Meta Digest

Candy Digital and Getty Images to launch unique collection

Hector Andrews Hector Andrews on March 20, 2023

Candy Digital – Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) exploded onto the scene in 2021, with thousands of companies leveraging on the trend.

Although many initiatives focused on providing original digital assets, Candy Digital seized on one of the most popular sports in the United States by developing a collection centered on Major League Baseball.

They created the official line of MLB NFTs, which debuted in 2021.

Candy Digital, having established itself as a pioneer in the NFT space, is launching a new line.

This time, though, they want to collaborate with Getty Images to develop an NFT collection in the hopes of scoring another massive success.

The collection

Candy Digital produced a selection of photographs after searching through Getty Images’ enormous stock photo database.

They want to focus on some of the most famous musicians from the 1970s, as well as the photographers who captured their images, for the collection.

James Brown, John Lennon, and Elvis Presley are among the luminaries they hope to digitize.

One of the most interesting aspects of the impending collection is that it is grouped around six photographers, such as David Redfern and Fin Costello, rather than musical talents such as Jimi Hendrix or the Rolling Stones.

Also, the collection is not restricted to a specific number of items.

The newest Candy Digital collection will be available as an open-edition mint on March 21.

It also comes after Candy Digital and Getty Images announced a collaboration in May 2022.

Potential customers will be able to purchase the collectibles, which range in price from $25 to $200, during a months-long mint availability window.

The partnership

Candy Digital has previously created collections focusing on sports and entertainment.

It struck agreements with Netflix and World Wrestling Entertainment.

The Getty Images partnership, according to CEO Scott Lawin, is aimed at music and photography aficionados.

“We’re really excited about the fact that we’re talking to a different type of audience,” he said.

“The way we’ve thought about our partnerships, it really is creating opportunities for people not to just go deep in a category that they love, but also discover and collect across different types of content and IP.”

According to academic studies, sports enthusiasts are the best audience for digital asset ownership.

Lawin, on the other hand, defined Digital Candy’s cooperation with Getty as a long-term relationship that he and the team hope to expand on over time.

They also mentioned that the Getty collection has millions of pictures spanning decades and covering a wide variety of subjects.

Read also: Metaverse is becoming a wider home for celebrities and brands

The firm

Michael Rubin started Candy Digital in June 2021.

Fanatics, a sports franchise firm, is led by Rubin, who is joined by NFT entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck and Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz.

Fanatics was a majority stakeholder of Candy Digital due to Rubin’s participation.

Months after its debut, the company boasted a $1.5 billion value by October 2021.

It also reported at the time that it had received $100 million in a Series A round from Insight Partners and Sofrbank’s Vision Fund 2.

Despite its success, Candy Digital was hit by crypto winter.

Sportico claimed in November that it had cut off more than a third of its 100-person workforce.

Other NFT markets, such as OpenSea, as well as NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day developers Dapper Labs, were also laid off.

A change in the winds

Fanatics sold more than 60% of its majority ownership in Candy Digital to a group of investors in January.

Galaxy Digital headed the group, which also included ConsenSys Mesh and 10T Holdings, an equity firm.

Michare Rubin said in a Fanatics document that NFTs are unlikely to survive as a separate business in a collapsing NFT market where transaction volumes and pricing for independent NFTs are falling.

While their perspectives differ, Scott Lawin believes Fanatics was a terrific partner to begin the adventure with since they leaned first into the sports area.

He went on to say that the sale was a logical progression in a difficult market.

Trading

While NFTs may be exchanged on a variety of platforms, Candy Digital NFTs are only available on Palm, an Ethereum sidechain.

Yet, Lawin believes that the restriction will be lifted in the long term.

“Part of our roadmap [is] to allow our customers to take custody of their assets and potentially trade those in different marketplaces,” he said.

“It isn’t going to be a flip of the switch. It’s going to be something that we’re spending a lot of time internally with our technology partners, our communities, and our IP partners to do it the right way.”

Image source: Ledger Insights

GQ3 NFTs fizzled upon mint, floor price is dropping

Vina Grady Vina Grady on March 20, 2023

GQ3 – NFTs have been all the rage in recent years, and even beyond their peak, they continue to affect sectors.

Celebrities aren’t the only ones attempting to break into Web3, as some large corporations have also made the transition.

Heritage businesses, in particular, are anxious to break into Web3, expecting to re-establish their status among the younger generation.

GQ is one of the most recent heritage companies to enter Web3.

It launched its GQ3 community, followed by an Ethereum NFT drop to round off the endeavor.

