Alpha Schedule #7 - NFTs Takeover the City of Angels 🌇 😇
Alpha Schedule #7 - NFTs Takeover the City of Angels 🌇 😇
*Read this newsletter on the web for the best experience*
Hi, Alphas!
The past week was kinda slow for news; I assume thanks to everyone partying at NFT LA. On the other hand, it has been great for memes and long-form content 😉
Make sure to read this newsletter on the web for the best experience because we've noticed some email clients are cutting our emails in half. You wouldn't want to miss these memes, would you?
On another note, our newsletter gathered over 600 unique NFT collectors as subscribers. Supercool 🥳 🎉!
We're trying to scale our newsletter into an ecosystem for NFT collectors that includes an NFT mint calendar, among other things. So please keep forwarding this email to everyone you think would benefit from receiving this newsletter because we're on a mission to cross 1000 subs 😍!
You're also welcome to reach out to us if you know of any WEB3 brands who'd like to support us in this goal by partnering up 😉
PS: We didn't include any April Fool's Day jokes in our email, but we still recommend you to research everything 😘
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
🌇 😇 NFTs Takeover the City of Angels
Over the past few days, NFT LA, the biggest NFT conference in Southern California, took place. It hosted over 65 expositors, 27 artists, 250 speakers, and over 2500 NFT enthusiasts.
The event itself consisted of three experiences: NFTLA IRL (core in-person experience), NFTLA night (LA nighttime experience), and NFTLA meta (virtual experience in the metaverse).
Various NFT communities leveraged this event to host their community events, create street art in “NFT Alley” (Werdin PI), and organize airdrop events in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Some of them even brought home amazing souvenirs ...
😳 😵 Axie Infinity loses $615 million to hackers
Ronin Network, a critical bridge chain that powers Axie Infinity, was attacked, and this resulted in a loss of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC, equivalent to over $600M.
Since the breach occurred on March 23rd, the stolen funds have flowed into FTX, Huobi, and CryptoCom, which have all vowed to take actions to trace the funds.
Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity, said it would compensate online participants who lost funds during the attack against Ronin’s systems. [CryptoPatato]
A few days later, Sky Mavis announced postponing the launch of Axie Infinity's much-anticipated play-to-earn game Origin. The game will now go live on the Mavis Hub on April 7th, instead of the original plan to launch on March 31st.
🚨 ⚠️ BAYC & Doodles Discord Compromised
Earlier today, Several NFT projects saw their official Discord channels compromised - from Bored Apes Yacht Club to Doodles.
According to a Twitter alert from on-chain sleuth @zachxbt, the Bored Ape Yacht Club discord channel has been hacked and a Mutant Ape NFT has been stolen.
Reports indicate that multiple NFT projects, including Doodles, Shamanzs, and Nyoki, were the victims of the Discord server hack.
@OKHotshot, an NFT auditor and discord security analyst, confirmed that the hackers had targeted the Ticket Tool Discord bot and later revealed a deeper analysis of how the Ticket Tool was hacked.
🥷 🐢 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NFTs Coming?
The French media company Squemme Productions has announced that they will be releasing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NFTs, based on their 130 episodes of TMNT 1987.
However, @rugpullfinder claims that the letter from their IP Rights defense attorney does not count as an official documentation for owning the licensing rights of this IP, insinuating this might be a rug pull.
... Will definitely be continued!
📰 OTHER NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
OpenSea has rolled out direct card payments on its platform through MoonPay, simplifying the process of acquiring an NFT for those who don't own crypto.
LooksRare has partnered with Etherscan to introduce a chat button on its NFT marketplace enabling individual conversations between users. [NFTGators]
WeChat, the monopolistic super app that has over 1.2 billion users in China, has banned over ten accounts implicated in NFTs trading [Global Times]
OpenSea, the largest marketplace for NFTs, announced that NFTs minted on the Solana blockchain will be supported. The development will see the light of day in April.
Azuki has airdropped 20,000 “something” NFTs to its holders. The new NFTs currently have a floor price of 3.14 Ethereum on the secondary market, putting the cumulative value of the airdrop at over $213 million.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry has launched a virtual version of its demilitarized zone (DMZ), giving visitors a glimpse of the historic buffer zone that stands on the border between North and South Korea.
NFT marketplace OnePlanet has raised $3.35 million in a strategic funding round led by Hashed, with participation by Animoca Brands, Galaxy Interactive, SkyVision Capita, SNOW and Pala. [TheNewsCrypto]
Azuki #9605, billed as the second-rarest member of the Azuki NFT collection, sold for a record 420.7 ETH ($1.4 million) on Wednesday.
Nelson Mandela’s iconic arrest warrant was auctioned off as an NFT for roughly $130,000. [CrytpoSlate]
Samsung is taking a step towards innovation by integrating an NFT marketplace into its new range of smart TVs. [CryptoPatato]
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
Visa has officially launched its creator program first announced last October to help artists grow their businesses with NFTs. The program will run for one year in cohorts and train creators.
"NFTs can take many forms as creators become more invested in this medium, and we want to be positioned to support and impact creators using NFTs as a bridge to new audiences, products, and services," said Visa's head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield.
"This is just the beginning - We're continually developing new products and solutions at Visa for our clients, which can include creators and creator platforms." [Visa]
OTHER BRANDS ENTERING THE WEB3 SPACE
Pop artist Jeff Koons has announced a project called "Moon Phases" in which he will create a series of sculptures correlated to distinct NFTs and then send them to the moon.
