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

Dear Bankless Nation,

A little personal anecdote, but today I was saddened to see speculators tearing down an artist for a new experimental NFT project.

The speculators didn’t appreciate the nature of the artist’s work, and they didn’t appreciate the floor prices dipping post-mint.

It’s a reminder that yes, there are some people who are only concerned with financial profits in the NFT ecosystem. And that’s fine, and totally understandable. It takes all kinds to make a world. 

But to you, my readers, I say always remember this: there are many ways to profit beyond just money in NFTs. For instance, building up a personal brand. Education, of yourself and others. Networking with likeminded individuals. Creative expression, cultural participation, skill development, social impact, etc. See what I mean? 

Speculation has its place, no doubt. But it should only be one of many ways you get value in the NFT space. Going wide is how you truly profit here. 

Anyways, for now let’s get you caught up on the big ideas from the past week in NFTs. Thanks for reading everyone, and have a great weekend ✌️

-WMP

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

🧠 The big picture

This week the market cap of NFTs rose from 8.57 million ETH to 8.64 million ETH ($16.07 billion USD) for a 0.81% climb. We’re so back, baby.

📊 This week by the numbers:

For the third week running, Wrapped CryptoPunks maintained its position atop the NFT market’s 7-day volume charts with over 50,000 ETH worth of trade volume during this span. Previously slotted as the 5th-most traded NFT project last week, Nakamigos just leaped to 2nd place on the 7D charts due to a strong performance of +13,500 ETH worth of trades, surpassing Yuga Labs’s premier collections (BAYC, MAYC, and Otherdeeds) in the process.

🔝 7D top collections by volume

🛒 7D NFT marketplace stats

With regard to the marketshare of trades, OpenSea + OpenSea Pro enjoyed a decisive lead (53.8% to 41.3%) over Blur this week, although Blur continued to dominate the marketshare of 7D trading volume by a nearly 50% margin. The pull of $BLUR incentives remains strong here.  

📰 General news

• a16zcrypto published The Wave Mint.

• MetaMask is adding an NFT view to its browser extension.

• POAP is poised to start charging for commercial use mints. 

• Prop House introduced Infinite Rounds.

🏆 Digital collectibles

• Yuga Labs kicked off the Koda decoupling event.

🎨 Cryptoart & music

• Roope Rainisto sold out his new REWORLD post-photography collection.

• Sound now supports wallet creation via email. 

🎮 Decentralized gaming

• AI ARENA is collaborating with Treasure DAO on The Treasure Cup. 

• HyperLoot opened signups to its CC0 Wars beta.

• Nouns DAO is voting on continuing support for its Dota2 and CS:GO teams.

🌐 Virtual worlds

• Virtue Worldwide, an agency backed by VICE, established a virtual HQ in Decentraland. 

🪙 NFTfi

• NFTfi.com added support for Nakamigos.

• Pine Protocol, an NFT lending platform, is now live on Polygon.

• SquiggleDAO announced 1-Year Squiggle Loans.

🎆 Mint spotlight: Gemesis

Notably, NFT marketplace giant OpenSea just rebranded its “pro” platform Gem into OpenSea Pro. In appreciation of early supporters, customers who purchased an NFT on Gem before March 31, 2023, can now freely claim the exclusive Gemesis NFT as a token of gratitude. This limited-edition NFT drop is available to mint directly on OpenSea, with 47% out of the 180,000 possible supply already minted and a current secondary floor price of 0.035 ETH. 

🔭 Mint watch:

• Reddit Series 3 — The latest round of avatar mints by Reddit, this third-gen series is slated to launch next week and is currently Rank #1 on Mint or Skip’s The Mint List, a curated tracker of highly-anticipated NFT drops.

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

1. Panda Jackson on Zora and other DIY minting platforms:

2. Outland on UNSELLABLE NFTs:

3. RabbitHole on its new ETH Earned system:

✨ My NFT tool of the week: Foundation’s Drop Presales

Foundation introduced Drops Presales, a new feature that allows users to create allowlists for their collections, including Editions, Open Collections, and Drops. In doing so, this tool makes it easy to reward collectors with exclusive access to new mints before the general public!

💥 OpenSea Pro is a new force to be reckoned with…

Built on the Gem V2 system, OpenSea Pro is super fast, mobile-friendly, and packed with NFT tools like Watchlists, Live Mints, Batch Transfers, and more. If OpenSea mounts a big comeback on Blur from this point on, this launch is definitely the start of that run. 

😜 When life hands you depreciating NFTs…

Please grant me the serenity to accept the NFTs I cannot junk, the courage to tax-loss harvest the 100s I can, and the spare time to discern the difference… 

Action steps

• 🆕 Read 5 Crypto Sectors Flashing Bullish Signals in Bankless

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

  • ✧ The ABCs of NFTs

  • ✧ ENS Name Wrapper Explained

  • ✧ Explore the Frontier of zkEVMs

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.