands
- Supported multiple NFT/crypto projects, including Ronin (side-chain for Axie Infinity), Sorare, etc.
- What’s HBAR: distributed network that uses a hashgraph consensus mechanism, which is different from a blockchain, to secure and maintain its network
Coachella launches lifetime passes as NFTs
2. Crypto-Native ($LOOKS, BAYC)
LooksRare plummets ($LOOKS)
- What’s the deal: As covered in previous reports, LOOKS emission will be reduced from 800 $LOOKS/block -> 380 $LOOKS/block later today, resulting in reduction of trading rewards and LOOKS staking rewards. As expected, we saw $LOOKS token price plummet from high of ~$7 on 1/20 to $3.2 at the time of writing, as traders sought to front run emission cut and concomitant fall in trading/staking rewards
- What else: If you wonder why there are so many VCs/projects popping up in the crypto space, private seed investors (supposedly includes @pranksy, @ColeTherum) apparently got in to $LOOKS at a cost basis of 0.15, and the team has been regularly cashing out hundreds to thousands of ETH per day
Ballonsville rugs, and calls out Magic Eden for lack of KYC
- What’s the deal: NFT collection project called Ballonsville rugged investors -> Jack Lu (CEO and co-founder of Magic-Eden) called out the team -> Ballonsville exposed Magic Eden for lack of KYC
BAYC News
- ApeDAO to sell 81 Bored BAYC + 81 MAYC + 34 BAKC
- What’s the deal: ApeDAO is a DAO of APE holders (3rd largest BAYC holder), and its members voted to liquidate the DAO holdings. ApeDAO also has $APED tokens, which confers part ownership for the DAO assets + governance rights + other private perks. It’s not rather clear as to what fraction of DAO assets the $APED tokens holders have, but with current market cap of $27mio, it’s currently trading at close to par of DAO holdings (99 ETH floor*81*3000=24mio).
- BAYC Creators, Yuga Labs, valued at $4–5bn
- What’s the deal: BAYC is discussing financing with a16z at $4–5bn valuation
- BuzzFeed doxxes two of BAYC’s co-founders
- What did they do: Buzzfeed revealed identity of 2 of the 4 BAYC co-founders; Yuga Labs later confirmed their identities. Overall, there has been very negative reaction on CryptoTwitter, accusing Buzzfeed of invading the men’s privacy for clicks and ad revenue
Crypto community cancels Brantly Millegan, one of core team members of Ethereum Naming Services (ENS)
- What’s the story: ENS community voted to remove Brantly Millegan as a community steward (and later from ENS’ legal entity, True Names), because of a tweet he posted in 2016 that recently resurfaced. Brantly refused to apologise, citing religious beliefs. Twitter has since suspended his account. Overall pretty negative reception from the CryptoTwitter community given its aversion towards ‘woke’ people, but perhaps the event indicates that mainstream is here…
