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

Dear Bankless Nation,

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. 

And you miss 100% of the learning opps from mints you don’t make. 

My personal mintography extends back to 2019, and I’ve gotten countless invaluable experiences and connections from just getting my hands dirty and experimenting with making my own NFTs all along the way. 

I encourage this same abundance attitude for you, too. “Just mint it.”

Besides it being a great way to learn, minting your own NFTs allows you to creatively express yourself, sharpen your web3 skills, build a fanbase, and potentially generate income. 

So yes, just mint it. Have a try, learn, repeat. In the meantime thanks for reading everyone, and I hope you have a great weekend. For now let’s get you caught up on the latest general NFT intrigues✌️

-WMP

🙏 Sponsor: Kraken — the most trusted and secure crypto exchange in the world✨

🧠 The big picture

For another week in a row the cumulative market cap of the NFT space has risen, this time up to 8.94 million ETH for a week-over-week climb of 3.6%. As top cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH have been experiencing fresh gusts of buy pressure lately, so too have more than a few NFT collections both new and old been fielding considerable activity inflows. 

📊 This week by the numbers:

While collections in the Bored Ape ecosystem proper have dominated the weekly volume charts for the past month, this week had a bit more variety with CryptoPunks, Checks, and a KID called BEAST coming in as the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th most-traded collections respectively. The big stunner has been Checks, which cost the equivalent of $8 to mint last month and has now seen its floor price surge to well over Ξ1 ETH a pop. 

🔝 7D top collections by volume

🛒 7D NFT marketplace stats

For the second week in a row OpenSea has maintained a significant trading volume lead over Blur, whose $BLUR token launch is now less than a fortnight away. Is anticipation of the long-awaited airdrop running out of steam, or should we expect Blur to receive a second wind once its native token is live? Only time will tell! 

🛍️ 3 biggest buys this week

There have been more monster BAYC and ‘Punk sales in recent days per usual at the top of the NFT economy. Considered together the three transactions below amounted to over Ξ1,160, suggesting that demand for top-shelf NFTs is doing just fine right now.  

📰 General news

• Blur introduced a Collector Mode. 

• CryptoSlam, the NFT analytics site, integrated TradingView charting tools. 

• delegate.cash launched Liquid Delegate, a system for no-risk NFT rentals. 

• House of Nouns open-sourced its new suite of NFT governance tools. 

• OpenSea introduced a 3hr Hold Period security mechanism.

🏆 Digital collectibles

• Mongraal, a Fortnite pro, is dominating Yuga Labs’s Dookey Dash competition. 

• SethS, an OG CryptoPunk claimer, has consolidated 100s of V1 ‘Punks into a single wallet.  

🎨 Cryptoart & music

• Manifold is introducing a small flat fee for monetization when buyers collect NFTs through Manifold Apps. 

🎮 Decentralized gaming

• BattleFly Battlegrounds is launching on Feb. 6th. 

• BLVKHVND introduced STADIUM, an onchain esports protocol. 

• Curio launched Treaty, a fully onchain strategy game. 

• Shattered EON published a refresher on its Gen0 game assets. 

🌐 Virtual worlds

• Wilder World released a pre-alpha premiere video. 

🪙 NFTfi

• NFTfi (the specific lending protocol, not the general category) facilitated a 40,000 USDC loan against 32 goblintown.wtf NFTs. 

• Sudoswap launched $SUDO governance. 

🎆 Mint spotlight: Cantographs

With the Canto NFT ecosystem on the rise, some new collections on the young appchain have been getting some serious love. Launched on Jan. 31st by accomplished glitch and collage artist Sgt. Slaughtermelon, Cantographs is one such collection — the hypnotic series minted for 125 $CANTO each and within a single day the floor price climbed to over 3,300 $CANTO a pop.

sgt_slaughtermelon 🍉 @sgt_sl8termelon

Here’s what I made and how and why: sgtslaughtermelon.com/art/cantograph… Trading here: alto.build/collections/ca… There might be typos. I hope this makes the art more enjoyable and not less to see how the sausage is made. Thank you again for all the love, it has been a surprise and a thrill.

