Dear Bankless Nation,
Last week, we watched gas fees skyrocket on Ethereum Mainnet. The last time fees became prohibitively high was during Yuga Labs’ Otherside metaverse launch. This time? The high fees and dense activity can be attributed to the airdrop provided by the NFT marketplace Blur. This draws attention to the fact that OpenSea is no longer the premier NFT marketplace; competitors are not only driving traffic away from OpenSea, they’re creating a very real threat to the position OpenSea carries in the NFT space entirely. This suggests the NFT space is approaching the next stage in its maturity and evolution.
Yuga Labs, Blur, and OpenSea all make appearances in this week's news, brought to you by Kouros.
One problem remains, however. Prohibitive transaction fees suggest that we are still early. Until layer 2 solutions have matured enough to offer identical services at substantially lower gas fees, and until marketplaces and dApps can provide a seamless transition from one blockchain or layer 2 solution to another, we have yet a long way to go. Grendel brings news of an NFT project set on creating a system that is blockchain agnostic, or, as they put it, “omnichain”: The Plague NFT.
Speaking of layer 2 solutions, our favorite mostly credible web3 news source, The Rug, provides their headline collectibles via Mirror on Optimism. Collect your The Rug NFTs at a low price, and for low gas fees, every week. Perchy and The Rug talk ordinals, DustyEye brings us further word on the Legion of 444, and nonsense drops the alpha on the this week’s d’ART Drop.
Welcome to Decentralized Arts.
Contributors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild (Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, Frank America)
This is the official NFT newsletter of BanklessDAO. If you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1st, 2021, you have been subscribed to this newsletter at launch. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.
Curated NFT News
Mongraal is the Winner of Yuga Labs’ Dookey Dash
The Dookey Dash competition has ended with Mongraal in first place. This is the game that Yuga Labs–the studio behind Bored Ape Yatch Club–brought to the NFT market in January, attracting thousands of participants from all over the world for a chance to win the Sewer Pass Golden Key
Mongrall, who is a well-known player of games such as Fortnite, displayed their excellent gaming skills to win this mysterious key whose functionality or secrets it will unlock are still unknown.
Since winning, the player has put the key for sale for 2,222 ETH and bidding is still going on at the time of writing.
Marketplaces War: Blur VS OpenSea
Blur and OpenSea are two of the most popular NFT marketplaces. They have been competing for users, sales, and royalties. Recently, Blur told its users to block their NFTs from being sold on OpenSea to earn full royalties on Blur. OpenSea responded by temporarily eliminating its 2.5% fee on sales.
This is just another stage in the ongoing debate surrounding creator royalties which began last year when some marketplaces decided to make royalties optional amid dwindling market conditions.
OpenSea recently introduced a policy to ban NFT marketplaces that offer optional royalties, like Blur, meaning that in order to make royalties enforceable on OpenSea after January 2, 2023, creators must ban the sale of their NFTs on royalty-optional marketplaces. If creators don’t do this, OpenSea will automatically make their royalties optional. In short, creators can only earn full royalties either only on OpenSea or Blur, but not both.
Interview with Matty
Pushing the Boundaries of NFTs in the Metaverse
by kaf
As fellow enthusiasts in the crypto community, we know how difficult it can be to find trusted voices that truly understand the space and are not swayed by outside influences. Matty, also known as DCL Blogger, is one of those rare voices.
With years of experience and a keen eye for innovation, Matty has become one of the most respected personalities in the crypto space. From his early days in digital marketing to his current work with Metakey, he has seen the NFT market evolve and grow in unpredictable ways.
Can you tell us about your background and how you got involved in the NFT space?
Was involved in digital marketing before I learned about crypto in 2017; bought some coins and witnessed the 2017 bull market; stumbled upon Decentraland in Jan 2018 and started buying and selling Virtual land. I was absolutely obsessed and started to learn about other NFT projects.
What was the inspiration behind the Metakey NFT project?
Over the last 3-4 years I was able to grow an excellent network. The NFT space also suffered from a lack of utility or 'reason' for the common person to use NFTs in their everyday life.
Metakey is supposed to push innovative use cases for ‘NFTs’ forward. What else can you do with NFT tech? How do you integrate it into sports, finance, and games? Working towards integrating 100s of use cases into a single Metakey so users will have a plethora of things they can do with a Metakey in the coming years.
How have you seen the NFT market evolve since you started your journey?
It used to be more fringe. People seemed to stick to a handful of projects and communities. I feel in 2020 there was more connection and understanding of interoperability. It was also more genuine collectorship as it was just a handful of traders.
The evolution has brought more unpredictability to the economic aspect of NFTs. Sometimes projects the moon way more than they can sustain.
Social awareness has grown immensely too. I think there's been a good amount of people that share insights and learnings on social media and that's awesome.
What sets Metakey apart from other NFT projects?
I think the ability to understand and build on converging tech to build a strong long-term business is what sets us apart. And the focus on Interoperability. We're well-funded, have a good amount of social awareness, and should be able to push NFT tech to some really large brands.
We recently announced an alliance with Microsoft, KPMG, and Ericsson to pursue Metaverse building opportunities in Saudi.
We're building on techs such as AR, VR, and Motion Capture, and working to be able to attract a lot of brands to work with us.
What advice would you give to those looking to get involved in the NFT space?
There's more to it than just buying NFTs.
Take your time, learn about different industries, grow your social accounts, network, launch some business ideas, build solutions, travel and meet people, and share ideas. Over the next 2 decades, there will be a LOT of digitization as millions of people will move to spend more time and resources in virtual environments.
Can you share with us any exciting plans or updates for the Metakey project?
We're in talks with some large AI brands to bring them into New Ganymede. Also might be able to bring in some very cool anime IPs. In talks with many other corporate brands to help them strategically enter this metaverse space.
