Alpha Schedule #4 - BAYC has some KYC drama brewing 😳 (+ WL Giveaway)
*Read this newsletter on the web for the best experience*
Hi Fellaz,
What started out as a calm and quiet week in the NFT space, evolved into a quite eventful week! These are the most interesting topics I came across:
😳 Kitbash Boogers, a first-of-its-kind NFT collab
🐵 BAYC has some KYC drama brewing
🪄 Tomorrowland is launching NFTs
🌟 Starcatcher's co-founder leaves to create a new project
🔥 Cyberbrokers reach a huge NFT Milestone
... and so much more! 📰
Next to my favorite news snippets, I also listed my favorite upcoming NFTs and I even managed to secure an exciting allowlist giveaway for the loyal readers.
So please take your time for this newsletter and make sure to scroll all the way down, participate in the giveaway, and forward this email to everyone you think would benefit from receiving this newsletter.
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
😳 Toy Boogers x Cool Cats x Deadfellaz x Robotos
NFT Projects Toy Boogers, Cool Cats, Deadfellaz, and Robotos have announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration collection, based on mixing and mashing traits from four of these projects into one cute collection called Kitbash Boogers!
This will not be a standard collab collection consisting of multiple editions of the same NFT, but will instead be made up of 1,111 completely unique 1/1 NFTs as its own collection with its own metadata and rarity system. The target drop date is the end of April.
Each project will be given approximately 250+ spots to distribute however they see fit. The majority of allow-list spots will most likely be given or raffled to members of each respective community, so the best chance of getting an allow-list spot is to be an active member of one or more of these projects. [ToyBoogers]
🐵 BAYC HAS SOME KYC DRAMA BREWING
Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the most respected and influencial NFT collections in the metaverse, has posted a cryptic link on their Twitter accounts that hints at a partnership with Animoca Brands; a Hong Kong-based game software company.
The link leads towards a registration platform, which requires a thorough KYC verification and wasn't really enthusiastically welcomed by their followers.
Most of their audience understand that it's a basic principle within the financial services industry but have an issue with the lack of transparency as to what it is for, and feel it's irresponsible to hand over personal information with no context.
As always, this spawned some top tier memes 😂
🪄 TOMORROWLAND LAUNCHES NFTs
Electro-music festival Tomorrowland is partnering with FTX Europe to integrate web3 features into the festival.
The collaboration will allow Tomorrowland Winter festival attendees to collect the first 1,500 of a total of 6,500 NFTs as part of a broader festival experience.
Specifically, possession of the NFTs will unlock one of five locations hidden throughout the mountains in Alpe d'Huez France, where the festival is held at the end of March, with exclusive concerts that festival-goers will have to find and scan their bracelet for entry. [Tomorrowland]
🌟 STARCATCHER'S CO-FOUNDER LEAVES
Earlier this week, Starcatcher's co-founder and lead-artist Beutrec announced it started working on a new NFT project called Boki.
This raised some concerns in the community about his devotion to the Starcatchers project, especially when they tweeted a gif of the sneak peeks which includes some similarities to the Starcatcher's project that deemed a similar style.
This drove further divisiveness in the community and sowed greater uncertainty, reaching the level in which Starcatchers had to part ways with Beutrec completely. As part of the parting agreement, the Boki team has agreed to work with the Starcatcher team on reworking their character traits so there will be no conflicts with Starcatchers.
🔥 CYBERBROKERS REACH NFT MILESTONE
CyberBrokers, a project we introduced in our very first newsletter, recently reached a 4.5 eth floor price.
We already mentioned it was because the founder Josie Bellini had a tight NFT community, and was followed by prominent NFT collectors (Pranksy, Coldie,..) who already owned some of her other drops ... but the main reason why it reaches this floor price so fast was because of its high-quality art, which is fully stored fully on-chain.
Twitter user 0xMikeMikeMike perfectly explains what this means, or why this is special in this Twitter thread.
📰 NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
Adobe’s social network Behance is adding support for the Polygon cryptocurrency platform, letting users more easily showcase Polygon-based non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
The company is touting Polygon integration as a more environmentally conscious way for artists to create NFTs, which Behance began supporting late last year.
While that eco-friendliness is debatable, it’s part of Adobe’s ongoing expansion into crypto — as well as an attempt to placate artists that are worried about its potential negative effects. [Theverge]
OTHER NEWS
Deadfellaz community member @alexmccurryo hinted about fractionalizing his Deadfrenz Alpha pass into the FellazDAO. As a reference, Alex purchased the Alpha pass for 16.5 ETH back in February, while similar passes have sold for up to 30 ether.
It's confirmed that Deadfellaz 3D characters will be usable during Zoom meetings.