3:26 PM ∙ Feb 1, 2023

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🔭 Mint watch:

• Grados — villain avatars for the upcoming gradis web3 platformer game, minting closes today

• Runes — an NFT trading card game created by the Forgotten Runes Wizard’s Cult community, premium, standard, and free minting started on Polygon on Feb. 1st

• Mint or Skip — not a mint per se but a literal mint tracker, this will be a list of upcoming NFT drops curated by Giancarlo Chaux that’s serialized every Monday

🙇 3 insightful threads weekly to level up your NFT knowledge!

1. Panda Jackson on how Blur bypassed OpenSea’s blocklist:

Panda Jackson @pandajackson42

BREAKING: Blur just made a game-changing move to bypass OpenSea’s blocklist control As stated in airdrop announcement, Blur is trying new things for an unprecedented launch. Here’s how they did it & the impact their move will have on the NFT market, esp. for creators&traders👇

3:28 PM ∙ Jan 30, 2023

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1,011Likes343Retweets

2. Leonidas.og on a potential “Historical NFT” starter pack:

Leonidas.og @LeonidasNFT

1/ Historical NFT Starter Pack I’m writing this thread to answer the question: “I’m new to Historical NFTs. Which ones should I collect first Leonidas?” All seven HNFTs in this thread are less than 1Ξ each. Read on to learn why I selected them 🧵

1:42 PM ∙ Feb 2, 2023

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279Likes92Retweets

3. olimpio on MetaMask competitors that don’t have tokens yet:

olimpio @OlimpioCrypto

MetaMask wallet now has over 30M active users ⚡ But the UX is falling behind its competitors. Airdrop strategy now: try 7 wallets that don’t have a token yet 🪂 7Birds1Stone 🧠👇

9:21 PM ∙ Jan 31, 2023

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1,233Likes380Retweets

✨ My NFT tool of the week: Nouns Connect

Interested in launching your own NFT DAO with Nouns Builder? If so, you ought to check out Nouns Connect, a new service that helps you easily connect your DAO to other apps:

Nouns Connect @nouns_connect

NounsConnect 🔗 @nounsbuilder DAOs → Connect treasuries to apps. → Work like a wallet. → Put forth proposals. → Create collectively. Do more with your DAO.

5:35 PM ∙ Feb 2, 2023

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39Likes5Retweets

💥 It matters where you mint and manage your NFTs!

An NFT minted on Ethereum will live on Ethereum forever, while an NFT minted to a private database will undoubtedly be lost to time at some point. Some people found this out the hard way this week as Rally shuttered its “sidechain” for good, taking anything minted there down with it. This episode is just the latest stark reminder that just because something’s branded an NFT doesn’t mean it’s digitally durable:

kydo🫡 (reposting vitalik arc) @0xkydo

Rally just rugged all their creator’s NFTs. Lol

7:09 PM ∙ Jan 31, 2023

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370Likes31Retweets

😜 NFTs are solving Bitcoin’s biggest problem…

Bitcoin’s decreasing block subsidy could be an existential threat to the OG blockchain, but surging revenues from new “Ordinals” Bitcoin NFTs has people wondering if Bitcoin accidentally just stumbled upon the start of a solution:

littleman @joshosborne1

Ordinals Inscription # 254:

3:31 AM ∙ Feb 2, 2023

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311Likes24Retweets

Action steps

• 🆕 Read The Promises of Blockchain Gaming and How to Win the Multi-Chain Future in Bankless

• 🌱 Watch MEV Redistribution with apriori on Green Pill 

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

  • ✧ Bitcoin NFTs

  • ✧ Emerging NFT Infra to Follow

  • ✧ How to Prevent Crypto Wallet Hacks

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.

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.