The NFT promised purchasers perks, but the GQ3 line did not sell out.

As a consequence, despite dropping resale prices, the company is searching for methods to keep NFT consumers satisfied.

The news

The GQ3 NFT mint opened on Wednesday, with 1,661 NFT access pieces available for more than 0.1957 ETH apiece.

Only 1,060 NFTs were sold when the mint window ended on Friday, according to statistics from the OpenSea marketplace.

GQ said on its official Discord channel and in a now-deleted tweet that it will randomly airdrop half of the remaining NFTs to existing holders.

Projects that fail to properly mint NFTs will occasionally use this approach.

When NFT launches fail to translate their enthusiasm into sales, it gives holders with additional potential value.

“We are going to reward all those who supported our artists and believed in GQ3 by sharing an Issue 001 token to a randomized 50% of unique holder wallets,” said the announcement.

It was also encouraged that NFT recipients share their gift with a friend.

Furthermore, the Condé Nast-owned journal stated that it will keep the remaining supply for community and promotional purposes.

Read also: Heterosis debuts with a unique experience in NFTs

The NFTs

Following the mint’s end, GQ disclosed that the NFTs artworks were created by a variety of artists, including:

  • Chuck Anderson
  • Kelsey
  • Niziolek
  • Serwah Attafuah
  • The pseudonymous REO

Meanwhile, secondary market pricing for GQ3 NFTs plunged precipitously.

In OpenSea, the floor price, or the price of the cheapest-listed NFT, is 0.105 ETH or $155 USD.

It also dipped momentarily below 0.1 ETH.

So far, 27 ETH or $39,350 worth of NFTs have been exchanged since the conclusion of the mint.

Each GQ3 NFT includes various benefits, including:

  • A one-year print magazine subscription
  • Digital access
  • A GQ hat
  • Other GQ merchandise
  • Access to GQ3 parties (a party will be held at the NFT NYC conference in April)

Holders can also engage in a unique Discord channel, getting priority access to future NFT drops.

“We are committed and dedicated to GQ3 and in this for the long term,” the GQ3 announcement reads.

“[And] we want everyone to see the inspiring work our artists created.”

Legacy brands

GQ is following in the footsteps of other print heritage companies as they enter the Web3 arena, including:

  • Time
  • Playboy
  • The New York Times

All brands used NFT drops and concentrated on community outreach.

GQ published an NFT-themed print edition in 2022, marking the commencement of the GQ3 effort, which included a Discord server and, eventually, the NFT deployment.

GQ is hardly the first historical brand to fall short of its NFT expectations and plummet this year.

Porsche attempted to sell 7,500 Ethereum NFTs in January.

One of the reasons the launch failed was the brand’s marketing strategy.

Porsche failed to pique the public’s interest due to its hazy usability and benefits.

It barely sold over 1,850 NFTs at debut before the corporation stated that the mint will be cut short.

As a result, only around one-third of the projected inventory was sold.

Nonetheless, the limited availability of Porsche NFTs aided in increasing demand.

Secondary prices have risen since then, with OpenSea opening at 1.98 ETH (about $2,800), more than double its original mint price.

Image source: GQ

Blur continues momentum with incentive program

Josh Barter Josh Barter on March 20, 2023

Blur – With the rise of NFTs in 2021, many collectors have used OpenSea as their primary marketplace, but things have changed.

Since then, there has been more competition, with the emergence of new marketplaces.

Blur, an upstart NFT marketplace that is making remarkable progress in the Web3 arena, is one of the most recent to emerge.

Blur just surpassed OpenSea, and it now hopes to perform even better with a new, aggressive compensation package.

Incentive program

Blur said on Tuesday that it will give out over $300 million in extra tokens to loyal users.

The announcement comes after the platform surpassed the site’s main competition, OpenSea.

Blur will distribute 300 million native BLUR tokens to traders during its “Season 2,” which is already begun.

BLUR is now trading at $0.95 on CoinGecko.

Season 1 culminated in the launch of the BLUR native token last week, with the platform distributing “care packages” of BLUR to traders who switched to Blur from another marketplace.

Following the platform’s October debut, it also listed NFTs.

Tokens will be issued to traders in a more established, gamified scheme in “Season 2,” according to the business.

Customers of Blur will be assigned a “loyalty score” depending on their activity and dedication to the trading platform.

Buyers and sellers who do not utilize other NFT marketplaces will be rewarded with a large 100% loyalty score.

The loyalty score (together with the number of NFTs users on the list) decides how many BLUR tokens they receive during the airdrop.

Almost everything is possible under the new loyalty system.

