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

Dear Bankless Nation,

With billions of fans, Formula 1 racing is a sport watched globally.

So how about getting your fav NFT emblazoned for all the world to see on a top F1 team car?

It’s possible! Our friends over at Kraken just launched a fun Rear Wing Takeover contest toward that end.

The big idea? 6 finalists will get their NFTs showcased on the rear wing of the Williams Racing team’s FW35 car at the 2023 United States Grand Prix race. 

CryptoPunks? CrypToadz? CryptoDickButts? We’ll have to wait and see which projects make the cut, but joining’s straightforward: just fill out this entry form on the Williams Racing website to put your NFT in the running.

Public voting on the finalists will take place later this month from August 28th to August 31st, so be on the lookout for that! 

Best of luck everyone, and in the meantime thanks for reading and have a great weekend. Now let’s catch you up on this week in NFTs ✌️

-WMP

P.S. Kraken is indeed Metaversal’s current sponsor but this intro isn’t tied to the sponsorship in any way and was made at the sole discretion of me, the writer, because I thought it was cool, simple, fitting, and timely! 🏁

🙏 Sponsor: Kraken — Kraken NFT is built for secure NFT trading ✨

📊 The big picture

Over the past week, the floor-based market cap of the NFT space grew from 8.69 million ETH to 8.87 million ETH for a 2% gain 📈 

🔝 7D top collections by volume

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📰 General news

• archivist.eth published the latest edition of the Blockchain Collectibles Clock, a visualized timeline of blockchain collectibles from 2009 to today.

• AthenaDAO minted its 1st IP NFT for funding medical research into ovarian health. 

• Delegate Cash rebranded to Delegate.

• Dustin Yellin completed Person, Place, or Thing, a sculpture commissioned by Nouns DAO.

• mint.fun added support for the Base L2 and hailed the winner of its 1st onchain minting competition.

• OpenSea also just added support for Base.

• Nifty’s announced it was shutting its operations.

• Zora introduced Protocol Rewards, meaning creators and devs can now earn from using Zora. 

🏆 Digital collectibles

• CryptoDickButts launched its Series 4 mint, and whoever holds the most CBDs in a month will receive ownership of the entire project.

• CryptoPunk 3307, a 0-trait punk, just resold for 500 ETH.

• Forgotten Runes Wizard’s Cult released 3D models to all of the collection’s holders.

• Jack Butcher unveiled Opepen art set submissions.

• Shinsei Galverse published its first anime release, a music video created with pop star Tove Lo.

🎨 Cryptoart & music

• Joshua Bagley released Spaghetti Bones on Art Blocks.

• EXPANDED.ART released MUT-3-2.TGA, an open edition art drop in collaboration with the estate of artist Lee Mullican.

• Pob Studio presented Terrene Exeo, an interactive generative art project based on NFT collection smart contracts on Ethereum.

• Sound rolled out a follows feature.

• Zien completed its mint of Anamorphic Generations by Maxim Zhestkov.

🎮 Decentralized gaming

• Axie Infinity is hosting an Axie Classic Throwback tournament.

• Mithraeum, an onchain strategy game, started its Iron Age I Tournament.

• Parallel, a sci-fi card game, launched its beta.

• Pirate Nation demoed its Combat V2 system.

• Sorare introduced its new Cash Wallet.

• Yuga Labs is collaborating with Animoca Brands and nWay on Wreck League, a web3 fighting game.

🌐 Virtual worlds

• Nifty Island launched support for 3D Forgotten Runes Wizards.

• Yuga Labs acquired Roar Studios in a bid to bring AI into the Otherside.

🪙 NFTfi

• Caviar, an NFT AMM, announced an NFT liquidity experiment in a partnership with Insrt Finance and The LLamas.

• JPEG’d, an NFT borrowing protocol, was hit with an $11M loss after an attacker exploited Curve, a popular DeFi exchange.

• MetaStreet open-sourced and verified its V2 smart contracts and unveiled punk_mstETH.

• nftperp published a V1 recap + a V2 sneak peak.

• Nouns DAO purchased stETH peg protection via Cozy.

• sudoswap introduced sudock, a compatibility layer between sudoAMM V2 and OpenSea’s Seaport system. 

🎆 Mint spotlight: The Rainbow Poolboy

Vibe into onchain summer in style with The Rainbow Poolboy, an NFT drop presented by Rainbow wallet and Poolsuite. Still available to mint for the next day at the time of this post’s writing, The Poolboy has updateable “cassettes” and comes in four colors, including a rare rainbow variant. The mint price is 0.007 ETH, but it’s free for all Poolsuite holders. If this sounds cool, come join the pool party!

🙇 New insightful reads to level up your web3 knowledge!

1. FaultProofBen on the MUD onchain game engine 🎮

2. xtremetom on migrating 20k Baby Pepes onchain 🐸

3. S4mmy.eth on Amazon offering free NFTs 🆓

4. Teng Yan on DeFi projects releasing NFTs 🎊

5. 0xBeans.eth on Nouns V3 forking 💥

✨ My NFT tool of the week: NFT Price Floor

Looking for a place where you can really dig into NFT collection stats, check recent top sales across different timeframes, and more? NFT Price Floor is one such platform that’s great for zooming in or zooming out when analyzing NFTs. Currently the site supports Ethereum and Polygon collections, which covers the majority of ecosystem activity these days, but it seems there will be more chains supported soon as well.

😜 Gary Gensler’s pivoting from crypto to AI? Wow! I’m guessing his performance in crypto is an indication of what’s to come…

Weekly action steps

• 🆕 Read DeFi’s Contagion Curveball, The Base Case, and 5 Opps on Base in Bankless

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

  • 🔵 Base NFTs

  • 🤖 Remixing NFTs with AI

  • 🪬 How to use Ajna Finance

A Bankless Citizen ⚑ turned $264 into $6,077 last year. A 22x ROI 🚀 in a bear market!

Level Up

🙏Thanks to our sponsor

KRAKEN NFT

Kraken NFT is one of the most secure, easy-to-use and dynamic marketplaces available. Active and new collectors alike benefit from zero gas fees, multi-chain access, payment flexibility with fiat or 200+ cryptocurrencies, and built-in rarity rankings. Learn more at Kraken.com/nft

👉 Visit Kraken.com to learn more and open an account today.

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.