Global payments giant Stripe has announced that it now supports crypto businesses including exchanges, wallet providers, and NFT marketplaces, among others. [TheBlockCrypto]
Fishy Fam posted a teaser for their Mutant drop, coming in Q2. [Twitter]
Belgian Beer Brewery Stella Artois added some artworks to their NFT collection to celebrate International Women's Day. [Twitter]
US President Joe Biden has signed the first-ever executive order on cryptocurrencies. It details how the industry can reinforce the US, as well as its citizens, the need for risk mitigation, as well as outlining a few critical points for regulators to work on. [CryptoPatato]
Dubai unveiled a new agency tasked with virtual asset regulation on Wednesday as its leadership looks to solidify the city’s position in the emerging global digital economy. [TheBlockCrypto]
Fans who discovered the hidden QR code in Crypto.com’s Big Game commercial featuring LeBron James got a chance to win an NFT from ‘The Moment of Truth’ NFT collection. [CryptoSlate]
Cool Cats hosted an informative Town Hall meeting to address their communication issues, $MILK accumulation, Polygon concerns, the status of the Cool Pets game. According to their discord, they are about to Beta Test the game again. [Luckytrader]
🥲 RECTIFICATION
Last week we reported about MetaMask users based in Venezuela and Iran who lost access to their Metamask wallet, highlighting the concerns over how decentralized Web3 actually is.
Just after sending out our newsletter, MetaMask released an official statement claiming this was due to their Infura Ethereum infrastructure and was being fixed.
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
LimeWire, a file-sharing service that shut down in 2011, plans to relaunch as a digital collectibles marketplace for art, music, and entertainment.
LimeWire is not the only company to map out plans for an NFT marketplace amid rising interest in the technology: the video game retailer GameStop pivoted to building its own digital collectibles marketplace. Additionally, Meta has also hinted at plans to allow users to buy and sell NFTs through Facebook and Instagram. [CryptoBriefing]
OTHER BRANDS ENTERING THE WEB3 SPACE
Shopify revealed it bought Doodle #6902 from the Doodles NFT collection, after which it changed its Twitter profile pic.. [Twitter]
Clothing brand Suspicious Antwerp offered NFTs to its team members, hinting at a public launch. [Twitter]
Warner Bros. is creating over 6 million DC Comics-inspired physical trading cards packaged with redeemable NFTs that will be available later this month. [Decrypt]
Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) announces the opening of its first headquarters in the Metaverse. [TheNewsCrypto]
Papa John’s has launched its first collection Nine pizza hot bag-inspired designs in a 19,840 NFT collection, which will be released for free on various days in early March for the UK’s NFT lovers. [TheNewsCrypto]
The Sandbox has partnered with World of Women to launch the World of Women Foundation. The new organization will help support women in Web3 spaces through a $25 million grant. [CryptoBriefing]
Feminist protest performance art group Pussy Riot has partnered with some of the biggest names in the Web3 and the NFT world to launch UnicornDAO, an investment fund solely focused on women-identifying, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ artists in Web3. [CryptoBriefing]
Paintings produced by Nelson Mandela during his time at Robben Island prison are being digitalized and sold as NFTs. [NFTPlazas]
Reese Witherspoon revealed that her production company Hello Sunshine is teaming up with World of Women to bring their NFTs into Film & TV. [RaritySniper]
K-Pop enters the Sandbox Metaverse: The Sandbox has partnered up with Cube Entertainment to develop tokenized assets for the game featuring K-Pop and other elements of Korean culture. [Cryptodaily]
💀 HOW TO RECOGNIZE A RUG PULL
A “rug pull” is a wildly used term within the crypto world and NFT space to describe a scam in which the founders of a project don’t fulfill their promises after receiving funds - essentially, running away with the money.
In order to recognize these rug pulls and to help you improve your research, we’ll be sharing various tips and tricks over the next few newsletters.
This week, we're sharing a carefully curated list of tweets from @zachxbt, in which he lists all the shady actors he came across in the space. He even explains how the ended up on this list in the first place - doing god's work if you ask me. 👏👏👏
POTENTIAL RUGS
About a month ago, John Terry launched his NFT collection, Ape Kids Football Club. But the project value has dropped by almost 90% since then. [CryptoSlate]
📅 UPCOMING MINTS
This chapter of the newsletter functions as the extension of my public NFT mint calendar, which is meant to highlight projects I’m looking forward to.
Below are the projects I’m looking forward to the most, but don’t forget to do your own research into them if they sound interesting because this shouldn’t be considered as financial advice.
MURI
Pre-mint: 14th of March
Public Mint: 13th of March
Supply: 10.000+
Price: Dutch auction starting at 0.3 ETH
Twitter: @MuriNFT
Roadmap: muri.soy/roadmap
The Muri NFT project is a 10.000 NFT collection of Anime inspired art, which has a lot of details and a darker and more obscure vibe than we're used to.