Small activities can potentially increase the likelihood of a user acquiring more BLUR.

According to the corporation on Tuesday, simply quote-tweeting its Season 2 Twitter announcement might increase customers’ loyalty score.

It remains to be revealed, however, what technological techniques Blur implemented to integrate activity on other platforms such as Twitter in order to synchronize its numbers with its site.

Read also: Trump NFT bounces back from its January low

Marketplace competition

The statement on Tuesday publicizes the latest advancement as NFT platforms have gone all-out in a free-for-all struggle to recruit and keep clients.

OpenSea had long been the main Ethereum NFT marketplace, with a market capitalization of $13.3 billion.

But, it has lately lost ground to Blur due to the upstart’s attractive token-backed rewards model.

Both marketplaces have also provided further incentives to users who blocklist the other.

Overtaking OpenSea

NFT trade volume has more than doubled in the last week, with Ethereum NFT volume more than tripling.

Blur generated almost $460 million in Ethereum NFT transactions within that time period, a substantial 361% increase over the previous quarter.

CryptoSlam reported a 155% week-over-week surge in Ethereum NFT trading volume following the airdrop of Blur’s BLUR governance token.

Traders obtained the incentives by trading in other platforms and on the Blur marketplace before its launch last autumn.

OpenSea tries to stay competitive

Blur eventually surpassed OpenSea as a result of its trading frenzy.

On Friday, the (previously) top marketplace announced a temporary 2.5% marketplace decrease.

To compete with Blur, OpenSea will likewise reduce its creator royalty enforcement activities.

In other words, the marketplace is foregoing the fees that help it earn money as well as the fees that finance the majority of NFT initiatives.

Nevertheless, OpenSea maintains a tiny edge over Blur, supplying approximately 106,000 more unique wallets in the last week compared to 66,000 for Blur.

A new chapter

Although the long-term viability of Blur’s incentive scheme is unknown, it cannot be denied that it has had an immediate influence on competitors, reinforcing present trends.

While Blur boasts larger trading volumes than OpenSea, the majority of the activity appears to be produced by a small group of whale traders flipping NFTs in order to profit from the rewards program.

The popularity of the program is also affected by the value of its native token.

Image source: Mirror.xyz

Trump NFT bounces back from its January low

Hector Andrews Hector Andrews on March 20, 2023

Trump NFT – The NFT market is notoriously volatile, and some projects may get a lot of interest before failing to take off.

Donald Trump NFTs have just resumed their upward trend.

The news

In December, the Donald Trump NFT trading cards made their debut and attracted interest among Web3 users.

However, the frenzy lost steam in January.

The pace of the Trump NFTs didn’t take up again until the disgraced former US president declared his intention to run for politics once again and hinted at the possibility of returning to social media.

The NFTs

The Polygon Ethereum scaling network is where the Trump NFTs are created.

The collection sold for $1,000 on Sunday, setting a new record for the collection’s floor price (which is the least expensive NFT available).

NFTs issued by Trump initially cost $99 apiece.

Sales

Trump’s business associates sold 44,000 of the 45,000 Trump NFTs by the middle of December.

On December 17, the NFT prices reached a high of $990 in ETH on OpenSea after a sharp increase.

The initial excitement, however, was short-lived as prices began to decline in the days and weeks that followed.

NFT Price Floor data for the whole market, however, shows that prices have been continuously increasing since January.

They reached a fresh peak of $1,000 on Sunday, February 12, up from $250 in ETH on January 13 to that point.

The Trump NFTs rose back to the $1,000 mark after a brief decline.

February progress

Trump NFTs have produced over $2.4 million this month, according to CryptoSlam statistics.

The sums almost exactly equal January’s total ($2.6 million in deals).

To $905 per deal, the average sale price nearly doubled.

The initiative has also generated approximately $313,000 in trades over the past 24 hours.

Read also: Cool Cats unveils 2023 plans, and it gets better

Criticism

The Trump NFTs’ release was heavily condemned.

The drop was criticized by the disgraced former president’s followers among others after he hailed the collection as a “big announcement.”

The early sales of Trump NFTs were bolstered by the media attention, though, and 44,000 NFTs were sold for $99 each.

They subsequently produced secondary market sales amounting to millions of dollars.

The project creators received a 10% share of the secondary sales during the sales.

But in January, daily trade volume fell sharply, dropping by 99% from its peak.

It appeared like the hype vanished because of the abrupt downturn.

However, traders appear to be betting that if Donald Trump returns to the public eye, the NFT’s value will increase.

Reemergence

Due to Donald Trump’s involvement in the attacks on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, his social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were originally blocked.

