If you thought NFTs had a big week 1 in 2022, they didn’t slow down much in week 2, either.
OpenSea volumes continue to rip, despite buzz around new marketplace LooksRare, there’s a whole new slate of major brands entering the mix, and Wikipedia dropped the hammer on whether or not NFTs are art.
Let’s take a bird’s eye view on the past week of NFT action as 2022 gets into full speed.
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
OpenSea Volumes Continue To Rocket, Platform Surpasses 1M Wallets Explode To Start The Year
In last week’s Nutshell, we covered the boisterous start to 2022 for OpenSea. Even still, now just over two weeks into the new year, every single day in 2022 has seen more daily ETH volume on OpenSea than any Q4 day in 2021. OpenSea is blasting through previous ceilings, and now has over 1M active user wallets. January is on pace to be the biggest month for OpenSea yet.
New Brand Engagement: Gap, Crocs, Hennessy, & Mercedes-Benz
We covered a full-length report on apparel brand Gap’s first foray into NFTs this week, powered on Tezos. However, there’s a growing list of new brands each week that are starting to dip their toes in the sand. Leisure shoe company Crocs filed a trademark application this week that alludes to their first entrance into NFTs – though the company has yet to comment.
Meanwhile, cognac company Hennessy is pairing up with BlockBar to release ‘Hennessy 8,’ an exclusive cognac and matching NFT that is priced at nearly a quarter million dollars. Mercedes-Benz is working on a high-class project, too, curating custom G-Class NFTs in tandem with five different international artists that will be releasing later this month on Nifty Gateway.
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Wikipedia Settles It: Determines NFTs Are Not Art… For Now
Wikipedia editors sat down for a roundtable discussion this week in considering whether some of the biggest NFT art sales should fit in the criteria of “most expensive artworks by living artists” – leading them to the end debate of whether or not NFTs are art.
Check out our deep dive report on the matter to learn more about Wikipedia’s position on the matter – at least for the time being.
— sartoshi (@sartoshi_nft) January 14, 2022
New NFT marketplace, LooksRare, is in early stages of trading it's LOOKS token, however it seems that some are trying to take advantage of the tokenomics by wash trading NFTs. | Source: LOOKS-USD on TradingView.com
Congressional Candidates Turn To NFTs For Fundraising
Congress certainly isn’t ready to talk NFTs, but that isn’t stopping candidates from leveraging NFTs in fundraising. One Arizona candidate raised over half a million dollars in less than two days recently. Could these sorts of funding mechanisms lead to further regulation? Check out more details from our report earlier in the week on this topic.
IRL NFT
British department store Selfridges will be releasing what is seemingly the first-ever “over the counter NFTs.” Starting later this month, the department store’s flagship location in London will release roughly 1,800 NFTs priced between $2,700 and $137,000 USD as part of an exhibition titled “Universe.” The exhibition will also include rare physical pieces from artist Victor Vasarely and will include NFTs celebrating legendary fashion designer Paco Rabanne.
LooksRare Goes Live
New NFT marketplace LooksRare went live this week, and has been a major talking point across the NFT community as many artists and collectors express disappointment in OpenSea’s lack of growth, continued centralization, and more. According to some reports, LooksRare daily volume is already rapidly approaching $500M.
LooksRare offers a native platform token, LOOKS, that can be staked on the platform, and also takes charge at OpenSea by offering an aggressive 2% fee on standard sales (compared to OpenSea’s 2.5%) and no fee on private sales.
Some outlets have reported that there is some questionable activity impacting volume, as there is suspected manipulation with Meebits holders that are seemingly repeating buy and sell transactions in order to obtain LOOKS tokens.
Tarantino And Miramax Continue To Battle Over ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs
It’s been over about 75 days since we first covered the story of legendary director and writer Quentin Tarantino’s NFT endeavor, and in less than 3 month’s time, the projects has gone through a whirlwind of twists and turns.
Now less than 48 hours away, it seems that despite the pushback from Miramax, Tarantino will be releasing the NFTs. Check out the latest updates in the push and pull around this release at sister network NewsBTC.
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Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com
The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.
