Bear-ly non-fungible 🧸

Nounlets arrive, OpenSea adds Arbitrum, Optimism Quests drop, & more!

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Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & digital collectibles

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Dear Bankless Nation, 

The markets are ugly, NFT trading volume is way down since the start of 2022, and doom and gloom’s abounding. 

Zooming in, though, NFT users and NFT transactions are up on the year, and it’s no stretch to say the ecosystem is now brimming with innovative projects across numerous categories. 

Nansen Intern @ Token2049 @nansen_intern

Feels like *everyone* was into NFTs last summer and now everyones gone - But stats like users, transactions and returning buyers are all higher. Volume is comparatively down bad but this seems largely due to far lower, and arguably far more reasonable, prices (Ethereum Data)

Markets go up and down, but builders build rain or shine, and our space’s technical and structural advances are compounding out in all directions accordingly. We’re paving the way for the next legs up, plain and simple.

jacob @js_horne

everyone dunking on opensea volumes forgets that coinbase's volume did the same thing after 2017/18 and then came back 10x larger the next phase

In the meantime stay curious, keep exploring, and have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for reading as always ✌️

-WMP

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Then Bankless would love to see your portfolio! The team is currently working on its first NFT project, and we’re on the hunt to hire a digital artist to collaborate with us. If you’re interested, please reach out through our submission form. Thanks kindly!

bankless.eth @BanklessHQ

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📣 General NFT News

• Apple said NFT projects can only sell NFTs via the Apple App Store through in-app purchases.

• Chain purchased patriots.eth for the New England Patriots for 75 ETH.

• Coinbase NFT started aggregating listings from multiple NFT marketplaces. 

• Ethereum Name Service regained control of the eth.link domain name. 

• OpenSea enabled support for OpenRarity and for trading on Arbitrum. 

• Showtime rolled out an auto minting feature. 

• Tessera, a collective ownership protocol, rolled out the Nounlets (each is 1/100th of a Noun NFT):

Tessera @tessera

It started with the Imperial System Then there was the Metric System Now we bid with the Memetic System LFG

• Urbit launched its own EVM blockchain, the Urbit Virtual Machine. 

• zefram.eth unveiled Bagholder, an NFT loyalty protocol. 

• Zora introduced an airdrop system to its creator toolkit:

🌜🌞🌛 @ourZORA

Introducing ☼ Airdrop on the Creator Toolkit ☼ ↳Easily create a list of addresses from multiple sources ↳Batch free airdrop tokens to as many addresses as you’d like See for yourself: zora.co

🏆 Digital Collectibles

• Cool Cats partnered with Habbo to launch a virtual world experience for the collection’s holders and introduced a new CEO, Stephen Teglas. 

• Optimism unveiled Optimism Quests, a guided tour of the L2 that lets you earn NFTs along the way:

Optimism (✨🔴_🔴✨) @optimismFND

We’re always looking for opportunities to make Optimism more accessible for both new & experienced users alike. That's why we're excited to announce Optimism Quests: a guided exploration of the ecosystem that allows users to earn NFTs while exploring Optimism apps!

• Matt Furie, the original creator of Pepe the Frog, released the Hedz collection.

• Paradigm open-sourced the Art Gobblers codebase. 

🎨 Cryptoart

• Jan Robert Leegte is releasing JPEG, a generative art project, on October 31st, 2022. 

• Nifty Gateway hosted the release of Crypto Art Begins, a phygital book that details the early history and pioneers of the cryptoart movement. 

• Tyler Hobbs released QQL, a collaborative generative art experiment, an announced an associated mint pass contest:

Tyler Hobbs @tylerxhobbs

🔴⭕QQL Contest⭕🔴 ⭕️Win a QQL Mint Pass⭕️ How to enter 1) Create QQLs on qql.art 2) Choose 1 to submit 3) QT this tweet with: - #QQLcontest - Your QQL URL - An image of your QQL 1 entry per person Cutoff 9/25 Noon CT Winners announced 9/27 FAQ on site ex:

🎮 Decentralized Gaming

• Axie Infinity released a midseason balance patch for Axie: Origins Season 1. 

• Civitas published the latest version of its whitepaper.

💽 Music NFTs

• sound.xyz unveiled Sound Protocol:

sound.xyz (🎧,🎧) @soundxyz_

We’re excited to announce the Sound Protocol. ✅Permissionless base layer ✅Artist-owned & non-upgradeable song contracts ✅Permanent & decentralized metadata ✅Custom mint formats ✅Payments & end-to-end royalties This is a monumental step forward for Sound. Here’s why👇

🌐 Virtual Worlds

• Decentraland launched an emotes marketplace. 

• Somnium Space introduced WEB WORLDS, an automatic parcel enhancement tool.

💎 DeFi x NFTs

• The Uniswap Foundation announced its first wave of grants.

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Action steps

• 🔥 Read 10 psych hacks for investing in Bankless

• 📸 Watch Weekly NFT Recap #38 on Overpriced JPEGs

• 🌳 Watch an interview with Filecoin’s Alan Ransil on Green Pill

• 🧐 Catch up on my other write-ups from this week: 

  • Historical NFTs

  • Nouns (on a budget)

  • A beginner’s guide to ETH validators

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Author Bio

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal—a Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. He’s also recently been contributing content to Bankless, JPG, and beyond!

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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

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Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.