Monday and Tuesday 3/20 - 3/21

NFT LA kicked off on Monday with many Metaverse HQ members making the trek to the city to meet up for events, parties, and good times in general, especially MVHQ's own fantastic party on Monday night. Project-specific news was few and far between outside of Pudgy Penguins filing for trademarks, but platforms and blockchains had a great few days with Magic Eden and Polygon Labs both looking to innovate on their current offerings. Yuga continues its dominance over the market with HV-MTL (1500E) and Otherdeeds (1000E) being the biggest movers as degens look to capitalize on upcoming activations. 

 

Markets saw a bit of a spike in volume on Monday with $57 million traded before seeing a pullback on Tuesday to $46 million total. This is no doubt partially due to so many people holding onto liquidity in preparation for Thursday's $ARB token-generation event. Both Monday and Tuesday saw Blur pull in about $30 million more in volume compared to Opensea. The price of ETH clung on to $1800 to close Tuesday before an ever-important FOMC meeting on Wednesday. 

 

News:

- Pudgy Penguins continued making inroads on their path to mass adoption by filing for two more trademarks for uses of logos in a variety of mediums from comic books to snack foods.

- Pindar Van Arman has partnered with Sothebys to auction off a 1/1 NFT from his recent collection, ByteGANs, called a ByteGANg.

- Zed Run announced they are launching a Grant program to incentivize users with proposals to grow the Zed Run community.

- Polygon Labs announced a partnership with Immutable in order to develop an Immutable zkEVM in an effort to create faster and more efficient methods of processing and confirming transactions.

- Hopping on the latest fad, Magic Eden announced BTC collectibles are now tradable on their platform using BTC as the currency as well.

- Sony has filed a patent application referring to NFTs and transferring them between platforms.

 

 

Wednesday 3/22

As the broader crypto world braces for $ARB impact and another stimmy, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to frontrun the fun on reports of widespread correspondence with crypto native companies and individuals spanning from Coinbase to Justin Sun.

 

NFT project floors saw a sea of red as overall marketplace volume trended down for the second day in a row. We ended up closing just under $42 million on the day with ETH holding above the $1750 range. 

 

News:

- In a lengthy Tweet thread, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong disclosed that the company has received a Wells Notice from the SEC in regards to its staking and token offerings. As stated in the thread, a Wells notice often precedes an enforcement action. 

- The SEC announced charges against notable crypto personality and entrepreneur Justin Sun for marketing and promotional related crimes. The suit also includes notable celebrities such as Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan and Soulja Boy. 

- Otherside announces its 2nd trip is set to take place on Saturday as 12PM EST with an new video trailer. 

- OP3N AI, a company that is aiming to build the "WhatsApp meets Amazon" for web3, raises $28 million in Series A funding at $100 million valuation. 

- Animoca and Hex Trust launch a new wallet called Gryfyn, and aims to streamline user interactions across multiple blockchains.

- Goblintown teases part too! 

- CCP Games, the team behind games such as EVE Online, announces a raise of $40 million in funding in an effort to build a AAA blockchain game. 

- Magic Eden announces is launching Magic Eden Games fresh with content, leaderboards and newsfeed for web3 gaming.

 

 

Thursday 3/23

There was only one word on everyone's mind today, Arbitrum. Arbitrum opened its floodgates for their much-vaunted $ARB token claim this morning with MVHQ members piling into Voice Chat to the tune of over 125 people at times. The network faced severe congestion for over an hour, essentially grinding to a halt. Once claimable, the token opened at an absurd $10 on some exchanges before finding equilibrium with the price on DEX's around $1.10. By day's end 70% of the initial token supply had been claimed, settling at a price of $1.40.

 

NFT volume saw sizable retractions as many chose to instead leverage their funds for liquidity pooling or trading $ARB token with its incredible volatility. Even still, Otherdeeds had an impressive day trading 800E in anticipation of the upcoming 2nd Trip. Lower volume across all marketplaces results in a total of $33 million being traded, with a large majority occurring on Blur. ETH also decided to get in on the action along with many other major cryptos pumping to close the day at $1815.

 

News: 

- Arbitrum opened the claim process for their anticipated $ARB token. Users have the next 185 days to claim if eligible. 

- The Otherside tweeted details pertaining to the second trip taking place this weekend. Details include the potential of bringing a "guest" and delegating wallets via warm.xyz. 

- According to Montenegro's Minister of Interior, Do Kwon, founder of $Luna, was arrested. 

- Kanpai Pandas made a series of announcements today regarding the future of Panda Points and the rollout of a Kanpai Casino. 

- Animoca has partnered with gaming company Konig to bring interoperable Wheel-NFTs to their game Torque Drift 2 in an attempt to test cross-platform NFTs. 

- Pindar Van Arman, a leading AI artist, introduced an update to his recently released ByteGANs project where they can now mutate into cycloGANs. 

 

 

Weekend Recap 3/24-3/26

It's Yugas world and we're just living on the Otherside of it. The 2nd Trip blasted off on Saturday, hosting over 7200 concurrent players in a fun and energetic rendition of the games public Play Test. Unfortunately the broader crypto landscape continued to feel sluggish as the loss of traction in the marketplace that ended the work week, crept into the weekend as well. Fresh mint Nakamigos did find some room for fun as the 0.01E DA mint touched 0.2 floors on over 2500E volume. 

 

Saturday and Sunday averaged nearly $47 million in total daily transactions across all marketplaces, a welcomed uptick from the mid-30 lows we saw on Thursday and Friday. Recent stimmy $ARB has seen its price hold in the $1.25 range. $BLUR checks in at $0.53 while Daddy ETH keeps churning along above $1750. 

 

News:

- The Otherside's much anticipated 2nd Trip launched on Saturday, once again led by BAYC Shepherd Curtis and four additional captains. Each Captain spearheaded their respective teams through the Otherside terrain with Team Glacia claiming victory, winning a cosmetic Winged helmet airdrop for all team members. While minor connectivity issues plagued users, over 7200 (!) concurrent players entered the Play Test. 

- Binance was forced to halt all spot trading for several hours due to a transactional bug. 

- yOOts are migrating to Polygon, with hints at incentives for those who migrate within the first 24 hours. Mirgration is taking place on the projects official website. 

- OSF announces their famed artwork Red Light District will be auctioned off at Sotheybys from March 24th-31st. 

- PROOF Collective announces the launch of Outliers, "a new program for digital creators." 

- Doodles announce Genesis Boxes will open on March 31st. 

- Deadfellaz launch a new Front Facing Fellaz collectible file. While not NFTs, the art is hosted on IPFS and acts as extensions to the art files found within each DeadFellaz token. 

 

Notable Mint:

- Nakamigos sold out its 20k supply at a Dutch Auction price of .01E and saw heavy volume with floors currently touching the 0.2E range with over 2500E in transactions.