NFTs Weekly News #61 – Ecosystem: State of Crypto Art [Report]

Are you ready for some NFTs news?

We've prepared a new article that covers the latest news and updates in the world of Web3 and NFTs. Read them below!

Contents

📈Macro – Crypto Art status, on-chain;
🗞️ Last week's news – PYUSD, Futureverse, Wasabi, Etherscan, NFTfi, Aptos, Roblox;
💰Investments/Funding – fxhash, Xverse;
📣 Projects news/Updates – Wreck League, DeGods, Jack Butcher, RTFKT, AKCB, Pudgy Penguins;
⚖️ Legal – Metaverse Lawyer writes about how American law schools are trying to integrate AI into classrooms;
⚙️NFTility, by Mtk – Wreck League;
📚 Dictionary – 51% attack, hash rate;
💸 Sale of the week – CryptoPunk #4757;

📈 Macro

We received a forward from our friend, Răzvan Dumitrașcu. About the state of Crypto Art. In the report we can see who stayed in the crypto art space in the bear market and who left. The report looks at collector behavior on SuperRare, the top market in the category, uncovering macro trends.

One group, Quick Flippers (i.e. those collectors who resold a piece of art within 3 months at least 5 times), were unsurprisingly active in 2021 as well as throughout 2020. But flipper activity died off starting in 2022, a healthy sign for the market.

While the flippers have retired, there is a group of active collectors who have been steadily buying crypto art throughout 2023. Interestingly, this group of active collectors was also relatively active during the "early years" between 2018-2020.

New collectors who made their first purchase in 2023 have been shopping relatively consistently in the $100 – $10,000 range. The average entry price this year is 4 ETH, ~$7,000.

Thanks to the transparency offered by Ethereum we can see the on-chain holdings of certain collectors. The report focuses on "Smart Collectors" (whose secondary sales total at least $100,000) or "Big Buyers", (collectors who spent ≥ $1 million) were responsible for a relatively large amount of purchases in 2021, but have since "calmed down".

2 other interesting topics covered are Prohibition Art and ArtBlocks.

Prohibition Art is a new open platform that allows any artist to create on-chain generative art using the Art Blocks engine. It represents the use of AI to generate random images based on an algorithm and on-chain computing and data elements. Since its launch in July, 62 unique artists have released 90 projects on Prohibition Art, and 810 unique buyers have minted 3,151 NFTs on the platform. Prohibition Art generated $178,157 in primary sales volume from 2,541 sales, averaging $70/sale. On average, each project deployed on Prohibition Art had a primary sales volume of $1,979 .

For more insights, you can browse the full report here.

🗞️ News from last week

• Bank of America questions the mass adoption of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin. Congresswoman Maxine Waters also expresses concerns about the token, arguing that federal rules should be in place before a company the size of PayPal issues a stablecoin.
• Futureverse and Outlier Ventures launch Base Camp Accelerator program for metaverse startups, offering $100k funding and mentorship. Applications can be submitted until early December 2023 here.
• Wasabi, NFTfi and Zharta are teaming up to launch a competitor to Blur BNPL (Blur's Buy Now Pay Later), called Liquidity Aggregation, offering access to loan offerings across multiple NFT marketplaces.

• Etherscan launches Blockscan mobile app enabling encrypted messaging between wallets for Web3 addresses (ENS).
• NFTfi introduces "loan streaks" rewarding loyalty and long-term loans by accumulating bonus points during Earn Season 1. If you have been active on the platform since May 2020, you will be rewarded retroactively.
• The Aptos blockchain integrates AI by partnering with Microsoft, introducing Aptos Assistant, an AI-based Web3 onboarding tool. The collaboration aims to explore NFTs, digital payments and CBDCs.
• Roblox CEO says AI will play a big role in creating real-time avatars using text prompts and transforming the entire game creation process.

💰 Investments / Financing

• Generative art platform fxhash has completed a $5M funding round. They plan fxhash 2.0, including Ethereum integration, on-chain issuance tools and a platform design overhaul.
• Xverse – Bitcoin Wallet for Web3, has raised $5M in a funding round led by Jump Crypto to enhance functionality for DeFi, Stacks, Lightning and other Bitcoin scaling solutions.

📣 Projects news / Updates

• Owners of Koda NFTs can claim the_ League Founders Box_, which includes a complete Mech (character used in the Wreck League game from the Yuga Labs ecosystem).
• DeGods is migrating y00ts to Ethereum and has announced it is returning the $3M grant it received from Polygon. In the past year, y00ts has moved from Solana → Polygon → Ethereum.
• Jack Butcher launched Opepen 11 Opepeng in collaboration with Pudgy Penguins.
• A day after the graphics upgrade (new backgrounds, features) in DeGods Season III, the team announced the art downgrade, following negative feedback in the community. Also, the launch of DeGodess has been delayed. The team also launched the Points Parlor reward system, whereby holdouts who stack NFT can earn DePoints.