Lots going on!
How do you stay current and informed in the fast-paced NFT industry?
It's very difficult. I have no time these days to stay informed so I rely on my team or my circles to share with me what they find. I'm hoping to drop back into being hyperactive on social media so I can keep up! You don't want to miss life-changing opportunities in this space.
Any project that you recommend us to follow?
I think it's an open field atm.
How do you envision the future of NFTs in the next 5 to 10 years?
I think art and collectibles will have some serious value. I would hope avatars will be usable across multiple virtual worlds. I also think we'll see some industries be completely revolutionized by NFT technology, such as ticketing. I think AI will help us build metaverse environments and features faster which will bring the concept of interoperability closer. I think this will give people reasons to acquire NFTs over digital goods with no ability to remove them from initial ecosystems.
Thanks, Matty!
For those looking to get involved in the NFT space, Matty's advice is to take your time, learn about different industries, and grow your social accounts.
As we look to the future of NFTs, Matty envisions a world where digital assets have real-world value and where avatars can be used across multiple virtual worlds. With AI helping to build metaverse environments, the concept of interoperability will become a reality, providing people with reasons to acquire NFTs.
With millions of people expected to spend more time and resources in virtual environments over the next two decades, the opportunities in this space are endless.
We're excited to see what the future holds for the NFT industry, and we're confident that Matty and his team at Metakey will continue to lead the way in pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
The Rug Weekly
El Salvador Mints Constitution as Ordinal NFT
Brought to you by The Rug
Bitcoin ordinals have gone stately thanks to a laser-focused presidential attitude:
Bitcoin culture already sucks,” Mark Cuban said. “We could honestly use a little more of the El Salvadorans’ joie de vivre.
Collect this immutable piece of history as an NFT on Optimism.
The Plague NFT
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
By Grendel
There are projects that are born on the wave of fashion and market peaks and others that grow, design, and become increasingly mainstream during the bear market.
The Plague has so far followed the latter trajectory. Born on Ethereum Mainnet during Q2 2022, it has seen an increase in the number of holders and followers, thanks to a marketing strategy on Twitter.
The Plague was not born as a simple NFT project, but as a brand with very effective communication both in the exposition of its founding principles and in the clarity of development.
The simplest way to describe the project lies on the site: “11,000 frogs set to plague the NFT community. The Plague NFT will unleash a Plague of frogs to combat the centralization of opportunity and corruption of power.”
But there is much more than that.
The project is based on some fundamental ideas, well summarized in a few posts, stating the importance of decentralization as a form of growth and support: “One of the core missions of The Plague is to decentralize opportunity for holders,” and “As we have built out our infrastructure, we have hired frogs to do it.”
Also, the project takes a strong stance against illegal behavior: “Scam busting is a core mission of The Plague.”
To fully understand the project, it is necessary to know the Plague NFT Manifesto, which, quoting Orwell, reiterates to the reader that "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." Unlike Animal Farm, the discourse in this case is egalitarian, with the wish to unite as many frogs as possible to create opportunities through the DAO, founding an incubator–The Frog Tank–aimed at supporting the growth of the ecosystem around the project.
The technological approach is also interesting. As already indicated, The Plague NFT was born on ainnet. However, the goal is to become Omnichain, starting from Polygon.
The collection can be found on Opensea.
D’Art Drops
by nonsense
Introducing weekly NFT art drops for the Bankless community, brought to you by Decentralized Arts.
This week, we feature Portal to the Future by cryptoartis.eth. After a long and arduous journey, a traveler arrives at a portal. Unsure of what to expect, the traveler activates the portal with some hesitation. For a brief moment, nothing happens. Then, the portal slowly glows to life, opening a path forward to the future. Whatever the traveler may have anticipated, it was nothing like what they came to face: a cosmos rife with possibility, with Ethereum at the nexus.
This piece will be made available during the BanklessDAO Community Call as part of the community NFT showcase. Head over to Rarible and add it to your favorites so you’re ready to collect it when it goes on sale. 75% of each sale will go to the artist, 10% will be returned to BanklessDAO, and 15% will be retained by Decentralized Arts.
Chippi Corner
By Perchy
THE LEGION OF 444 – Part 5
by DustyEye, with L.Elrah, Hybridcode_ & Turinglabs
Dear BanklessDAO Readers,
We can declare the first phase, the extraction, concluded.
The digital plasma handled by Turinglabs and Hybridcode_ was processed bit by bit.
Thanks to the technomediation of L.Elrah, the 444 demons have a face and are temporarily isolated within as many 444 graphic simulacra.
In seven days we will report some of the advice received at info@dustyeye.com about the possibility of channeling demons into structures that are more secure than a hard disk or drive.
Then we will see how to proceed with the transfer.
See you next week,
Dusty Eye
______________________
WEB: www.DustyEye.com
IG: @DustyEye_DE
TWITTER: @Dusty_Eye
Meme
A small joke contributed by The Rug.
PostScript & Acknowledgements
Decentralized Arts is written and produced by a small team of contributors who are passionate about art, both visual and written, and its growing place in crypto and NFTs. With each edition, we aim to bring you not only the most current and relevant news in the NFT space, but also explorations in what it means for our culture and societies for this market to continue to grow and expand. When everyone is an owner of art, we all gain a deeper appreciation for it.
If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please share it with someone who you think will appreciate the content. We also welcome suggestions via our feedback form.
With great appreciation for you, we thank you for reading and subscribing to Decentralized Arts.
Cordially,
Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, and Frank America
The idea of one marketplace incentivizing users to not use another marketplace seems so antithetical to the whole idea of decentralization, interoperability, etc.
But I guess if there is no pushback that's the ecosystem we deserve.