They were just restored, however.

Trump has not yet used his previous accounts despite the reinstatement.

The Director of Research for Proof pseudonymous user punk9059 said:

“My sense is that people are anticipating a possible rally if he speaks about the NFTs, should he return to Twitter, or otherwise.”

Trump NFT prices were skyrocketing as Meta made plans to give the former president access to his social media accounts again in late January.

It was verified that the accounts had been unlocked last week.

After purchasing the business, Elon Musk conducted a public poll on Twitter asking followers whether or not to continue the ban on Trump.

In the end, the embargo was removed.

Recent sales activity

Recent sales activity on OpenSea suggests that seasoned NFT traders are loading up on Trump NFTs in bulk in anticipation of a potential further increase.

Many of the traders that are currently purchasing Trump NFTs have previously gathered and sold different NFTs.

More than simply Trump supporters trying to enter the NFT market are behind the overwhelming purchase.

Early in February, DonAlt, a pseudonymous crypto YouTuber, stated that he had purchased a number of Trump NFTs in an effort to predict the collection’s future worth.

The YouTuber dubbed the images “hideous pictures,” but he also said it was “oddly iconic.”

Additionally, he claimed that when Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign heats up, he would probably make more TV appearances.

“It’s a 50 IQ play,” said DonAlt. “It’s Trump. He’s gonna be loud again in 2024.

Image source: Market Watch

Yuga Labs’ founders support creators royalties in blog post

Josh Barter Josh Barter on March 20, 2023

Image source: The Cryptonomist

Yuga Labs’ founders, the folks behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, are slamming marketplaces for rejecting creator royalties.

The founders defended the creators of NFT in a case that led to markets rejecting them.

The Yuga Labs’ founders suggested a community-driven “allowlist” model that would allow creators to designate marketplaces that handle secondary sales of their works.

Royalty

NFT market leader OpenSea made the rounds over the weekend, saying it could follow the current trend of dropping license fees for NFT creators.

The trend includes the lack of copyright enforcement on secondary sales.

As a result, many creators oppose their choices.

In turn, the Yuga Labs’ founders also joined their cause.

Founders Wylie “Gordon Goner” Aronow, Greg “Garga” Solano, Kerem “Tomato” Atalay, and 10KTF CTO Randy “Melonpan” Chang recently posted an article.

The post states that the founders of Yuga Labs speak out against the industry’s departure from respecting creator royalties.

Instead, they offered a technical solution to enforce creator royalties.

Read also: Coinbase safe from FTX exposure, says CEO

The proposal

The Yuga Labs’ founders offer an “allow list” model for developers to allow secondary exchanges through marketplaces that recognize royalties.

If a marketplace’s smart contract is listed, the transaction will be completed; otherwise, it will not.

However, standard wallet-to-wallet transfers will not be affected.

“The NFT ecosystem would be a tiny fraction of what it is today if it weren’t for creator royalties,” the Yuga Labs’ founders wrote.

“The leading marketplaces of the past couple years would be nowhere if they hadn’t supported them.”

They noted that when Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs launched for $220 worth of Ethereum last year, they set a 2.5% royalty on secondary sales.

The founders explained that this was the amount charged by OpenSea for its market fees.

The license fee is lower than the fee chosen by other NFT creators, often between 5% and 10% of the retail price.

“The end result has been that OpenSea has made around $35 million dollars from Bored Ape sales on its platform, not including any of our other collections,” they wrote.

“We’ve never met the founders, but perhaps they have a beach house somewhere with a plaque for us.”

Yuga Labs

According to Galaxy Digital, BAYC founders earned over $147 million royalties from creators on secondary sales last month.

Today, however, NFT royalties are less durable.

Although the creators can put them in smart contracts, they are not fully enforceable on the chain.

Markets should honor them as most did until recently.

Read also: Yuga Labs reveal plans to turn Otherside into an adult Web3 Roblox

The marketplaces

In the Solana NFT space, nearly all secondary sales are on platforms that reject creators’ royalties or make them optional.

The move came after Magic Eden made them optional after losing market share to rivals.

Meanwhile, markets like LooksRare, Blur, X2Y2, and Sudoswap in Ethereum have also taken a similar approach.

OpenSea always has honored creators’ copyrights, but the company recognized the spatial change.

They said it could make creator royalties optional for merchants and explore new application models or charge royalties only on certain projects.

The creators in the Web3 space did not handle the OpenSea news well.

The founders of Yuga Labs joined the case, claiming that the denial of copyrights for the creator is a “race to the bottom” in which they believe OpenSea will participate.