• RTFKT has announced a new forging event for the Nike Dunk Genesis CryptoKicks, along with a preview of the physical shoes.
• Jack Butcher's Infinity Checks contract was exploited due to an error and resulted in a complete loss of funds. Both Jalil and Butcher take responsibility and promise to return all funds.
• Krad, co-founder of A KID called BEAST, made the decision to step down from the project to focus on other opportunities such as AI and emerging technologies. All this came after the project was hacked and donations were appealed for from the community via Twitter.
• Pudgy Penguins has announced the launch of Safety Pins, a soulbound token awarded to those who demonstrate their commitment to the ownership, implementation or teaching of safety practices.

⚖️ Legal

Today I want to talk to you a bit about the integration of artificial intelligence into American law schools.

The US is exploring how to integrate exponentially advancing artificial intelligence into law school classrooms.

On balancing the use of AI, "students need to become fluent in what AI can and cannot do" to follow the emerging ethical line, according to Polk Wagner of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law.

There are many ethical and accuracy concerns; artificial intelligence continues to develop at a rapid pace, raising concerns about the accuracy of the information it provides and ethical questions for lawyers.

Some federal judges are beginning to draw lines around how technology can be used in court, warning against over-reliance on AI and urging lawyers to vet everything generated by ChatGPT and similar tools. They also ask lawyers who use AI to file statements alerting courts when there is such use.

Different schools of law approach AI integration differently. Some schools provide guidelines that give professors discretion in allowing or prohibiting AI tools such as ChatGPT. The focus remains on maintaining academic integrity and teaching students to use AI responsibly.

I would love to see a similar focus on integrating emerging technologies in Romanian law schools.

⚙️ NFTility

Last issue of IT'S NFTime featured the news announcing Wreck League, a AAA game developed by nWay and Animoca Brands, who will have Yuga Labs as collaborators in their debut season.

WL a PvP Fighting available on mobile devices and PC, and in the future F2P, will start by offering 1 vs. 1 competition and will evolve to 3 vs. 3. The characters used in the game, called Mechs, are NFTs assembled from 10 individual components (themselves NFTs). Each of these comes with its own attributes, and combining them in the assembly process will determine the Mech's qualities, combat style and rarity.

A character can be assembled and disassembled indefinitely, each disassembly coming with the burning of the main NFT and the return of the sub-assemblies to the holder's wallet.

In the long run, the value of a wallet is influenced by both the individual qualities of the characters and the number held.

The bigger it is, the more open it is to special events and tournaments.

In the first season, which starts this month, the first characters and component boxes will be minted in three stages as follows:

• Mint 1 – Genesis Mint

Koda owners will be able to claim a (non-demountable) Mech for free.

Entities accepted on the allow list will be able to mint boxes with Mech components. Boxes will be divided into two categories: "majestic" (containing 10 components with which a Mech can be built) and "rooster" (containing 5 components that act as spare parts). For the allow list and KYC, follow this link.

• Mint 2 – MAYC & BAKC -Q3

The mint will be open to Mutant Apes Yacht Club and Bored Apes Kennel Club owners who will be able to get a free Mech and boxes containing sub-assemblies with features from the two collections.

• Mint 3 – BAYC -Q3

This stage will be open to Bored Apes Yacht Club owners and follows the process from stage two.

One of the most appealing features of Wreck League is the ability to customize characters, left entirely to the player's discretion.

While most games pre-issue a base character through which various "in-game assets" can be accumulated and used or traded, WL, through the process of reverse engineering, offers a dynamic process.

Bonus: the free-to-play version of Wreck League will contain copies of Mech NFTs that can be traded in-game, with a portion of the earnings going to their owners.

Until next time, stay tuned and be early.

📚 Dictionary

• 51% attack – A 51% attack is an attack on a blockchain by a group of miners who control more than 50% of the mining hash rate. We're basically talking about the point at which someone can control what gets written and what doesn't on the blockchain. In short, the start of corruption!
• Hash rate – is a measure of the computing power of a blockchain network. The hash rate is determined by the number of estimates/guesses made per second. It is also a key indicator of security. The more hashing (computing) power there is in the network, the higher the security and overall resistance to attacks.

💸 Sale of the week

Alexa, play "Another One"🎵 by DJ Khaled.

It's no surprise… Cryptopunks again at the top of sales. #4757 was sold for 175 ETH ~ $326,272.

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