It’s a turbulent time as we approach the final week of the first month of 2022. NFTs have showed staying power to start this year, and despite broad market selling – particularly in more aggressive, speculative areas – the continuing flood of new announcements around NFTs this week has shown that there could be some real resiliency from the NFT market during the bouncy ride.
The newswire was slammed with social media buzz, with new announcements from both Meta and Twitter, and new NFT marketplace news that tied in the likes of Coinbase, Walmart and more.
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
Meta (Facebook) To Launch NFT Marketplace
According to emerging reports this week, Meta and Instagram are looking to integrate NFTs as profile pictures soon, and are seemingly working towards an NFT marketplace as well.
It’s far from Facebook’s first efforts in crypto and blockchain technology, albeit their first major push in NFTs. The company has previously gone through a variety of disappointments and flops, from stablecoin project Libra (since rebranded as Diem) to now established crypto wallet Novi.
Our team covered the latest from Meta and Instagram, and some of the crypto communities’ concerns.
NFTs On The Timeline: Twitter Hexagons Go Live
Meta and Instagram are by and large following in the footsteps of Twitter when it comes to NFT, as the blue bird app launched their first take at NFT integration for profile pics this week. iOS users are able to connect a wallet to validate their NFT ownership, and turn their profile picture hexagonal. The move immediately brought some good memes from those who are more skeptical about NFT viability.
The rollout is part of an extension of Twitter’s broader ‘Twitter Blue’ feature.
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Coinbase has been slowly unrolling details and partners for it's upcoming NFT marketplace, which could show itself as a strong competitor against OpenSea. | Source: NASDAQ: COIN on TradingView.com
Coinbase Partners With MasterCard For NFT Marketplace Onboarding
Anticipation continues to build as Coinbase’s NFT marketplace continues to tease out more pieces of the puzzle leading up to launch. OpenSea has been plagued with outages throughout recent weeks, and competing platform LooksRare yielded substantial traction in it’s early stages of release.
This week, Coinbase announced a new partnership with MasterCard to help streamline the financial onboarding process for new NFT consumers. This will likely lead to users having the ability to pay for NFTs directly via credit / debit cards.
Walmart: NFTs & Dedicated Crypto?
Arguably one of the biggest stories in NFTs this week came at the top of the week, and seemed to get a bit lost in the shuffle by the time the week came to a close. After shutting down rumors late last year that the company would begin accepting cryptocurrency for payments, the leading retail beast reeled it’s way back into crypto headlines, with patent filings this week that signaled the brand’s entrance into NFTs and… their own cryptocurrency.
Check out the full story from earlier this week on Bitcoinist.
Nirvana NFTs
Nirvana fans will be able to collect the historic band’s first ever NFT next month, with a limited edition release that will hit the market on Kurt Cobain’s birthday. The NFTs will feature never-before-seen images and artworks around the band.
Hosted by Pop Legendz, you can already see the NFTs on Rarible.
Hermes Suing NFT Artist
We’ve cited a number of different designer brands, throughout the NFTs In A Nutshell series and elsewhere, as they enter the NFT space. However, one we’ve called out as a prime example of a designer brand seemingly not entering the space – is Hermes.
The brand had previously shown great displeasure towards NFT designer Mason Rothschild, and now Hermes is taking that up and notch and has filed a lawsuit against the California-based digital artist. Rothschild is the creator of ‘MetaBirkins,’ an NFT collection that gained substantial traction, with art inspired by Hermes’ Birkin bags. According to reports this week, the brand filed suit in the Southern District of New York against Mason Rothschild for trademark infringement and trademark dilution.
Rothschild has previously released public letters expressing disagreement with Hermes’ stance (the brand previously sent Rothschild a cease and desist), and OpenSea, who pulled the collection. Rothschild has done so once again, posting an open letter on Instagram stating that the brand doesn’t “understand what an NFT is, or what NFTs do,” also adding that he “won’t be intimidated.”
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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.