Brand Activity
Maison Margiela collaborates with Fabricant
Maison Margiela is collaborating with digital fashion house “Fabricant” for their latest release titled MetaTabi
The NFT drop will consist of 15 digital versions of the iconic Tabi Boot in white that will come with a physical counter part
1,500 digital Tabi Boots in black will also be available for purchase redeemable for a physical custom wallet
The physical backed tokens will come with a range of benefits according to Maison Margiela including but not limited to AR capabilities, Metaverse explorations and gaming integrations
However no specific platforms have been named for these future benefits
The collection is slated to launch late March 2024 and will take place on the Fabricants platform.
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Meta Has Major Outage
Meta faced a major outage on all of its platforms including Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp on March 5th
This was unfortunate timing as it coincided with Super Tuesday voting which usually correlates with major use of these platforms
Meta personnel had to take to rival platform X to provide users with information on the outage as well as give updates on the expected fix
No specific cause for the outage has been provided a this time.
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Coachella Wades Back into Web3
In 2022 Coachella in partnership with FTX auctioned off 10 lifetime passes to the festival and generated over $1.5M
FTX would implode shortly after making this activation difficult to deliver on
Coachella is returning to the space however, this time with OpenSea
Coachella is selling 1,000 NFTs on the Avalanche blockchain that will grant owners VIP access to the 2024 festival including access to the Oasis lounge and complementary drinks
The passes cost roughly $1,500 and have been on minting since the 3/4
At time of writing they have only sold 33 NFT’s or roughly 3% of the total collection.
Coachella has two more mints planned ahead of its April festival but details and utility have not been revealed
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Native Web3
Yuga and Magic Eden’s Royalty Enabled Marketplaces Launches
Royalties for artists and creators was one of the major features that made NFTs capture the publics attention in 2021, however as new marketplaces popped up it became easier and easier to avoid royalties
In collaboration with Yuga Labs, Magic Eden has officially launched the first major Ethereum platform to automatically honor creator royalties
Joining Yuga in bringing their collections to the royalty enforced marketplace are fellow web 3 powerhouses Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, Degods and more
However while this may be a net positive for creators, traders are obviously not pleased and Yuga Labs has suffered a decline in price and frequency of trading across all their collections since the launch of the marketplace
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Truth Labs New Protocol Allows Users to Burn NFTs for Equity
Truth Labs, the company behind the immensely popular Goblin Town NFT collection continues to bring new ideas to the space
Truth Labs merged with Upstream to create a new entity called “Truth Arts”
The new entity’s first order of business is a limited time event called “The Resurrection” giving owners of Truth Arts NFTs the ability to burn their NFT for equity in Truth Arts
Furthermore the equity granted will be equal to the purchase price of the NFT not the current value of the NFT
Once burned, users will receive a soul bound token with the art of their burned NFT allowing them to partake in token gated experiences within the Truth arts ecosystem
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https://x.com/white_house_eth/status/1762582788182565083?s=46&t=_7pDgE5H9aTXqeaCBEEtYw
https://nftnow.com/news/exclusive-truth-labs-and-upstream-merge-launch-burn-for-future-equity-program/
NFT Markets Explode Following Cryptos Price Increase
The crypto markets have been on a tear recently with BTC reaching new all time highs and other cryptos following
As a result, NFTs are seeing more activity:
Between March 1-7 NFTs surged to over $412M equivalent of sales, a roughly 35% increase from the week before marking the third consecutive week of sales growth within the NFT sector
A massive reason for this increase is the exploding popularity of Bitcoin NFTs or ordinals
The Bitcoin Blockchain did more volume than any other blockchain with a whopping $154M in weekly volume
Top performing chains for NFT volume were Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB and Mythos
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https://news.bitcoin.com/nft-market-booms-with-35-sales-increase-as-cryptocurrencies-rally/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-beats-ethereum-week-nft-sales-with-ordinals-comeback
Crypto Punk Sells for a Staggering $16M
Its not just the volume of NFTs collections increasing, there have also been an uptick in collectors buying rare traits as well as generative art
Last week we saw the biggest sale of generative art on the Ethereum blockchain and this week we saw a jaw dropping sale of a Crypto Punk
Crypto Punks are legendary early NFT’s that have become a grail for digital collectors including celebrities like Jay-Z
They currently trade for somewhere between $150k-170k per Crypto Punk, however certain traits such as zombie or ape can fetch extremely high prices
An anonymous buyer really wanted an alien trait Crypto Punk and shelled out over $16M