Reference:

Bored Ape Founders propose NFT royalties model, decry OpenSea’s stance as ‘not great’

NFT trade are looking good for early 2023

Hector Andrews Hector Andrews on January 25, 2023

Image source: Forbes India

NFT trade: The price of cryptocurrencies has been rising over the last several weeks, showing a favorable development.

There are indications that the NFT market is recovering at the same time as rising cryptocurrency prices.

The top NFT marketplace, OpenSea, had monthly Ethereum NFT sale increases back-to-back for the first time in a very long time.

There is still one week until February, but the January sales total is already exceeding the December total.

The road so far

According to blockchain data made available to the public by the analytics platform Dune, this month, OpenSea completed Ethereum NFT trades totaling nearly $320 million.

In contrast, the total for December brought in almost $283.5 million.

Additionally, OpenSea reported higher revenues last month for the first time since April 2022, up from $235 million in value in November.

The increase is due to Ethereum’s increasing value, which has increased by 33% over the last 30 days and reached a price of $1,620 on Monday.

However, when represented in ETH, January’s OpenSea sales only slightly surpass December’s 227,000 ETH.

In contrast, only about 191,000 ETH worth of Ethereum NFT were sold by OpenSea in November.

OpenSea

Despite months of dropping sales, the increase in OpenSea is good for the NFT trade.

However, the numbers also show how badly the market worsened in 2022.

OpenSea experienced its best-ever month in January 2022, with Ethereum NFT sales totaling over $4.86 billion.

In the first five months of 2022, the NFT market saw NFT trading volume totaling more than $2 billion.

However, it also went through erratic fluctuations throughout that time.

Previously, between December 2021 and January 2022, OpenSea had two consecutive months of sales volume increase.

Other signs

There are other signals of development in the NFT sector in addition to those from OpenSea.

For instance, the cost of highly regarded collections has increased.

In the last 30 days, the cheapest Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT increased from $84,500 in ETH to $108,000.

Additionally, CryptoPunks increased from $76,500 in ETH to $108,000.

According to CryptoSlam, sales of Bored Ape have increased from 45% during the last 30 days.

Sales of Art Blocks increased by 62%, while Azuki NFTs saw an 89% increase.

Beyond OpenSea, the amount of NFT trade has risen.

In that time, the amount of Ethereum NFT sales increased broadly by 33%, whereas Solana NFT sales increased dramatically by 95%, according to CryptoSlam.

Read also: Cryptocurrency rally is good, but people are wary

Additional notes

DappRadar reports that as compared to November, the amount of organic market sales generally slightly increased in December.

From $662 million, it increased to $684 million.

The secondary market trade was boosted last week by the introduction of Sewer Pass NFT for BAYC members.

There have been secondary deals totaling more than $35 million thus far.

Due to Yuga Labs’ restriction of Blur and LooksRare, secondary NFT trades have primarily been conducted on marketplaces like OpenSea and X2Y2.

The issue with creator royalties is what caused the block.

Creator royalties issues

Marketplaces made an attempt to stop creator royalties on NFT sales in late 2022.

But when they expressed their disapproval, Yuga Labs made it plain where they stood.

Yuga Labs acted fast to stop secondary NFT trade on particular platforms when Sewer Pass NFT launched.

A positive year

NFT trading volumes have lately been driven by the Bored Ape Yacht Club and associated collections.

Yuga’s initiatives were mentioned as accounting for half of the whole Ethereum NFT trading volume in the previous week by Pseudonymous Proof Director of Research Punk9059.

In addition, early-year activity in 2022 was mostly driven by the BAYC NFTs.

No significant changes have occurred thus far.

It is still to be seen if the most recent signs would materialize into a full-fledged NFT market recovery.

There has never been any question that the market will lose impetus in 2022, but after several months of dwindling activity, any upward movement is welcomed by traders.

 

2022 NFT sales were positive despite market crash

Stephen Reynolds Stephen Reynolds on January 5, 2023

Image source: Kiplinger

NFT: A digital asset known as an NFT signifies ownership of a unique object or item.

It could be a tweet, a work of art, a collectible, a video game item, etc.

A blockchain, a decentralized and secure digital ledger, is where NFTs are stored.

Their capacity to prove ownership and authenticity of digital things has attracted much interest in recent years.

2021 popularity

NFTs saw a rise in popularity in 2021, especially in the art industry.

Digital artworks have been sold using NFTs for high prices; some artists have made millions from the sale of their NFTs.

The convenience with which NFTs may prove a digital item’s ownership and authenticity is one of the factors contributing to their appeal.

