Rick & Morty Creator’s Art Gobblers Renew Debate Over NFT Influencer Ethics
Hey Frens and Fellaz,
You might have noticed that this newsletter is sent out a bit later than usual, but that's because I had a legendary time at Deadzone LA, threw an impromptu boat party with a few friends, and visited Rumblerz's Hollywood studio. Good vibes!!
The biggest Crypto Twitter story over the past week was the fact that Elon Musk finally bought Twitter, and took sole control of the social media platform - more about this is below.
A different story that sparked my interest was a Twitter thread explaining how Ashton Kutcher's VC Firm is actually running the NFT show, as it has a significant amount of shares of Opensea, Yuga Labs, and Moonpay.
On another note, I've started an event and party schedule for Art Basel Miami, taking place December 1 to 3 in Miami: alphaschedule.io. The schedule is accompanied by a dedicated Telegram channel and will be kept up-to-date by yours truly! Feel free to share it with your fellow degen friends, and reply to this email if you see missing parties.
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
Elon Musk takes over Twitter
After months of lawsuits and the near miss of a full-blown trial, Elon Musk now owns Twitter. The closing of the $44 billion deal came after a lot of drama and legal challenges as he changed his mind about buying the social media service earlier.
Since the acquisition, he announced a plan to open the floodgates to user verification on the social media platform, for $8/month and teased using dogecoin for the payment system. Something that makes sense, as crypto marketplace Binance and Crypto VC firm A16Z put money into the acquisition, and both have a lot to win by making web3 a part of Twitter's future.
Additionally, a couple of pranksters took the media for a spin as they made a Ligma Johnson joke.
Art Gobblers rakes in $13 million
NFT project Art Gobblers brought in an ETH volume of 7,480 ETH, with 925 unique owners and a floor price of 11.25 ETH, only a few hours after launching their mint. That’s more than $13.4 million at the time of writing.
The project attempts to make a self-sustaining art creation ecosystem through financial incentivizing and was created by Justin Roiland, voice actor for and co-creator of the hit show Rick and Morty.
However: the collection was heavily criticized, as most of those on its allowlists were crypto influencers who immediately dumped the project on their followers. It sparked the conversation about crypto influencers, inside trading, and the code of ethical behavior in the NFT scene - especially after Andrew Wang pretended to be a 13-year-old boy to help pump Art Gobblers.
OpenSea employee loses motion to strike ‘insider trading’
A judge in the Southern District of New York has declined to strike the term "insider trading" and suppress evidence from an FBI raid in the fraud case against the former OpenSea product manager accused of illegally using his position to make a profit on the posting of non-fungible tokens to the platform.
Nathaniel Chastain filed to strike the term "insider trading" from the indictment against him and bar the Justice Department from further using the term in a Sept. 30 filing, claiming it was, "inflammatory, unduly prejudicial, and irrelevant to the crimes charged," in his argument.
📰 OTHER NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
Starcatchers moved to 0% royalties
LooksRare said in a statement that it will no longer require collectors to pay royalties to creators when purchasing digital collectibles.
Magic Eden announced that it would be funding a "Creator Monetization Hackathon," to encourage developers and creative thinkers to find a way to enforce or incentivize secondary royalties.
Nikolai Mushegian, former dai stablecoin developer and co-founder of the Balancer exchange, died in strange circumstances at the age of 29.
Gucci has launched its own metaverse inside The Sandbox.
Visa's 7-Year FIFA Partnership evolves as it's adding NFTs and Web3 technology to its arsenal ahead of the World Cup Qatar.
Grease Monkey Games, an Australia-based multi-platform video game studio and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced a historic industry partnership and collaboration with Nissan.
GameStop's NFT marketplace is officially live on Immutable X, a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling protocol.
RealFevr, one of Portugal’s fastest-growing startups, announced that it has raised a €10 Million funding round to build a Web3 GameFi Sports Ecosystem.
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
Netflix is now active on discord, sparking rumors about future NFT moves.
Buscemi Beats, a new Music NFT project, explores new ways of collaboration and co-creation between audiences and musicians.
Tech giant Meta has struck a partnership with makeup brand L'Oréal and French business school HEC Paris backing a new startup acceleration program for creativity in the metaverse.
Google is increasingly getting involved in Web3, including a recent partnership with Coinbase to launch a crypto payment pilot program.
Frozen food company McCain Foods wants young consumers to farm its metaverse potatoes in a new game on Roblox.
Decentralized Engineering Corporation, a software development company, has raised $9 million to decentralize ridesharing.
Lingfeng Innovation Fund, a new venture capital fund led by former Binance Labs executive Nicole Zhang, landed $20 million to invest in crypto startups.
👀 BEHIND THE SCENES
Sean, Global Concept Director at Wrangler, has shared behind the scene footage and exciting information about the Deadfellaz x Wrangler collab; from the meaning behind "undead Denim" to the technology behind the project. A fascinating Twitter thread!
😂 LAUGH OUT LOUD
😊 ENJOYED THIS WEEK'S ALPHA?
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🤓 DISCLAIMER: NFA & DYOR
This newsletter is a curated overview of the most exciting 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.