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AI News
Apple Kills Car, Invests in AI
Apple has been working on the “Apple Car” for over a decade with many customers eagerly awaiting news
Unfortunately they will be waiting for quite sometime as an employee at Apple has confirmed it is shuttering that division and will be moving most of the engineers working on that product into AI focused endeavors
While it would have been amazing to see what an Apple car would have had to offer, Apple is also behind almost all major competitors such as Microsoft, Google and Open AI when it comes to AI offerings
Apple is set to debut some of its AI applications later this year
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Elon Musk Sues OpenAI
Elon Musk has a complicated past with OpenAI as he was one of the first people to give funding to Sam Altman with the understanding of it being a non-profit
Since then, OpenAI has changed it’s structure to include a for profit entity
It is this breach, “that open AI has abandoned its original mission of developing Ai for the good of humanity not profit” as well as the hidden nature of how Chat GPT 4 was created which is the basis for Musk’s lawsuit
It should be noted that Elon Musk now owns a for profit AI company that is a direct competition to Open AI, as well as Open AI is on track to do $2B in revenue in 2024
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Metaverse / Gaming
PUMA Collaborates with Rec Room
PUMA has collaborated with popular metaverse Rec Room, releasing a limited time collection of three designs, featuring the iconic T-7 tracksuit as well as beanie and hoodie
The collaboration has been well received by the Rec Room community especially the promotional video which has amassed 22 thousand views in under one week with many positive comments
Apes Come Home Otherside Trip
YUGA hosted its latest trip to its metaverse Otherside for holders last week
This was the first preview after the announced shift from a competitive MMORPG ala World of Warcraft to a more user generated content focus a la Roblox
The announcement left many disappointed and wondering why they had paid thousands of dollars for a deed to digital land if the game’s core concept wasn’t yet certain
However it seems the majority of people had a great time in the latest preview - All 10,000 Bored Ape NFT’s were playable as avatars and users got to explore an island with much more freedom than previous trips to the Otherside
One feature that proved extremely popular and gave an added bonus of some free PR was the selfie feature which allowed players to take selfies with their apes across various landscapes and activities
The pictures proved popular on X with many posting selfies from the experience
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Sony Files for Major Web3 Patent
Sony has been filing web3 patents in the background for years at this point and they show no signs of slowing down
Their latest patent details the concept of “super fungible tokens” for games that would be stored on a distributed ledger and transferable player to player…. this of course sounds a lot like the concept of ingame NFTs
The term distributed ledger effectively a synonym for blockchain, however if Sony has plans on launching their own blockchain or utilizing one already available remains to be seen
Of course it should be noted that many major companies file a multitude of patents that are never acted upon
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Coinbase partners with Parallel Trading Card Game
Parallel is an Ethereum based trading card game that has exploded in popularity in recent months, the cards are minted as NFT’s and have done 80,000 ETH in volume alone
Until recently the game was only playable for NFT holders, however the game is now in Open Beta and Parallel has teamed up with Coinbase to entice new players
Interested players can access Parallel via Coinbase and will be gifted with $5 of in game credits and two packs of digital trading cards
This will allow players to access the game before spending any personal funds
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Crypto
Bitcoin Hits All Time High
On Friday March 8th Bitcoin briefly rallied to $70,000 per Bitcoin, a new all time high
It was short lived as it fell to the mid 60s later in the day but is now trading at over $72,000
Bitcoins rapid rise in price also had some ripples in the stock market, with Coinbase’s stock rallying over 300% in the last 12 months
Microstrategy’s stock has also risen so much due to its Bitcoin holdings and will join the S&P as a result
SEC Delays Ethereum ETF Again
In a move that surprises no one the SEC has delayed their decision regarding spot Ethereum ETF’s
The decision was supposed to be made on March 10th which was already a delay from the original decision date
The new decision date is May 23 and the SEC will have to give an answer as they have run out of ability to delay any more times
There are currently 8 applications waiting approval
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BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Sets Single Day Trading Record
As Bitcoin reached a new all time high, the newly allowed Bitcoin ETFs set new trading records
BlackRock’s offering leads the pack with over $3.8B in volume in one day, smashing the previous record of $3.3B which was set just last week
In total all combined ETFs did over $10B in volume
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