NFTs are what we make them
LooksRare launches, Ghozali charms us all, Nouns DAO eyes the Super Bowl, & more!
Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles
Dear Bankless Nation,
There’s a debate ongoing in the mainstream right now as to whether or not NFTs can constitute art.
Of course they can. NFTs are simply a medium, like marble or canvas can be. Sure, they’re a novel programmable medium born of and for the 21st-century, but they’re still just a medium, and one that many artists have already embraced.
So yes, NFTs can be art. They can be many things and do many new things.
This is why artists and people from so many other walks of life are embracing NFTs. It’s a technology and ecosystem around which all the various fields of human activity can be explored toward unprecedented ends!
-WMP
🙏 Sponsor: Polygon Studios—Fostering culture across Gaming, NFTs, and the Metaverse✨
🛒 NFT News & Platforms
LooksRare, an upstart OpenSea competitor, launched. Use at your own risk: the project’s unaudited and its GitHub repo’s private at the time of this newsletter’s writing.
OpenSea remains king: over 1M users have now made an NFT transaction using the platform.
Ghozali Ghozalu entered NFT stardom after selling out +900 charming selfies on OpenSea.
Ethereum creators are estimated to have earned over $3.5B collectively in 2021, and that’s without counting the gaming NFTs sector!
Etherscan unveiled an NFT Tracker tool.
🏆 Digital Collectibles
Nouns DAO is preparing to trade one Noun NFT in exchange for a “prominent beverage company [including] Noun glasses in a 2022 Super Bowl commercial” and more.
MoonCats are now totally on-chain.
Josie announced that her CyberBrokers project will launch on Feb. 22nd.
🎨 Cryptoart
Wikipedia editors have declined to categorize NFTs as art for now. How absurd.
SuperRare collectors and minters from pre-2020 are eligible for a new POAP by renowned cryptoartist XCOPY.
Non Fungible Poems: this week I curated an exhibition for NFT curation platform JPG to highlight literary NFTs and how they’re on the rise and here to stay.
🎮 NFT Games
Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain has quickly become a force to be reckoned with:
Chainfaces Arena, created by longtime NFT veteran Nate Alex, now has less than 2,500 warriors left standing.
Coinbase becomes the latest Sponsor-A-Scholar partner of Yield Guild Games.
💽 Music
Aluna is releasing Forget About Me today on sound.xyz.
🌐 Virtual Worlds
Cryptovoxels activated the Flora district.
Atlantis World is building a metaversal clubhouse for the Forgotten Runes Wizard’s Cult.
The Sandbox is airdropping $SAND to LAND holders.
💎 DeFi x NFTs
TreasureDAO: check out this TheTie research write-up, which is the best primer I’ve seen yet on $MAGIC and the Treasure NFT marketplace on Arbitrum.
ParagonsDAO, a project centered around sci-fi card game Parallel, unveiled the details of its PDT token launch.
NFTfi has now facilitated over 3,000 loans.
Glass Protocol unveils an automated market for NFTs.
Flip, an NFT marketplace co-founded by LedgerStatus, just raised $6.5M.
Action steps
What’d I miss this week in NFT world? Let me know in the comments below!
Read NFTs as dephysicalized merch by Metaversal
Read What is the ideal NFT marketplace by Metaversal
Read How to use StarkWare Layer 2s by Bankless
Watch NFTs’ Next Big Unlock | GET Protocol by Overpriced JPEGs
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, DeFi Pulse, JPG, and beyond!
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🙏Thanks to our sponsor
POLYGON STUDIOS
Polygon Studios is on a mission to help build digital culture, play-to-earn gaming, NFTs, and the Metaverse ecosystem on Polygon. Some of the key projects supported by Polygon Studios include The Sandbox, Skyweaver, Big Time, Crypto Unicorns, and Decentraland—among others. Polygon Studios also helps fundraising & onboarding. Check it out here.
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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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