Another week of high-flying action in NFTs. Art Blocks and CryptoPunks saw nice bumps in sales volume the past week, while Axie Infinity and Bored Ape Yacht Club saw less week-over-week volume but still sit firmly in high position.
Meanwhile, OpenSea made headlines for more than one reason. Dapper Labs found a premium partner with Google. And more than one NFT project made news this week for charitable giving.
Let’s dive into this stories and more with this week’s “NFTs In A Nutshell.”
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
OpenSea Hit With Insider Trading Flak
OpenSea was under fire this week after admitting to insider trading from Head of Product Nate Chastain. Chastain was held in high regard from the NFT community, however the beauty of blockchain is it’s inherent transparency with anonymity. Twitter user @ZuwuTV seemed to make an investigative deep dive into Chastain’s wallets, even tying Chastain’s CryptoPunk (used as his Twitter and crypto wallet avatar) to correlate activity. The allegations, subsequently confirmed by OpenSea, from @ZuwuTV concluded that Chastain was buying OpenSea front-page NFTs before they went live, taking advantage of their front-page appearance to yield profits.
OpenSea has since released statements, concluding with policy changes, third-party auditing, and the request and acceptance of Chastain’s resignation. After the NFT boom we witnessed in August, it’s been a rocky September for OpenSea, after last week’s Nutshell highlighted OpenSea’s ‘burn bug’ that resulted in unintentionally burned NFTs.
Dapper Labs Partners Up With Google
Dapper Labs, creators of Top Shot, CryptoKitties, and the Flow Blockchain, made a splash this week with a new premium partner, Google. Google Cloud will serve as a member of the Flow network in a deal that will bolster Flow’s ability to scale up. Developers on Flow will be able to better integrate with Google Cloud’s software.
Google and competitors such as Amazon and Microsoft continue to make strides to optimize integrations with blockchain-based projects. Don’t be surprised if more deals like this one continue to come to life.
John Cena’s NFTs Flop
Professional WWE wrestler and actor John Cena released a series of NFTs last month. The result can be aptly described by Cena himself – a “catastrophic failure.”
Cena sold 37 out of 500 available NFTs, priced at $1K each. The NFTs included some physical items as well, however Cena himself seemed to acknowledge that the price point was simply too high. Nonetheless, there’s more to the mix than sheer price point. DraftKings and Autograph have done a great job working with sports stars to deliver NFTs with $1K+ price points and limited supply.
Another testament that NFT valuation is certainly more art than science.
Related Reading | The Andy Milonakis NFT Show, Ep. 4 – Interacting With The NFT Community
OpenSea Takes NFTs To Your Mobile Device
Despite the drama to kick off the week for OpenSea, the leading NFT platform did manage to have some good news to balance out the week. OpenSea launched an iOS and Android app on Thursday, allowing users to connect their OpenSea profile and discover new NFTs on the market. The app is speculated to potentially be under a soft launch, as buying and selling are not yet supported. The timing of the announcement also raised some brows, given this week’s insider trading headlines.
Nonetheless, payment support through the app is likely to be one of the biggest mobile app hurdles of OpenSea. It will likely take significant time to support sales, however a mobile presence is arguably long-overdue for the platform.
Solana has become a platform that continues to be in the discussion around new NFT projects. While not all projects have been embraced with a warm welcome, many have come to market with great intentions. | Source: SOL-USD on TradingView.com
A ‘Trippy’ Quarter Million Dollar Donation
Solana has been finding a corner in the NFT market that has been carving out a loyal audience. While some ‘duplicate’ projects have been under fire, there are a number of projects that have been making substantial positive impacts in the Solana NFT community.
One such project that our team highlighted this week is Trippy Bunny NFT. The project announced this week that 100% of mint sale proceeds would be donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. That number is just shy of a quarter million dollars, all going to AFSP via The Giving Block.
NFTs that make positive impacts in society? You love to see it.
Freddie Mercury NFTs Up For Auction
Late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury would’ve been 75 next week. To honor Mercury, four NFTs will go live next week on SuperRare for 75 hours. Proceeds will go to AIDS charity, The Mercury Phoenix Trust, founded by fellow Queen members and band manager.
Related Reading | Survey Finds That 1 In 4 US Teens Would Rather Invest In Crypto
Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
