Alpha Schedule #15 - Gamestop's WEB3 wallet is here
Hi Fellaz,
All things considered, this week was a great week:
We found a few cool upcoming NFT projects (EY3KoN, Garbage Friends, Lonely Pop, etc.)
A lot of new companies are entering the space (UFC, Hublot, Netflix, Dove,..)
Take your time to read through this week's newsletter, since it's definitely an interesting one!
PS - Please do keep forwarding this email to friends, family, gaming buddies, or colleagues you think would benefit from receiving this newsletter in their inbox every Friday. For free!
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
GAMESTOP ROLLS OUT WEB3 WALLET
Electronics retail company GameStop Corp has launched a digital asset wallet that enables users to store, send, receive, and use cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
GameStop announced that the wallet will operate across decentralized applications (dApps), and users will be able to use it without leaving their browsers. The wallet is non-custodial, meaning users will have complete control over their digital assets.
The wallet runs on the Ethereum blockchain, and functions as an extension of the Chrome Web Store. The wallet will also enable transactions on GameStop’s NFT marketplace, which is slated to go live in Q2 of the company’s fiscal quarter.
OPENSEA ANNOUNCES SEAPORT
The largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, announced the launch of a new web3 marketplace protocol, Seaport, to confer more security and efficiency to NFT trading.
The protocol is created “for all builders, creators and collectors of NFTs” on and off the OpenSea platform. On an official blog released on Friday, the OpenSea team revealed that the protocol is an open-source smart contract with “no contract owner”.
The protocol, dubbed Seaport, allows users to acquire NFTs in a range of new ways, unlike now where only crypto can be exchanged for an NFT.
For example; say you own a 40 ETH doodle and you want a 100 ETH ape. You can now offer your doodle NFT and 60 ETH.
📰 OTHER NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
Magic Eden has passed Opensea in daily NFT transactions, but the average trader on the Solana-based marketplace still spends much less per purchase.
NFT platform Foundation launched its referral rewards program.
Deadfellaz has gathered more holders than BAYC.
Ethereum’s full upgrade to Proof-of-Stake is still in the works, and the Merge is expected to take place in August if everything goes as planned.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) will launch a $4.5 billion fund for crypto and blockchain startups, it announced on Wednesday.
Vitalik Buterin recently co-wrote a research paper titled “Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul,” where he proposed the concept of “Soulbound” tokens (SBTs) and argued that they will form the foundations of the Web3 decentralized future.
Actor and producer Seth Green has fallen prey to a phishing scam, causing him to lose quite a few expensive NFTs. This put a spanner in Green’s plans for his new animated series, which was based on characters from Green’s NFT collection.
Exchange operator Coinbase has become the first crypto company to make the Fortune 500 cut — an annual list of America's largest corporations by revenue — ranking at 437.
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg partnered with EDM pioneer Steve Aoki to create Alpha Doggz and announce their NFT EP.
Pixel Vault Sports announced through a video from Dana White on Friday that Pixel Vault will be partnering with the UFC. White mentioned that the joint venture will create "comics, content and blockchain games inspired by the stories of famous athletes."
Hublot entered the NFT space with a collaboration with Takashi Murakami, as a result they created custom watches and custom NFTs.
RTFKT announced a collab with Arno Kiss, in which Arno customized a Nike Air Force 1.
Led by a robust team of Web3 developers and former OnlyFans executives, Zoop is set to launch their digital collectible trading platform powered by Polygon.
Love, Death + Robots, an animated Netflix show, has embedded nine QR codes across the show's social media accounts as well as the show's episodes. Watchers can use their phones to scan the QR code for access to an NFT which will appear on their OpenSea accounts.
According to recent patent filings, Dove wants to protect its logo and dozens of personal care products in Web3.
American multinational e-commerce company, eBay has forayed into the NFT space after dropping a hockey-themed collection in partnership with OneOf, a green Web 3 company.
Manchester City, the premier football club, has teamed up with NFT marketplace, Quidd, to launch a collection of four sets of digital collectibles.
Legendary filmmaker Spike Lee is the latest veteran director to make the leap into the NFT space with an upcoming collection of Ethereum artwork based on stills from his 1986 feature, “She’s Gotta Have It.”
💀 HOW TO RECOGNIZE A RUG PULL
ConsenSys’ self-custody wallet MetaMask is partnering with Asset Reality, a platform for accessing and recovering seized crypto and digital assets, to tackle cryptocurrency fraud. The two companies will support MetaMask scam and phishing victims in attempting to recover their assets.
OTHER RUGPULLS
A deepfake video featuring Elon Musk has been circulating on Twitter, in which the Tesla CEO promotes a cryptocurrency platform.
One of the Proof Collective members has reportedly fallen prey to a phishing scam, resulting in a loss of 29 Moonbirds, equivalently over $1.5 million at the time of the report.
The Twitter account of famous digital artist Mike Winkelmann, commonly known as Beeple, was hacked on May 22. The hacker stole over $345K in crypto.
In a span of just two months from October 2021 - November 2021 we saw Homer.eth (formerly @homer_eth) create and rug pull 5 different projects and profit over $2.8m.
HOW YOU DOIN' NFTNYC?
We plan to attend NFT NYC in June, so we have already started a google document to track interesting NFT community events and parties. It currently contains over 60 events, so feel free to bookmark it!
🔮 LOOKING FORWARD
We normally highlight upcoming mints, but honestly? I haven’t seen a project I wanted to highlight for this week … so let’s look ahead to the next few weeks.
It’s no financial advice, but you might want to start doing your research and grinding for these allowlists before it’s too late.
📖 LEARN HOW TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH
This week I came across quite a few Twitter threads that I found interesting - I’ve listed them below!
😂 LAUGH OUT LOUD
😊 ENJOYED THIS WEEK'S ALPHA?
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🤓 DISCLAIMER: NFA & DYOR
This newsletter is a curated overview of the most interesting things I’ve read the past week, the projects I’ve researched, and the NFTs I’ll be trying to buy.
This means I’m - per definition - biased, so don’t consider this as financial advice and keep doing your own research if you see something you like.