MTV introduces the 'Best Metaverse Performance' award
Hi WEB3 fellaz,
Earlier this week, Full Send Podcast talked with Bored Ape Yacht Club's two main founders, Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow. In the podcast they explain how Steph Curry pushed the project to a new level and what they are planning with The Otherside.
Its very interesting to see how fast the BAYC project and its ecosystem grew, something that's also mentioned in the podcast.
Anyway, let’s get back on track with the hottest stories in Web3 land this week!
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
MTV introduces the 'Best Metaverse Performance' award
The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) added a new category to its list of competition categories. This year, artists are eligible to compete under the “Best Metaverse Performance” category for an award.
In its inaugural year, six artists are up for nomination. This includes "the Rift Tour," featuring Ariana Grande (Fortnite), Blackpink's "The Virtual" (PUBG Mobile), BTS (YouTube), Charli XCX (Roblox), "Justin Bieber — An Interactive Virtual Experience" (Wave) and the "Twenty One Pilots Concert Experience" (Roblox).
In addition to a brand new award category, on Aug. 12, the award show announced its first-ever Metaverse experience. Paramount Game Studios released The VMA Experience in the Roblox metaverse last week, which is available until Sept. 3 of this year.
NFT loans push BAYC to its lowest level since January
The week started out great for the Bored Ape Yacht Club, as they saw a considerable increase in its overall sales volume after Bored Ape #5383 was sold for 777 ETH, worth $1.45 million at that time.
However, the ongoing NFT market downturn pushed the floor price to 65 ETH, a level not seen since January 2, 2022. As a result, the sinking floor price meant that loans on the peer-to-peer lending platform BenDAO started to be liquidated.
This platform allows you to borrow ETH in return for up to 40% of your NFT’s floor price. If the NFT’s floor price falls below a certain threshold, the “health factor” of the NFT-backed loan drops below 1, and if the loan is not repaid within 48 hours, the NFT is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Meta’s Metaverse Play Ridiculed Online
According to some, Meta appears lost in its vision of what 3D virtual worlds should look like. The company’s release of its “Horizon Worlds” in Spain and France this week has been mocked by hundreds online following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement post on Facebook.
The post features Zuckerberg’s avatar standing in front of miniature models of the Eiffel Tower and the Tibidabo Cathedral on a bed of grass. The problem? The quality of the graphics appears to be rendered in the previous century.
📰 OTHER NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) has confirmed that the arrested Tornado Cash developer was suspected of being involved in the hiding of criminal financial transactions and facilitating money laundering.
The IP rights agreement for the CryptoPunks collection is now actually live on their website.
The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has reached a milestone of 2 million “.ETH” addresses minted. The landmark comes just three and half months after the service reached 1 million addresses.
Ronin, Axie Infinity's sidechain, has added three new validators to the project, increasing the total number of validators to 17.
NFT marketplace Rarible published a proposal to create a bespoke NFT marketplace for the ApeCoin DAO.
The world-famous cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX increased its revenue by more than 1,000% in 2021, from $89 million to $1020 million.
The Norwegian bitcoin mining company – Kryptovault AS – reportedly plans to move its operations north of the Arctic Circle. The relocation is prompted by the rising electricity costs in the country, while the northern regions are still relatively unaffected by the crisis.
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
Kanye West, David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Chuck Norris, and more recently, Billie Eilish have all made patent applications for NFTs.
Anthony Hopkins is launching his first NFT collection, reflecting his previous work, including his role as Hannibal Lecter in ‘The Silence of the Lambs.‘
Cryptocurrency investment firm CoinFund has raised $300 million for its latest fund: a venture capital-style vehicle that plans to focus on early-stage Web3-oriented startups.
Available data indicates that Google’s parent company Alphabet took a bet of $1.5 billion on 4 blockchain startups, including DapperLabs.
Epic Games has funded Grease Monkey Games to create Torque Drift 2, a blockchain-based racing game.
Unlockd, a protocol that allows users to borrow against NFTs, has raised $4.4 million in seed funding.
💀 HOW TO RECOGNIZE A RUG PULL
DegenTown, a collection of brightly-colored cel-shaded humanoid figures, launched with much promotion from Magic Eden on their Launchpad minting service.
DegenTown first suffered issues in July, when the project's Twitter account was allegedly hacked, and users were tricked into approving a contract that drained their wallets. One individual behind the project promised they would compensate the users whose wallets were drained, but never did.
The project ultimately rug pulled instead, with Magic Eden acknowledging it in a blog post and Twitter thread on August 17. They wrote that they were "urging the original Degen Town founders to return the funds"—however, this is complicated somewhat by the fact that the identity of one of them is not known to Magic Eden.
😂 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.