As we move further into February, NFT sales are winding down. January 16 was the high point this year with over 60k NFT sales. Now, we are back to under 25k daily NFT sales.
Average daily sales: NonFungible
With the downturn of the market, people are returning to the classics. CryptoPunks, Axie Infinity, Bored, and Mutant Ape Yacht Clubs are at the top. However, we have seen Karafuru and Pixelmon achieve $108 million in sales last week.
Karafuru consists of 5,555 NFTs created by the Museum of Toys from Jakarta, Indonesia. The colorful characters are definitely one of the more imaginative ones we have seen, surpassing even the Apes.
As for Pixelmon, it is an upcoming 3D RPG voxel-based blockchain game, similar in appearance to popular Trove. Much is expected of this Pokemon-like game. The team recently auctioned 20 Pixelmon Trainers, with each one guaranteed to have Pixelmon Generation 1 NFTs airdropped, causing the floor price to jump to 13 ETH ($40k).
However, the fact that Pixelmon managed to raise $70 million for an unfinished game has raised some red flags. On the other hand, this is nothing new. Star Citizen, an ambitious non-blockchain space game, has raised over $400 million without delivering the final product yet.
Time will tell if Pixelmon will prove to be legit and outshine even Axie Infinity in revenue. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at NFT news that happened last week.
Beer Giant Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light Enters NFT Space
Anheuser-Busch knows that the beer business is extremely profitable. Because beer is made from mostly water and is always in demand, the trick is in the marketing. And they sure are experts in making the brand stick. The beer behemoth more than doubled in size, from $60 billion in 2009 to $125 billion market cap in 2022.
Bud Light recently released a commercial dubbed Zero in the Way of Possibility, set to be featured during the Super Bowl LVI. It will not only promote the company’s latest beverage, Bud Light Next, but also an open-source Nouns DAO NFTs, 32×32 pixelated avatars.
The Nouns lineup was not free, as the Nouns Foundation bought Noun 179for 127 ETH (~$394k) and released it to Bud Light after DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) voted on this proposal. Very interesting development how DAOs can so effectively enter the corporate world.
However, the star of the show is the Bud Light N3XT, a generative collection based around two-part randomized backgrounds, consisting of 12,722 tokens. Each one will have a price floor at $399, with holders getting access to a discord server, voting rights, and eligibility for future merch drops (U.S. only).
Bud Light N3XT Collection NFTs: Bud Light
It features two-tiered rarity: Diamond and N3XT, revealed after minting. Interestingly, the upcoming beer itself — Bud Light NEXT — is excellent news for those who are into the ever-popular ketogenic diet. The beer has zero carbohydrates and only 80 calories per can.
New Alfa Romeo SUV Will Come With NFT Service Record
Founded all the way back in 1910, Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo has always stood out as employing elegance but not limiting their offering to high-tier customers. One of their latest models is Tonale, coming out of the upgraded Giambattista Vico plant in Pomigliano d’Arco.
This is notable because it is one of the most automated and advanced automotive plants in the world.
Fans of Alfa Romeo can see the resemblance to the previous GT Line. However, Tonale keeps up with the time by being a hybrid. In addition to its combustion engine, it has a 48-volt electric engine with up to 80 km range when the combustion engine is turned off.
For our interest, Tonale is the world’s first car that uses NFTs as a digital certificate. When a customer buys Tonale, they have the option to record vehicle data as NFT. This makes it much easier to guarantee ownership, as blockchain records are both immutable and verifiable.
UN To Add NFT Twist to Women Empowerment Message
The United Nations (UN) has long served as a launching pad for projects later to be implemented on a national level. One of them is women’s rights. This year, UN is upping their game for the International Women’s Day celebration by hosting a first-ever female NFT collection.
Starting on March 8, the Boss Beauties initiative will disclose their NFT collection titled “Boss Beauty Role Models” at the UN headquarters in New York. The event will be live-streamed and feature a host of keynote speakers from both the corporate and the NGO world. NFTs will include notable historic figures, such as Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter born in 1907 who inspired many women to start their art careers.