Since digital artworks can be copied and shared online, the art world finds this particularly enticing.

Another factor contributing to NFTs’ appeal is the ease with which people can buy and sell them, thanks to online markets.

2022 market

The NFT and cryptocurrency sectors experienced months of falling sales last year.

Despite a sharp decline in cryptocurrency values, the entire NFT sales volume nearly reached its peak in 2021.

Data from DappRadar indicates that a positive start to the market in 2022 contributed to the final tally, offsetting the subsequent months of weakness.

Over $24.7 billion in organic trading volume was created last year on blockchain platforms and marketplaces.

Even so, it represented a minor decline from the $25.1 billion total in 2021, when the industry surged and tokenized collectibles started to gain specialized interest.

Wash trading

The information DappRadar provided omits suspicious trades, particularly those resulting from wash trading.

Wash trading is the practice of traders selling their NFTs at inflated prices back and forth within their controlled wallets.

Trading typically takes place to benefit from a token rewards mechanism on marketplaces.

The figures didn’t include wash trade worth billions of dollars from sites like LooksRare and X2Y2.

Both markets provide virtual incentives for trading.

Trading volume

Although trading volume was static throughout the year, DappRadar saw an increase in the number of NFTs exchanged.

In 2022, the firm recorded over 101 million trades, up from 58.6 million in 2021.

However, because of the unstable cryptocurrency and NFT pricing, NFTs were traded at lower USD values.

Read also: Coinbase stock price jumps after settlement

Falling value

The value of the cryptocurrency market decreased significantly in 2022.

Following the breakdown of Terra’s LUNA and UST in May, the losses were severe.

The collapse of FTX, which had a ripple effect on cryptocurrency values, worsened the crypto winter.

In 2022, the NFT market took a similar trajectory.

Due to the momentum from 2021 continuing into the new year, sales were strong in January.

OpenSea reported a $5 billion trading volume record.

The following months saw a decrease in trading volume, however.

The debut of Yuga Labs’ Otherside stabilized the market in April, which helped OpenSea set a single-day trading volume record.

By that point, the 2022 sales volume appeared to surpass the 2021 total.

May collapse

The spike in sales only lasted briefly as crypto prices took a steep fall in May.

As a result, NFT trading prices fell sharply, losing their momentum.

In May, monthly volume declined from almost $3.3 billion to over $1 billion in June.

Since then, the market has been unable to reach the same heights as the $1 billion mark.

Leading NFT

The Bored Ape Yacht Club was the most popular NFT project in 2022.

It produced trade volume reaching close to $1.6 billion.

However, the bulk of the trading took place from January to May.

Due to this, starting prices decreased from a peak of $429,000 worth of ETH in late April to the more recent $60,000 in November.

Closing market

The NFT market began 2022 with a bang but ended the year in a hush.

In November, trading improved marginally, while NFTs sold in December recovered from a decline.

DappRadar estimates that the market generated roughly $684 million in organic trades in December, up from an adjusted total of $662 million in November.

That month saw the sale of more than 6.7 million NFTs, up from 4.8 million in November and 6.1 million in October.

With approximately $297 million in organic NFT trades in December, OpenSea remained the market leader.

Blur, a new rival encouraging trading with the promise of token incentives, saw a surge in December from $115 million to $177 million.

Solana continued its patchy performance, decreasing from November’s $95 million to $70 million.

After almost generating $134 million in NFT sales, it decreased in October.

In addition, after the FTX crash, SOL values decreased in November and December.

Reference:

NFT sales in 2022 nearly matched the 2021 boom, despite market crash

OpenSea imposes ban on Cuban artists

Clara Emily Clara Emily on December 26, 2022

Image source: Crypto Slate

OpenSea: OpenSea said over the weekend that it will prohibit digital artists from sanctioned nations, particularly Cuba.

The news

The ban on OpenSea was made public last week.

NFTcuba.ART, a project that promotes the success of Cuban artists in the NFT sector, tweeted that OpenSea has deactivated its marketplace profile.

“Long time since we posted, unfortunate that this post needs to be this,” the project began.

“@opensea has disabled our profile. “

“Not only do Cubans on the island, but those have other nationalities, have to endure censorship in web3 company.”

“Buying art from Cubans is not banned in the us [sic] embargo.”

Explanation 

A statement from the website NFTcuba.ART reads:

“It’s sad and unfortunate that OpenSea has banned the NFTcubaART profile.”

“Likely just because it has the name Cuba in it and or they are fearful of sanction. Cafeteras are still visible in your wallets and on other websites like foundation and rarible.”

