Pre-Merge NFTs 🔍

Chromie Squiggle prints, Mirror subscriptions, Webaverse mint nears, & more!

William M. Peaster

Jul 29, 2022

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

Dear Bankless Nation,

Ethereum is on pace to undergo “The Merge” in September 2022.

Crypto-Gucci.eth ᵍᵐ🦇🔊 @CryptoGucci

Ethereum devs finalize Goerli Merge details! Goerli will be the final testnet before the Merge and will transition between August 6th- 12th Make sure your nodes are up to date! The Merge is coming 🔜🐼 blog.ethereum.org/2022/07/27/goe…

blog.ethereum.orgGoerli/Prater Merge AnnouncementFor the last testnet proof-of-stake transition, Goerli will merge with Prater. The combined Goerli/Prater network will retain the Goerli name post-merge. Bellatrix, the Prater upgrade readying it for The Merge will happen at epoch 112260, expected at 12:24PM UTC on August 4, 2022. After Bellatrix is…

This will be Ethereum’s biggest upgrade to date and will shift the leading smart contract network to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Over time, this evolution will be a gamechanger for Ethereum in multiple ways, especially with regard to efficiency and security. But the advance will also cleave our perceptions of Ethereum into two eras: pre-Merge and post-Merge.

You know what that means — the “Historical NFT” category is about to get a new sub-category, i.e. pre-Merge. And while it may take years for this distinction to really set in, right now you have a chance to collect such NFTs before everyone else wakes up to the history of digital collectibles.

Maybe in 10 years and beyond these pre-Merge NFTs will be celebrated as having come from a legendary time. In the very least, I think we’ll see this thesis more and more in the coming years. For now, though, plan how you see fit and have a great weekend ⁠— thanks kindly for reading ✌️

-WMP

🙏 Sponsor: Sequence—developer platform + smart wallet to build user-friendly web3 apps✨

🛒 General NFT News

Mirror, a web3 publishing dapp, unveiled a subscriptions functionality.
Optimism launched a Get Started onboarding quest that rewards everyone who finishes with an NFT.
Rainbow rolled out support for L2 NFTs:

Rainbow @rainbowdotme

Rainbow now supports NFTs on Mainnet, @0xPolygon, @arbitrum and @optimismFND. Thank you @Treasure_DAO for the gift <3 @smolverse @toadstoolzNFT

🏆 Collectibles

Nick Tomaino bought iconic ape CryptoPunk #4156 for 2.69k ETH:

Nick Tomaino @NTmoney

Recently bought Cryptopunk #4156 for $3.31M Here’s why:

VeeFriends closed a seed round from a16z crypto.

🎨 Art

Fingerprints, a blockchain art collector group, became the largest holder of Mutant Garden Seeders by artist Harm van den Dorpel:

Fingerprints @FingerprintsDAO

We’re thrilled to announce that we are now the largest collector of Mutant Garden Seeder by @harmvddorpel. Having just acquired 14 more pieces, we now hold 25 mutants. These new pieces also mean we now have a full set of every possible mutation frequency from the project. 1/

Infinite Objects unveiled authenticated physical prints for Chromie Squiggle holders.
shl0ms minted DAVINC‧I on Foundation:

𒐪 @SHL0MS

𝙳𝙰𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙲‧𝙸 𝙲𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚙𝚒𝚎𝚌𝚎. ͏ ͏ ͏ foundation.app/@shl0ms/shl0ms…

XCOPY minted God is typing… on SuperRare, after which the piece promptly sold for +256.5 ETH:

XCOPY 🏴 @XCOPYART

God is typing ... @SuperRare 💎

Zien, a WhatsApp digital art institution focused on NFTs, published its introduction.

🎮 NFT Gaming

Axie Infinity rounded out the first season of its Origin Alpha:

Axie Infinity🦇🔊 @AxieInfinity

The Origin Alpha Season has concluded! This month, Origin showed its true potential as a competitive and immersive card battler. Origin DAU increased 263.636% from the beginning of the season, while downloads spiked and averaged around 3,000 per day for the period.

Aavegotchi launched Season 4 of its Rarity Farming play-to-earn system.
Noun Esports is holding a Dota 2 art contest.
Yield Guild Games (YGG) published a retrospective report on the organization’s first year.

💽 Music

Arpeggi unveiled its first Sound Puzzle campaign.
Audius, a decentralized music streaming platform, published a post-mortem in the wake of a recent governance attack.

🌐 Virtual Worlds

Decentraland announced its entry to The Open Metaverse Alliance.
Robotos launched its Robopolis Microverse experience.
Webaverse is conducting its public mint on August 3rd, 2022, with prices starting at 0.2 ETH per NFT.

💎 DeFi x NFTs

Abacus, an NFT pricing protocol, released a primer on its spot pools system.
Botto and SuperRare DAO agreed on a token swap.

Action steps

📺 Watch interviews with Roundtable anchor Rob Nelson and Devotion co-founder Andrew Wang on Overpriced JPEGs
📺 Watch interviews with Metalabel co-founder Yancey Strickler and Toucan Protocol founder Raphaël Haupt on Green Pill
🧐 Catch up on my other write-ups from this week:
- 🤖 NFTs in the Microverse
- 🔩 Defending NFTs with Gnosis Safe
- 🏄 How to surf web3 like a pro

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!

Subscribe to Bankless. $22 per mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge.

🙏Thanks to our sponsor

Sequence

Build user-friendly web3 applications with ease and deliver a seamless web3 experience to your users! Sequence is a comprehensive developer platform and smart wallet for the Ethereum + EVM ecosystem.

Seamless and secure onboarding
No gas fees for your users
Direct NFT purchase with credit/debit
NFT marketplace protocol, and more tools, so you can deliver a seamless web3 experience to your users.

👉 Visit the Sequence Website

👉 Integrate Sequence Wallet into your app

👉 Make your web3 app user friendly with developer tools

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.

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.