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Hey everyone! Here’s what we got for you this week:

News

Reddit is launching a new NFT Marketplace… but there’s a catch

China NFT crackdown

Market

Market update

Market Trends

3 of the top 4 most profitable NFT trader wallets are probably owned by the same person

Collectibles

Nike-owned RTFKT gives full commercial rights to CloneX NFT holders

Coolman’s Universe animated series

ImmortalPlayerCharacter is NOT older than CryptoPunks

Something is coming soon for Murakami.Flower holders

Gaming

How a fake job ad led to Axie’s $600M+ hack

e-sports has been one of the “highest ROI” proposals to Nouns DAO

Virtual Worlds

Otherside load test

+ some alpha;)

📰 News

Reddit is launching a new NFT Marketplace… but there’s a catch

Reddit is essentially launching its own marketplace to sell its PFP collection. The PFPs are Polygon NFTs but can only be used off-platform if you buy a rare one. Reddit will use 90 designs created by members of communities like r/Comics, r/ProCreate, and r/AdobeIllustrator to sell “tens of thousands” of avatars priced at $9.99, $24.99, $49.99, $74.99, or $99.99 – all cash, no crypto.

A few points on Reddit’s NFT approach:

They are reluctant to brand them “NFTs” instead of calling them “digital collectibles.”

The avatars are only able to be purchased in cash

China NFT Crackdown

Chinese big tech firms Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu have adopted a so-called “self-discipline initiative” that would require real-name authentication for users to buy and sell NFTs.

Also, with a ban on cryptocurrencies in China, companies selling “digital collectibles” can only support transactions with legal Chinese tender as the settlement layer.

Digital collectibles also must:

Hold relevant regulatory certification

Ensure the security of the underlying technology

Prove IP protection

The initiative also pledges to avoid setting up secondary marketplaces and to “firmly resist trading.”

📉 Market

Market update

Macro

Most people are waiting for the CPI number to come out on Wednesday. The expectation is for it to be 8.7%, but Bloomberg just reported that the White House is expecting the CPI numbers to be “highly elevated.”

Volume

The total NFT market daily volume has been sticking within the $15M-$20M since about mid-June. We will see if we can start to bottom out there or not.

Interest

Search volume for “NFT” has declined week over week since May 8th. However, on the bright side, there are still tons of great projects being built by great teams. Deal flow certainly has not slowed down.

Market trends

The CryptoPunk derivative project The Saudis is the meme project of the week, hitting ~600ETH in volume and a floor of up to 1.2ETH

Fine art NFTs (ArtBlocks, Fidenza, etc.) saw a ton of volume this past week.

The Fidenza floor went from ~80ETH —> ~130ETH this past week before settling at over ~100ETH

3 of the top 4 most profitable NFT trader wallets are probably owned by the same person

The potential of the three wallets being connected started when analysts at Nansen tracked a 100+ ETH Gemini deposit made by each wallet simultaneously.

Why they’re probably connected:

They all trade at very similar times in the day

All three wallets started trading on June 16th, 2017

All three have transactions between each other

If this is true, the person or entity behind the three wallets has profited ~32,000 ETH (~$32,000,000) since 2017.

👤 Collectibles

Nike-owned RTFKT gives full commercial rights to CloneX NFT holders

NFT collections that give holders control over the IP are one of the biggest value unlocks in NFTs. Show me any other part of the consumer world that allows individuals to monetize the IP of a world-class brand like this.

We’ve seen other projects with commercial rights, namely BAYC, spawn entire businesses from the IP of the main project.

By giving Clonex holders commercial rights and 3D files, we can soon expect to see things like:

Merch

Mini-games

Derivitive projects

Physical NFT sculptures

ImmortalPlayerCharacter is NOT older than CryptoPunks

IPC has benefitted from a rumor claiming that it is older than CryptoPunks. The rumor caught on like wildfire on Twitter, causing the project’s floor to rise from 0.02 to 0.12ETH. However, after a brief stint atop OpenSea’s rankings, some simple Etherscan sleuthing showed that is not older than CryptoPunks. IPC is still a pretty old project in the context of NFTs circa 2018.

Coolman’s Universe animated series

Coolman’s Universe partnered with the award-winning animation studio Cartuna to develop a full-length, multi-episode animated series. Many thought Coolman was going to partner with a Disney animation studio, so the floor actually dumped on the announcement

Something is coming soon for Murakami.Flower holders

Many are speculating it to be an airdrop however, given takashi murakami’s recent posting, it probably will have a physical component as well.

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🕹 Gaming

How a fake job ad led to Axie’s $600M+ hack

Picture this, you’re riding high as a senior engineer for the #1 play-to-earn game in crypto. But being a senior engineer for a rapidly growing startup like Sky Mavis is stressful. Months of long hours paired with a cooled-off market have you looking for a change.

Then along comes a mysterious company messaging you on LinkedIn about another job. The job seems legit, and the compensation is insane. You decide what the heck and take an interview…and then another. They go well, you think the company is a great fit + money talks.

And thennn…. they send you a spyware-infested PDF disguised as an offer letter, and before you know it, $600M in ETH and USDC is siphoned off from your former employer.

A few things:

Lazerus deserves an Oscar

The fake company scheme and Ronin Bridge hack were carried out by the Lazurus hacking group out of North Korea.

Phishing is one thing, but these method-acting spear-phishing techniques used by Lazurus are terrifying.

It only takes one

Apparently, Lazurus contacted a ton of Sky Mavis engineers, and most ignored it.

Lazurus has done this before

Earlier this year, the group targeted the defense industry by impersonating Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems recruiters.

e-sports has been one of the “highest ROI” proposals to Nouns DAO

One of the proposals that hit Nouns DAO was to sponsor an e-sports team. This vertical was virtually unexplored by the collection or any NFT projects, frankly. We think it’s worth highlighting due to the attention it has generated for Nouns DAO with only a 35 ETH investment. Could we see other blue chips allocating capital to this?

🌐 Virtual Worlds

Otherside load tests

Otherside took a big step last week with its two load tests.

What’s a load test?

Basically, Yuga Labs and its metaverse partner, Improbable, wanted to push the limits of Otherside Platform’s capacity. To do this, they invited all Otherdeed holders to concurrently join the Metaverse. The experience was super smooth, and seeing 2500+ virtual avatars in one environment was amazing.

Remember to set your calendars for the “First Trip” tech demo on July 16th.

👀 Alpha

A project that recently flew super under the radar that we think is worth highlighting. FYI this is not investment advice; be sure to DYOR. Also, nobody connected to Zima Red owns any at the time of publication.

The project is called Kumite. It sold out 9,600 NFTs but looks pretty run-of-the-mill at first. However, there is one important thing to point out—> One of the three public team members (Gareb Shamus), is the founder of ComicCon.

The floor still sits at under 0.1ETH.

That’s it for us this week 🙂