The creators of the project, Boss Beauties, is an offshoot of My Social Canvas company founded by Lisa Mayer. She, too, has worked to support women by setting up scholarships and mentorships. The current Boss Beauties collection, not the Role Models one, is available on OpenSea, accounting for 10,000 randomly generated digital female portraits in various occupations.
Because of Lisa Mayer’s involvement, the NFT sales will be conducted as a charity auction with proceeds going to Boss Beauties Scholarship Fund for Women and Girls, under the umbrella of My Social Canvas NGO. The auction will begin a day before this year’s International Women’s Day.
Boy George Launches First-Ever NFT Collection
It doesn’t take much to start an avalanche. Following the footsteps of Snoop Dog, Grimes, Curren$y, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Eminem, Ozzy Osbourne, and other celebrities, George Buy has joined the NFT club. The 60-year-old singer, songwriter, producer, and fashion designer pushed many boundaries over the years, including wearing makeup before it was deemed appropriate for men.
Once fronting the mega-popular Culture Club band, the androgynous icon is releasing CryptoQueenz, consisting of 9,999 NFTs. Pixel Potent blockchain startup handled all the technical details, including Boy George’s own website for the collection.
This is where you can join up to get whitelisted and receive other updates through the Discord channel. If you miss out, CryptoQueenz will appear on OpenSea when listed. As for the collection itself, it is horror-themed, featuring George Boy’s Scarman artwork, notable for having sold for $375k.
The NFT version will randomize Scarman along with George Boy’s hat collection. Some of the proceeds will go to LGBTQ+ charities. Specifically, 2% to Elton John Aids Foundation and Shelter, including all subsequent royalties.
OnlyFans Jumps Into NFT Profile Pictures
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that more intimate content is bound to hit skyrocketing popularity. This is what OnlyFans is all about, sharing exclusive content to, you guessed it, only fans who pay for it.
So far, OnlyFans has done extremely well, with 170 million users and over 1.5 million content creators. Providing what people want from the comfort of one’s own bedroom, for a 20% cut to OnlyFans, certainly helped a lot of people during the C19 shutdowns.
The fact that OnlyFans is now including profile pics as NFTs via MetaMask wallet is great news for the overall crypto adoption as well. Already, every single social media platform worthy of note — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, OnlyFans — did or will integrate NFTs as digital clout.
FarmVille Creator Plans First NFT Game Launch by 2022
In 2021, we have seen the outlines of Web3 infrastructure manifesting. From decentralized video streaming and storage platforms to lending protocols, Web3 aims to return the power of the internet into people’s hands, using tokens as economic units.
Otherwise, the entire internet will be more centralized under the vice-grip of a couple of corporations. Blockchain gaming or play-to-earn (P2E) gaming is one of the clearest benefits of Web3. Previously, gamers could have earned money only through exclusive esports events or monetized streaming.
Axie Infinity set the standard by which a game can inherently serve as an income source if its internal resources are tokenized and tradeable outside the game. This is the goal of Zynga, the creators of the mega-popular FarmVille franchise.
Matt Wolf, Zynga’s VP of blockchain gaming, is aiming for the company to become a publisher of blockchain games.
“We’re fully tuned up to do acquisitions on the [Web 3] game publisher side,”
However, Wolf insists on a cautious approach, so the first NFT-powered game title will not come from the FarmVille franchise. Rather, from Mafia Wars, where instead of farming, users battle competing crime syndicates. One could say it is a more exciting management theme!
To boost its blockchain gaming efforts, Zynga will expand from 15 to 100 developers. However, Zynga may end up doing this under Take-Two Interactive umbrella, as the gaming giant recently offered Zynga $12.7 billion for acquisition. However, the deal hasn’t gone through yet. Perhaps, blockchain gaming is the money-making power horse Zynga is counting on.
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