Brand NFT's Are The New Normal. Disney, UFC & Zora Launches. Parallel P2E Plans. Moonwalk Adds Mutable NFT's.
Each week we share insights from the Web3 space + the latest from Moonwalk.
January was jam-packed in the NFT space, and this week was no exception. Major brands from Lionsgate to Disney and UFC entered the realm, while incumbents Parallel, Zora and Monstercat added exciting innovation. At Moonwalk, we put the finishing touches on our v2 platform launch, including features like no-code Mutable NFT’s, and NFT utility for Flow blockchain, in prep for big drops & launches in Q1.
The Week In Review.
Drops
Lionsgate announced NFT’s tied to movie tickets. Movie goers attending the IMAX premiere of Moonfall will get the chance to receive limited-edition Moonfall NFTs.
Quentin Tarantino danced the thin line as he sold the first assets from his Pulp Fiction NFT collection for $1.1M, in spite of a Miramax law suit over the intellectual property.
Disney launched 57,853 Mickey & Friends NFT cards across five characters, on Veve.
Lamborghini announced an upcoming auction of Space Keys, five NFT’s tied to physical carbon fiber squares with QR codes.
Beatles memorabilia will be sold in NFT format by Julian Lennon including the notes hand-written by Paul McCartney for Hey Jude. Each NFT will be an audio-visual collectible with narration by Julian Lennon, but he will retain the physical items.
Dance music label Monstercat announced RELICS NFT’s, a music NFT collection. The NFT’s includes full audio tracks, and increase in rarity as the songs gain popularity.
Mev Army, created by NFT artist x0r (aka Michael Blau: yes, 3LAU’s brother and VC investor) dropped 7,777 “shadowy super coder” NFT’s that drew interest across Crypto Twitter and hit the Opensea Top 100.
Cool Cats, the collection originally made famous with Mike Tyson’s early support, announced a follow-on project “Cool Pets”. By giving early access to Cool Cat holders, the Cool Cats floor propelled to 15 ETH.
Metroverse, backed by NFT OG Pranksy, launched its metaverse land NFT collection, that includes an NFT trading strategy game. The project hit the top 20 on Opensea.
Canadian YouTubers the Nelk Boys launched and sold out the FullSend Metacard 10k collection, promising IRL and metaverse utility in the FullSend ecosystem .
Platforms
Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki hints at potential NFT features to add another source of revenue for its 2.29 billion users. In 2021, several creators converted viral Youtube videos into NFTs and sold them - like “Charlie Bit Me” NFT, which sold for $761,000.
Zora launched V3 of its marketplace protocol, featuring fully on-chain features like unstoppable markets, non-custodial listings and finders fees.
Zora also created a new ownership structure in the form of Zora Fee Switch NFTs (ZORFs) that are owned by the Zora DAO. This continues on the recent theme of marketplaces being powered by DAO’s - earlier in Jan, SuperRare launched their first five “Spaces”, community-curated galleries publicly voted by the SuperRare DAO.
UFC Strike, Dapper Labs’ newest sports league NFT platform, launched Jan 23rd. 100,000 “Fully Loaded” packs sold at $50 each with nearly 50,000 new subscribers joining. This coincided with another Flow Blockchain sports league launch for ICC (Indian cricket) by FanCraze, which also sold out its launch drops.
OpenSea is reportedly working on integrating Solana and Web3 wallet Phantom.
Avatar startup Genies announced their switch to Web3, to enable users to own 100% of commercial rights to their avatar owners.
Deals
More mainstream venture funds are becoming active in the space. Tom Brady’s Autograph raised $170M in a Series B round joint-led by Kleiner Perkins, one of their first few investments in NFT’s (they also backed Audius) - alongside A16z.
Markets
Despite the broader crypto market taking another hit this week, NFT market activity elevated. Over $3.2BN in NFT’s have changed hands this month.
Bored Ape Yacht Club continues to attract the A-list. This week Kevin Hart acquired BAYC #9258, Justin Bieber picked up #3001 and Neymar scored #6633. Gwyneth Paltrow also grabbed an ape, which she flexed on Twitter as a GIF with a blonde hair reveal. Meanwhile Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton took to Jimmy’s show to flex their Bored Apes, which raised some controversy.
Spotlight.
Parallel, the #1 NFT trading card game by volume, and all-time top 20 NFT project, dropped its highly anticipated Prime Proposal. It describes a web3 Play-to-Earn ecosystem and $PRIME token that enables game play, governance and rewards.
Seed backed by Youtube cofounder Chad Hurley and recently closing a $50M Series A led by Paradigm, Parallel has seen over $170M in cards traded since launch in April 2021. The game, which will be set in augmented reality, comprises 5 types of cards (factions) and a player needs to own a deck of 40 cards or more in order to play.
The team has been teasing the A/R game, which is reportedly already being played in early alpha. The price of their Prime Key NFT’s, which are are a core part of the Parallel ecosystem, doubled to 29 ETH ($75,000), in anticipation of the proposal.
What Moonwalk Did.
Moonwalk is putting the finishing touches on our v2 platform as we gear up for big Q1 customer launches. We’re excited about v2 - its packed with tons of new “no-code” features to make NFT + metaverse creation and utility easy for brands and creators.
Mutable NFTs’s
Gaming and music Moonwalk customers asked us to allow NFT’s to upgrade or downgrade. We now enable an NFT’s characteristics to change with external data inputs - e.g. when you attend a concert or movie, by listening or liking music, or based on gameplay. For example, traits can regenerate if you’ve attended an IRL event, or achieved a level in gameplay - this makes it easy for resale buyers to distinguish between NFT’s that have been utilized and those that haven’t. It also enables an NFT user to gain access the more they do - e.g. an upgraded NFT can have more utility.
How it works: In our generative NFT collection section of the dashboard, clients can specify traits they want to change, and can select the applicable external data inputs. A lot of data is already available - e.g. if you’ve attended an event which uses the Moonwalk NFT ticket scanner, or if you’ve liked a track on Spotify or bought an item in the Shopify store. Some data sources, like PC games, can be added as needed.
NFT Utility on Flow
Moonwalk is adding NFT utility on Flow Blockchain, in addition to our existing capabilities on Ethereum and Polygon. Our first Flow utility project is for major New York esports company Andbox, owner of New York teams in the Call of Duty League (NY Subliners) and Overwatch League (NYXL). Read more here.
How it works: Clients add in NFT token ID’s in our Dashboard and create target groups of NFT buyers. Once NFT groups are created, each group can be offered over 50 types of NFT and token utility that we offer on Moonwalk - IRL tickets, gated access to metaverse and virtual events, NFT drops and whitelists unlocks, community channel access. Flow utility is enabled through a Blocto wallet integration, from which the platform recognizes NFT’s in wallets, and uses Alchemy to verify on-chain holding.
Moonwalk is the leading no-code platform for brands and creators to build their web3 ecosystems - NFT’s, generative collections, communities, membership + utility. We work across entertainment, gaming, sports/esports, music labels and creators. Each week, we write The Week In Review in which we share insights from the Web3 space + the latest from Moonwalk. Follow us on Twitter or drop us a line to learn more.