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

Dear Bankless Nation,

Below, behold a fini whose mood tracks the weekly price of ETH. 

Its exuberance is also tracking the moods of many in crypto this week. That’s because bullish chatter’s ramped up again with the BTC price and the ETH price having just ripped up 19% and 14% respectively on the 7D charts. 

We’re so back, at least for now.

Yet while crypto may have finally bottomed, many NFT floors are lower than we’ve seen in a long time. If you’ve been meaning to make some buys, consider that NFTs might be on the verge of bottoming out, too. 

It’s a potential rotation moment, that’s all I’m saying. For now let’s dive into the weekly NFT roundup, thanks for reading everyone. Have a great weekend! ✌️

-WMP

🎮 Thanks to Immutable 🎮

👉 Immutable: Your gateway to the web3 gaming revolution ✨

📊 The big picture

Over the past week, the floor-based market cap of the NFT space shrunk from 7.81 million ETH to 7.62 million ETH for a ~2.4% decline. The drop’s not surprising, seeing as how the ETH price’s up 14% over the same span. In other words, the majors — namely BTC and ETH — just dominated most of the cryptoeconomy’s buy action this week. 

🔝 7D top collections by volume

Want to unlock $1,000+ in Citizen deals and perks across crypto?

Become a Paid Subscriber

📰 General news

• 0xngmi disclosed a vulnerability in Foundation’s collections smart contract. 

• BND, the German equivalent of the CIA, released its own “Dogs of BND” NFT collection (???). 

• flooredApe unveiled a new Ethscriptions tool.

• Mirror launched collectible embeds. 

• Zora added support for minting 3D files.

🏆 Digital collectibles

• CryptoPunks are being burned for entry to the Ordinal Maxi Biz allowlist. 

• Mooncat #1 just sold for 8 ETH.

• Nike teamed with Fortnite on Airphoria, a custom Fornite experience where players can unlock the Air Max 1 ’86 Back Bling, a Polygon-based digital collectible. 

🎨 Cryptoart & music

• Figure is launching the Wrapped Reaper experiment on June 26th.

• Nouns DAO launched Pt. 1 of The Rise of Blus: A Nouns Movie via Atrium. 

• Sound reached 730k mints on its “V Buterin” L2 open edition.

🎮 Decentralized gaming

• Axie Infinity kicked off the Homeland Alpha Season 3.

• Gods Unchained is now live in the Epic Games store. 

• HV-MTL Forge Season 1 begins June 29th. 

• Parallel is launching the public mint phase of its Parallel Avatar collection via OpenSea next month. 

• Parallel Colony, a new AI-based game in the Parallel universe, held its 1st playtest.

🌐 Virtual worlds

• Decentraland kicked off its Game Jam ’23 event and is prepping for the start of Metaverse Pride on June 27th. 

🪙 NFTfi

• Astaria paused as the result of a vulnerability discovery and has opened up an NFT claiming period. 

• Zharta, a new NFT lending protocol, has reached $1M in total loan volume. 

🎆 Mint spotlight: ENERGY + Optimistic Zorb

Zora launched its L2, Zora Network, this week. If you haven’t tried it yet, refresh with my new guide on how to bridge ETH over for gas, at which point you’ll be ready to start creating and collecting. Then consider kicking off your Zora Network journey by grabbing the commemorative free mint open editions Zora and Optimism are running right now, “ENERGY” and “Optimistic Zorb” respectively. Welcome to the new onchain frontier for culture, anon. 

🙇 New insightful threads to level up your web3 knowledge!

1. dr3a.eth on how to create a decentralized LinkTree via ENS 💻 

2. onion on onchain SVGs and the CryptoPunks code ⛓️ 

3. John Rising on web3 games + account abstraction 🎮

✨ My NFT tool of the week: Party

It’s not a multisig. It’s not a DAO. It’s a Party. PartyDAO just unveiled Party, the new multiplayer app for all things Ethereum. Whether your squad is 3 strong or 3,000 strong, whether you want to team up in DeFi, NFTs, virtual worlds, or all of the above and beyond, party.app can be your onchain coordination hub. Memberships are managed via dynamic Party Card NFTs, and voting delegation allows for streamlined governance. Onchain multiplayer’s never been this easy, keep this on your radar!

😜 Tfw crypto’s vibes rapidly swing back and forth between very bearish and very bullish…

Weekly action steps

• 🆕 Read Ethereum’s Ticking Time Bomb and 10 Altcoins That Will Survive The Bear in Bankless

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

  • ✧ Using BRC-20 Tokens on Bitcoin

  • ✧ Ethscriptions Explained

  • ✧ Expanding Ethereum, Zora Style

Author bio

William M. Peaster is the creator of Metaversal — a Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. He also serves as a senior writer for the main Bankless newsletter.

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

Level up

🙏 Together with 🎮 Immutable 🎮

Unlock the future of gaming with Immutable. Experience Immutable’s transformative power, where true digital ownership and web3 technology redefine gaming. Join a vibrant ecosystem backed by our leading web3 gaming platform, millions of players and a diverse lineup of 150+ games. Build, play and connect.

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.