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

Dear Bankless Nation,

Top o’ the mornin’ to you all, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

As you dive into this week’s news roundup, remember that while fortunes may rise and fall in the NFT world, a keen eye and a bit of luck can go a long way. 

For instance, some of my friends joke that I’ve got a “lucky wallet” because I’ve chanced upon minting a handful of rare NFTs before in being at the right place at the right time.

Jokes aside, I really do wish you luck in all your NFT endeavors, and I hope eventually the non-fungible wonders in your wallet will become as plentiful as the shamrocks are on this festive day.

Sláinte and happy exploring in the meantime!

-WMP

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

🧠 The big picture

The overall market cap of the NFT space shrunk for the first time in the two months since I started my Metaversal 2.0 recaps, having dropped from 10.15M ETH to 9.6M ETH for a 5% decline on the week. On the flip side, the prices of top coins like BTC and ETH just had considerable green 7D ticks, so it’s safe to assume more than a few people just fled into the perceived safety of the majors amid the recent banking chaos in the U.S.

📊 This week by the numbers:

Another week, another dominant performance by MAYC atop the 7D NFT volume charts. The Moonbirds collection also continues to see major volume activity, too, as bear market blues has lately led to surges of buy and sell pressure around the project. Azuki, Otherdeeds plots, and BAYC all facilitated over 9k ETH worth of trades on the week to round out the top five here. 

🔝 7D top collections by volume

🛒 7D NFT marketplace stats

Notably, Blur’s stranglehold on the NFT economy receded some over the past week, during which its volume marketshare dropped from 77% to 72% and its trades marketshare dropped from 56% to 51%. That’s not a massive plunge, but it is stark difference from recent weeks when Blur either was gaining ground or staying steady in its dominance. Is this decline a sign that the pull of $BLUR rewards are starting to wane? For now, we’ll just have to wait and see. 

🛍️ 3 biggest buys this week

It was a cryptoart-themed week for the space’s top 7D NFT sales, as a Fidenza and a classic Lost Robbie sold for 380 ETH and 260 ETH respectively. Rounding out the top three largest transactions was a 191.69 ETH sale of Azuki #3153, a rare “Spirit” type from the PFP collection.

📰 General news

• Context will be discontinued effective April 15th. 

• Meta decided to abandon support for NFTs across Facebook and Instagram.

• NFT.Storage launched the NFT Forever Project.

• OpenSea intro’d proxy contracts for self-serve drops. 

• Zora launched a new frontpage feed system.

🏆 Digital collectibles

• Doodles is “no longer an NFT project.”

• Tessera unveiled Checkpoint, a tool for Checks collectors to collaborate on getting the fabled “Black Check.”

🎨 Cryptoart & music

• Manifold introduced a Paid Burns feature and ERC1155<>ERC721 burns.

• Robbie Barrat’s AI Generated Nude Portrait #7 Frame #110, a cryptoart classic, resold for 260 ETH.

🎮 Decentralized gaming

• Axie Origins kicked off its Epic Era. 

• DEADDROP, an in-progress extraction shooter by Dr. Disrespect’s Midnight Society studio, held its Snapshot V play reveal today. 

• Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, is adding 20 NFT games to its online marketplace. 

🌐 Virtual worlds

• Decentraland is working on new Social Features.

🪙 NFTfi

• Uniswap V3 is now live on BNB Chain.