According to the backstory of the project, it was founded by haus - an NFT collective that started early November 2020 already gained experience in WEB3 by launching a hausphases collection.
Another thing we've noticed from reading their backstory is how carefully and detailed they worked on their storytelling: they have created lore behind the project and behind some of the characters, showcasing how meticulous they've been working on this project.
Next to amazing art and an experienced team, this project has another big asset: their Roadmap. It actually contains some interesting WEB3 functionalities, compared to other projects that just release some merch.
In their roadmap, MURI explains that they'll release an anime show in Q2 which will be connected to their NFTs.
We will release a whole anime around the story of MURI and the future of her. This includes the whole roadmap, when changes in the anime will happen it will update every character included in the change, the metadata is included there.
Another remarkable part of their roadmap is "The Transformation" in which they've announced they'll create custom 3D characters which will be usable in zoom meetings, metaverse, VR world, and various other platforms.
What's not to like, right? Well ... unfortunately: their public mint will be a dutch auction, starting at 0.3 ETH.
MUTTS
Pre-mint: 15th of March
Public Mint: 16th of March
Supply: 7.777
Price: Ξ0.07 presale, Ξ0.1 public sale
Max Mint: 3 per wallet
Twitter: @muttnft
Roadmap: muttnft.io
Another project that caught my eye, is MUTTS: a 7.777 NFT collection aimed "to bring happiness to the entire Metaverse".
Their team is fully doxxed in their discord, and even includes a rocket scientist that loves working in WEB3 space. I'm pretty sure he'll know how to go to the moon, right? 🥁😬
Anyway - Every MUTT will pocket $Mutt money, which will fungate as a utility token and won't have an economic value except for the fact that it'll help you buy merch and claim rewards such as allowlists and raffled blue-chip NFTs.
The team also announced it is planning to acquire a land plot in sandbox since they already have a team who's building the MUTT avatars for them. These avatars will be airdropped during Q3 to the owners of their 1:1 Mutt.
Froggy Friends
Mint: 18th of March
Supply: 4.444
Price: Ξ 0.03
Twitter: @FroggyFriendNFT
Roadmap: froggyfriendsnft.com
The reason why Froggy Friends is on our radar is easy: they have a limited supply, a cheap mint price, and cute art.
Next to buying into the community, the Frogs come with the rights to create and distribute derivatives, for which they even created a specific license agreement.
Over the past few weeks, Froggy Friends collaborated with various NFT projects (Turtle Town, Long Lost, Gunslingers,...) in order to give away allowlist spots. This might indicate the fact that the team is well connected and community-driven.
The roadmap itself is kinda limited, but I'm hoping this is a case of "under promise and over deliver".
Roadmap:
Egg: Community wallet deployed. Collaborations with other artists and groups.
Tadpole: Donations to amphibian conservation organizations. Community Giveaways.
Froglet: Exclusive Froggy Friends merchandise. Exclusive giveaways to Froggy holders.
Froggy: Pixel Froggies release. Online and IRL events.
🔮 LOOKING FORWARD
We are already looking ahead to the next few weeks, meaning we’re currently doing our due diligence and researching the projects listed below.
It’s no financial advice at all, but you might want to start doing your research and grinding for these allowlists before it’s too late.
PS - Don’t hesitate to tell them you found out about them via this newsletter ;)
📖 LEARN HOW TO DO YOUR RESEARCH
While this tweet from @thenftedge sounds like a massive brag, the eight lessons he shared with his audience are actually decent tips on how to research projects and how to flip them.
😂 LAUGH OUT LOUD
Kinda funny, but at the same time it kinda hurts my feelings 🥲🥲🥲
🤑 WIN: LOST SAMURISE ALLOWLIST
Lost SamuRise is an NFT collection of 10,000 Samurai who are fighting tirelessly to keep their allies safe. Traveling to their destinations by way of boat, Lost SamuRise aspires to be the first chain agnostic NFT project in the space. Stake your Samurai, earn passively, customize your armor, mend and repair the broken land.
In essence, Lost SamuRise is a gamified metaverse experience where hard work is rewarded and honor prevails.
GIVEAWAYS DETAILS
In this giveaway, you'll have a chance to win one of 15 different reserve list tokens, which will allow you to mint these Lost Samurise NFTs for 0.047 ether.
We advise you to listen to their latest AMA and read their litepaper to be 100% up-to-date about the project.
GIVEAWAY DISCLAIMER
I am a MOD in Lost Samurise their discord, so don't consider this as financial advise and make 100% sure you do your own research.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
You can participate in this allowlist giveaway by filling in this google form.
😊 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.