OpenSea, meanwhile, said that it is only abiding under US sanctions law.

“Our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit sanctioned individuals, individuals in sanctioned jurisdictions, or services from using OpenSea,” said an OpenSea spokesperson.

“We continue to holistically evaluate what other measures need to be taken to serve our community and comply with applicable law.”

Read also: Sam Bankman-Fried receives $250 million release bail, ordered to stay with family

Sanctions

US sanctions against Cuba are put into effect by numerous legal authorities.

These are how they manifest:

  • Executive orders
  • Federal statutes
  • Regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)

The sanctions are intricate and target a variety of actions, including economic ones.

Due to these limitations, OpenSea stated that Cuban residents are not permitted to use its services.

Previous ban

The most recent ban is not the first time NFTcubaART has expressed dissatisfaction with the OpenSea restriction.

In a previous tweet from March, the project discussed problems with the market and urged artists and collectors to choose sites with different policies.

Iranian artists protested in March about being barred from the market.

“OpenSea blocks users and territories on the US sanction list from using our services – including buying, selling, or transferring NFTs on OpenSea,” said an OpenSea spokesperson.

The marketplace claims that they have a zero-tolerance policy for sanctioned individuals using their services in sanctioned nations.

“If we find individuals to be in violation of our sanctions policy, we take swift action to ban the associated accounts,” said OpenSea.

The following are subject to extensive economic sanctions by the United States:

  • Cuba
  • Iran
  • North Korea
  • Russia
  • Syria

The US Treasury fined the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex $53 million in October for enabling users to avoid US sanctions in Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

Artists

Cuban artists claim they were never informed of the reason why their accounts were deleted, according to the news source Associated Press.

Some hypothesized that OpenSea may have chosen to go cautiously rather than recklessly.

The fact that many artists are Cuban ex-pats who no longer reside on the island also adds to the confusion.

NFTcubaArt was founded by Gianni D’Alerta, who currently resides there.

Gabriel Bianchini, who served as the co-host of a project at OpenSea during National Hispanic Heritage Month that featured Cuban artists, resides in Spain.

Read also: Jon Tester, US Senator, still dismissive of crypto

García Alarcón

Garca Alarcón, better known by his artist name Paolo De, is one of the Cuban artists who has flourished as a result of NFTs.

“The first thing that drew me to it [NFT] was the freedom,” said Alarcón.

“You can commercialize your work without intermediaries, without having to pass through a filter.”

One of the Cuban artists whose profile was removed from two American-owned NFT trading platforms, OpenSea and KnownOrigin, is Garca Alarcón.

In April 2021, the Cuban artist began making NFT trades on OpenSea.

His debut piece was a political critique of the contentious 2021 arrests of artists from Cuba who were staging a protest.

He received $200 for his efforts, and he subsequently sold about 20 more NFTs on the website.

On OpenSea, Garca Alarcón has occasionally been recommended as an artist to watch.

However, he was unexpectedly locked out of his account in March of last year.

“They sell you the idea of freedom, that you can show your work, that there’s no censorship,” said Alarcón.

“You can use the platform to show what you can’t show in your own country, and then this happens.”

References:

NFT marketplace OpenSea confirms ban on Cuban artists

Cuban artists blocked from once-promising NFT trading sites

Creator royalties to stay on several NFT marketplaces

Clara Emily Clara Emily on November 21, 2022

Image source: Coin Market Cap

Creator royalties have recently become the hottest topic in the NFT space.

Most of the NFT market was in favor of withholding creator royalties.

Even OpenSea, the largest marketplace in the space, has been considering making creator royalties optional.

However, pushback from creators prompted the market to keep the royalties.

Rival marketplace Ethereum also says it will ensure there are still royalties for creators.

The news

X2Y2, the Ethereum NFT market, launched earlier this year and has seen significant trading activity over the summer.

Over the weekend, X2Y2 announced that it would enforce creator royalties on all NFT collections, from existing projects to recently launched ones.

Previously, the marketplace offered a flexible royalty model that gave creators and collectors input into how X2Y2 enforced project royalties.

However, only specific types of NFT projects (artwork and access passes) can choose to apply royalties in full.

Profile Picture projects (PFP projects) were not eligible for the option.

Read also: Yuga Labs’ founders support creators royalties in blog post

Praise

X2Y2 praised OpenSea for taking a stand on Twitter this weekend for its stance on creator royalties.

The market has admitted that many new projects have used OpenSea’s block code, preventing non-royalty NFTs from being traded on the markets.