🎆 Mint spotlight: HV-MTL

Following up the BAYC Dookey Dash competition, this week Sewer Pass holders were able to start participating in The Summoning, from which new “Power Source” HV-MTL NFTs could be minted. The collection of 30k Mechs will be spread across 8 Power Source types and will be usable in upcoming minigames. The floor price for the basics are currently +2 ETH, but we’ve seen rares sell for as high as 45 ETH already.

kodama.eth @kodama_eth

The 8 different power sources from the new HV-MTL (Heavy Metal) collection 👀 Legendary: Rank #1 Holo: Rank 2 – 250 Reaver: Rank 251 – 1250 Celestial: Rank 1251 – 4250 Knight: Rank 4251 – 9250 Bio: Rank 9251 – 15250 Dynamic: Rank 15251 – 22250 Glitch: Rank 22251 – 30000

7:00 AM ∙ Mar 16, 2023

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🔭 Mint watch:

• LUX_O — A free open edition “outtake” derived from cryptoartist Figure31’s latest LUX series; the mint window for the OE still had over 24 hours left at the time of writing

• ZOGZ Pepe — Today Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe the Frog, is holding a open edition drop for the public on his pepe.fun website; at the time of writing it wasn’t clear when the drop was starting, so keep an eye out for an announcement

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

1. jay on how to assess the strengths of NFT projects:

jay @0xjaypeg

.@mevcollector turned 11E -> 862E (7736%!) by investing in the strongest NFT projects But *how* do you identify these NFT projects? I built a dashboard to assess the strength of NFT projects so you can find the next 100x! (including the most profitable wallets to copytrade 💵)

MEV Collector 🔺 @mevcollector

Turning ~11 ETH to 862 ETH in 33 days flipping NFTs. A thread https://t.co/s9VMyVBphD

2:09 PM ∙ Mar 15, 2023

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334Likes82Retweets

2. Jack Butcher on the ongoing opepfp experiment:

Jack Butcher @jackbutcher

transparency time opepfp ↓

1:57 AM ∙ Mar 16, 2023

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1,945Likes489Retweets

3. Giancarlo on game publisher Nexon turning its MapleStory franchise into an NFT game:

Giancarlo @GiancarloChaux

Maplestory is being turned into an NFT game at first I thought this would be another “one-off” side experiment I was wrong, look at Nexon’s blockchain vision they 1000% get it

3:31 PM ∙ Mar 13, 2023

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955Likes170Retweets

✨ My NFT tool of the week: POAP Drops

If you’re someone who’s interested in creating POAPs or already does so all the time, you’ll love the new POAP Drops resource. Designed to become your new go-to tool for creating and distributing digital mementos in web3, POAP Drops offers an optimized and intuitive interface that streamlines the entire POAP creation process, making it a breeze for anyone to create and manage POAP distributions. Check it out!

POAP – Bookmarks of your life @poapxyz

Announcing POAP Drops! Your new home for everything POAP.

blog.poap.xyzAnnouncing POAP DropsNew interface for creating and distributing precious digital collectibles!…

4:14 PM ∙ Mar 16, 2023

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💥 ETH and NFTs have a certain unprecedented charm, don’t they…

ETH, BTC, and some NFTs put the “magic” in the “magic internet money” trifecta: they’re super secure, you’re the boss of your own funds, and folks actually value them. Sure, the cryptoeconomy is still in its infancy and can be mind boggling at times, but make no mistake: decentralized bearer assets are empowering in ways human civilization has never seen. Rest assured, this chapter in history is just beginning. 

foobar @0xfoobar

people don’t appreciate decentralized bearer assets enough decentralized – nobody else can adhoc modify it bearer – if you hold it, it’s yours. no counterparties asset – socially accepted to have value crypto majors & certain NFTs satisfy these properties stablecoins do not

7:13 PM ∙ Mar 11, 2023

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115Likes16Retweets

😜 My Ledger, my money…

In these early days of crypto and NFTs, holders may ride a metaphorical volatility roller coaster, but through self-custody at least we know where the safety bar is. Last weekend the world was temporarily left guessing exactly what was going to happen to some U.S. banks…

MinisterOfNFTs 🔮 @MinisterOfNFTs

3:48 PM ∙ Mar 17, 2023

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287Likes26Retweets

Action steps

• 🆕 Read Everything You Need to Know About the Arbitrum Airdrop in Bankless

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

  • ✧ Mint Condition (How to Assess NFT Quality)

  • ✧ The New Gem(Gem V2 Beta Preview)

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.