The gathering in New York City this week for NFTs biggest meetup at NFT.NYC was far from your normal conference. One of k-pop’s biggest groups is diving into NFTs. And NFTs could just be the future of video games.
It’s just a few of the biggest topics of discussion over the past seven days. As always, we bring you the nutshell each weekend to crack open the last week of NFT action:
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
NFTs Hit The Town With NFT.NYC
NFT.NYC is well on it’s way to being a stapled meetup for NFT fanatics each year. This year, the city had it’s fair share of street art and digital billboards painted with a variety of NFT projects throughout the six-day event. Live music performances from the likes of Lil Baby and Beck, speaker series’ with industry professionals like Mike Novogratz, and plenty of NFT collection-specific events all came to life over the past week.
K-Pop’s BTS Releasing Band NFT
BTS is one of the biggest names in k-pop, and according to an announcement this week, the band is set to become arguably the biggest name in the music genre to release NFTs. A new partnership for the 7-member group will start with photo cards, expanding to physical equivalents of the cards, as well as web cartoons and novels and even a BTS game. The deal was spurred by the band’s agency signing a partnership agreement with crypto exchange Upbit.
BTS is based in South Korea, where this week the country’s Financial Service Commission declared that NFTs would not be regulated.
Fact? Or ‘Pulp Fiction’?
Director and writer Quentin Tarantino is taking a new genre of entertainment to NFTs. Film engagement with blockchain technology has been few and far between, but Tarantino’s new partnership with The Secret Network looks to change that.
If the name of the blockchain platform wasn’t enough of a giveaway, The Secret Network’s unique market proposition within NFTs is it’s privacy capabilities. The owner of Tarantino’s upcoming ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs, which feature exclusive, never-before-seen content, will be the lone user able to see the content. This is undoubtedly a ubiquitous feature in NFTs that hasn’t been utilized at this level yet. In a world where public ownership is often desirable, it will be interesting to see the demand for Tarantino’s NFT release. The drop is anticipated for later this month.
Are NFTs “The Future Of Gaming”?
The future of gaming? Video game behemoth EA seems to think so, according to a recent earning’s call. CEO Andrew Wilson described blockchain technology, notably NFTs and play-to-earn as “the future of our industry.” However, there are no current announcements from the company around blockchain or play-to-earn integrations in future titles.
Elsewhere in the market, Ubisoft made headlines this week for a sentiment similar to EA’s, and Take-Two’s CEO said he was a “big believer” in NFTs and believed that blockchain technology can be “very useful.” Video games have been widely seen as one of the biggest potential integrations for NFTs.
Autograph CEO: It’s All About Collecting & Community
Autograph paired up with DraftKings earlier in the year and has been a leading athlete-first NFT platform this year. It doesn’t hurt to have a leadership group spearheaded by legendary quarterback Tom Brady.
In an interview with CNBC Make It this year, when Autograph CEO Dillon Rosenblatt was asked about the reasons people are shelling out big bucks for NFTs lately, he replied that “first, it’s about collecting. Then, it comes down to community.” Hard to disagree with that, as the leading NFT projects have often come down to building and foster community identity.
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Solana has been aggressively pursuing Ethereum for the leading blockchain position within NFTs, but for the time being, ETH has been leading the charge. Solana has nonetheless performed exceptionally well this year. | Source: SOL-USD on TradingView.com
Solana Secondary-Market Sales Surpass $500M In Three Months
Solana has had quite a year this year. The NFT explosion certainly hasn’t hurt the cause either. This week, according to data from CryptoSlam, the surging crypto platform has crossed over $500M in secondary market sales; a number of different altcoins, from Algorand to Polygon to Flow (and a whole lot more) have been making initiatives to become a power player in NFTs, despite Ethereum’s clear dominance in present day.
NFT Marketplace Rarible Looks To Support Tezos, Solana, And Flow Blockchains
Cross-platform support in NFT marketplaces is seemingly an underrated feature, and one that Rarible is looking to take advantage of. In a speaker series during NFT.NYC this week, Rarible CEO Alexei Falin stated that Tezos, Solana, and Flow blockchains were on their way to Rarible’s platform.
It’s a high-stakes arm race with NFT marketplaces right now. Exchanges like Crypto.com, Coinbase, and FTX have been in hot pursuit of established movers like OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, and more.
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Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com