“Putting belief aside, if there was anything self-evident in crypto, it’s the ‘code,'” X2Y2 wrote.

“Since [OpenSea] released the OperatorFilter two weeks ago, most of the new projects have sided with it.”

“‘Code is law,’ and we respect the law.”

X2Y2 said they removed the flexible royalty setting for new projects using the OpenSea blocklist code.

The market also said it will levy creator royalties for existing NFT projects.

“With OpenSea risking its market share and taking a brave move to defend royalties, they have our respect,” X2Y2 wrote.

OpenSea

The major NFT marketplace responded to X2Y2 on Twitter and said it had removed them from its marketplace blocklist.

As a result, NFTs from creators using the OperatorFilter code can now trade on X2Y2.

“Proud to stand with you – and the many brilliant creators in our community – on this critical measure,” OpenSea wrote.

“We hope other marketplaces will continue to join us. Onwards and upwards.”

Read also: Vaynerchuk and VeeFriends expand from NFTs to shelves as toys

Royalties

NFT royalties are fees derived from a secondary market sale.

They usually range between 5% and 10% of the retail price and go to the creator.

Royalties cannot be fully applied on-chain with popular NFT standards on chains like Ethereum and Solana.

However, significant marketplaces used to respect copyrights, seeing them as a social construct.

Creators and collectors see royalties as essential components of the Web3 ethos.

Over the summer, market momentum began to drift away from manufacturer royalties.

New trading platforms like SudoSwap and Yawww have ignored royalties to move away from market share away from major markets.

Since Magic Eden’s move last month, nearly all of Solana’s transactions are done on platforms that don’t require royalties.

Earlier this month, OpenSea said it was considering dropping royalties, following moves by marketplaces like X2Y2, Blur and LooksRare to make them optional.

However, OpenSea has faced significant backlash from creators like Yuga Labs.

Streetwear brand The Hundreds canceled an NFT launch on OpenSea after the market’s consideration.

Last week, OpenSea changed its mind and announced that it would continue with copyrights on all projects: old, new and those using the blocklist product.

Reference:

Ethereum NFT marketplace X2Y2 will enforce royalties following OpenSea’s ‘brave move’

GameStop brings Web3 gaming into its marketplace

Hector Andrews Hector Andrews on November 7, 2022

Image source: Protocol

GameStop recently announced the inclusion of NFTs issued on Ethereum’s Immutable X Layer-2 scaling network in its marketplace.

The added support allows users not only to buy but also sell Web3 game assets.

Marketplace

Many games now have interactive NFT items up on GameStop markets.

The market also offers digital trading cards and customizable packs, among other items.

Immutable X-based game titles include:

  • Gods Unchained
  • Illuvium
  • Guild of Guardians

In July, GameStop launched its highly-anticipated NFT market.

However, at launch, the platform only offered digital artwork and collectibles.

Many in the Web3 space were curious about when the company would begin using interactive game NFTs, given the company’s direction and plans for the market so far.

Read also: Gaming company Ubisoft goes back on NFT project and claims it’s in ‘research mode’

Immutable X

Earlier this year, GameStop’s partnership with Immutable X was announced.

The companies shared that they have a $100 million token incentive fund for Web3 game developers.

Additionally, GameStop participated in a $500 million investment and grant fund for NFTs and game makers using Immutable X.

The platform is built on top of Ethereum.

While Ethereum transactions require high gas fees, Immutable X enables faster and cheaper game, app, and NFT interaction.

The platform moves transactions to the second tier of the blockchain, thereby speeding up the transaction.

Immutable, the company behind the platform, achieved crypto “unicorn” status in early 2022.

Tencent and Animoca are investing in the company’s Web3 gaming vision.

The two investors bring the startup to a valuation of $2.5 with a $200 million Series C funding round in March.

The platform

GameStop announced that its marketplace has completed beta testing.

As a result, it offers traders incentives to use its NFT platform.

A representative said that the market returns users 1% of their daily trading volume in immutable IMX tokens.

The market also offers users rewards for staking tokens.

In addition, the market commission is 0.2% indefinitely.

Read also: Vaynerchuk and VeeFriends expand from NFTs to shelves as toys

NFT

GameStop’s NFT, prior to the launch of Immutable X, had a total volume of over $29 million from almost24,000 retailers.

Meanwhile, OpenSea generated $ 309 million in trading volume in October.

Although GameStop NFT has more trading activity than Coinbase NFT, they still don’t hold a significant share of the NFT market.

The addition of Web3 games to the platform may influence a major change.

GameStop adds Web3 gaming NFTs to marketplace with Immutable X