Confront Art, an entity creating social justice art installations will release 9,000 NFTs to support We Are Floyd Org. and other charities. [Invezz]
American comic-book giant DC Comics revealed in a blog post that a batch of 200,000 Batman NFTs will be released. The massive drop, dubbed “Bat Cowl Collection,” is scheduled for April 26, 2022.
Ardor, a multichain blockchain platform, recently announced two critical updates in its quest to keep up with the NFT race. [Blockonomi]
Blur, an NFT marketplace geared toward professional traders, said Monday that it had raised $11 million in new seed funding. [TheBlockCrypto]
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht will release a collection of Bitcoin NFTs at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami to raise funds for children to visit their imprisoned parents. [CryptoBriefing]
David Beckham, a famous football star, an inspiring public figure, and a successful businessman is now the face of DigitalBits. [Blockonomi]
Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, announced the launch of an NFT museum where the most memorable events of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict will be displayed. [CryptoPatato]
UK-based NFT platform Deliciae is marketing an NFT of the Michael Jackson song “Whatever Happens”. [Invezz]
💀 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 the Top 10 Red Flags checklist made by @rugpullfinder.
POSSIBLE RUGPULLS
Dutch police have seized NFTs and crypto assets, according to a statement from the country’s law enforcement dated March 30.
Apparently, a security vulnerability has been found in Google Chrome for crypto wallet users. Go to the triple dot menu, help, then about Google Chrome.
Everyrealm apologizes for rug pulling Atari’s 50th Anniversary Commemorative Collection, after the public backlash they received when they announced a new ASMR NFT project.
Mark Cuban, responsible for various scams/rugs via his @NFT page, was one of the speakers at the NFTLA event. Yikes!
The holder of Bored Ape #835 recently sold it for 115 DAI, which amounts to $115. The sale has led to speculation on social media as to what could have made someone sell for such a low price: A mistake, an exploit, or tax evasion. [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 two of the projects I’m looking forward to the most. However: do your own research into them if they sound interesting because this shouldn’t be considered as financial advice.
Murakami Flowers
Mint date: April 1st (TODAY!)
Supply: 11,664
Mint Price: 0.0727 ETH presale, 0.108 ETH public
Roadmap: murakamiflowers.kaikaikiki.com
Murakami Flowers is the brainchild of the renowned Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, and displays his signature art: pixelated flowers.
These flowers are expressed as dot art evocative of Japanese TV games created in the 1970s and are being developed with the number 108 as the keyword; 108 different backgrounds, 108 different fields, etc.
In terms of marketing, Takashi is taking an a-typical approach: their roadmap is mainly spread over his personal Instagram page (as the project doesn't have a Twitter or discord channel) and hints towards various games, collabs, physical releases,.. and more. However, Murakami Flowers should be mainly considered to be an art project.
We expect this project to sell out fast since Takashi Murakami has a big legacy and managed to create a big social media following (2.5 mil followers on Instagram).
Without a discord channel or Twitter page, the only way to get allowlisted is to register for the Public Sale lottery on their website.
Lost Samurise
Mint date: April 4th
Supply: 10.020
Mint Price: 5000 free, 5000 at Ξ 0.047
Twitter: @SamuRiseNFT
Roadmap: https://docs.samurise.xyz
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.
The founders of the project have announced how they are going to make use of new and pioneering technology in the NFT space to stake their Samurai, earn passively, customize your armor, mend and repair the broken land. They are even adding utility for rugged and abandoned projects.
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.
🔮 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 OWN RESEARCH
In a detailed Twitter thread, @brokenomoreNFT explained how he used his research to snipe exclusive World of Woman Galaxy NFTs during the pre-reveal phase.
The thread shows why it's important to come prepared and do your research before minting a project!
🤔 Will NFTs on Instagram Drive Mass Adoption?
In March 2022, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta has planned to let users create, introduce and sell their NFT products on the company’s social networks like Meta and Instagram.
Deutsche Bank, a former cryptocurrency critic, believes Meta’s decision to integrate NFTs into one of its companies – Instagram – will legitimize those assets. [CryptoPatato]
👀 BEHIND THE SCENES
Earlier this week, NFT project pssssd launched a WL checker where their community could verify their status. Their platform awarded you with a custom "Clinical Trial Pass" if you were added to the allowlist.
Thanks to this innovative approach, their website was quickly overwhelmed with visitors, resulting in a crashed website. Afterwards, their founders shared some "behind the scenes"-insights via Twitter threads on how and why this has happened.
💰 NFT Prices related to Twitter engagement?
Whale Analytica, a project built by @swissdegen in order to better understand the data flows of NFTs, researched and compared Deadfellaz community growth over time and compared the number of tweets against the average price since mint, which resulted in a very impressive graph.
They've announced that they're currently writing a scientific paper using the transaction and Twitter data mentioned in their tweets. To be continued!
NFTs ARE SHAKING UP THE ART WORLD
While scrolling through Twitter, I stumbled upon an interesting thread that stated that NFTs are introducing a lot more people to various types of art than we've ever seen before. Makes you think!
PUTTING EVERYTHING IN PERSPECTIVE
Remember, we are still super early.
According to the statistics, Opensea only had 450.000 unique registered users who made at least one transaction during the month of March.
😂 LAUGH OUT LOUD
This hits way too close to home 😂 😂 😂
😂 NFA LA - LAUGH OUT LOUD
😂 😂 😂 Extra joke, to celebrate NFT LA.
Standup comedian Kevin Sonei, also known as Kmoney, has actually been making some solid NFT LA jokes over the past few days. Here are my favorites:
and my absolute favorite - pov: you run into every bro at nft la.
😊 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.