The NFT space can feel like information overload at times, so we’ve cut through the noise to deliver you a curated dose of what matters most. Your all-in-one weekly companion.
Headline News - The Ethereum Merge was a success
The Ethereum Merge is undoubtedly the biggest story of the past week. It was completed two days ago and was generally regarded as an overwhelming success. There’s far too much to cover on the topic in this opener, so if you’d like a more detailed rundown, please check out this weeks ‘Talking Point’ section where I share all the best Merge stories.
Aside from The Merge, we saw Doodles finally break radio silence and make a big announcement, MoMa (Museum Of Modern Art) announced it will auction off high-value traditional art pieces to raise funds for digital art acquisitions, and Proof Collective announced a European Roadshow running from October 7th – 16th.
We also saw OpenSea are keeping themselves busy. In the past week they announced their intention to support more blockchains, as well as launching OpenRarity and a new OpenSea UI.
In the sales volume charts, RENGA was a clear winner with over 3,800ETH traded in the past week. It’s associated collection RENGA Black Box also saw impressive volume featuring at number 6 in the charts. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places were occupied by the usual suspects of CryptoPunks, BAYC, MAYC and Otherdeed for Otherside respectively.
And in case you weren’t already aware, September 20th is the official International NFT Day. There are IRL events across the globe to help raise awareness and you can be sure Twitter will be alive with NFT-related content. The reason it’s on the 20th September is because on this day in 2017, the term NFT (non-fungible token) was officially coined by Dapper Labs Chief Technology Officer Dete Shirley in the form of the ERC-721 standard.
For full articles on everything mentioned above, and more, please explore the sections below.
Curated News - the biggest stories of the past week
BIGGEST NFT Sale: CryptoPunk #4713 sold for 240ETH
Starbucks Reveals Polygon as Blockchain Partner for Loyalty Program
OpenSea Launches OpenRarity With Icy.tools, Curio Tools and Proof
White House releases framework on regulating crypto — here’s what’s in it
‘WAGMI’ Is Dead: Pplpleasr, UnicornDAO, TIME President Weigh in on NFTs
Blue-Chip NFT Holders Are Now Eligible for an IRL Rewards Program
OpenSea tweets about plans to support more blockchains and releases a new UI
NFT Renting Platform Shuts Down, Citing 'Close to Zero Traction'
Ford is getting ready to enter the Metaverse with digital cars and NFTs
Sci-Fi NFT comic book project lays the foundation for CCG development
Web3 search engine attracts big backers in drive to hand power back to users
Educational: What are POAPs? 3 Simple Steps to Make and Use Them
Educational: What Is Starbucks’ Polygon-based Loyalty Program?
Project news & things we’re keeping an eye on
Doodles NFT Sales Surge 1,200% After Big Raise Values Project at $704M
Dropping Today: Banksy Radar Rats by LCD Lab. More details here
A Bored Ape Ethereum NFT Owner is Launching a Real-World Yacht Club
Woodies NFT Collection Announces Film: Woodies Origin on Youtube
Cool Cats announce Comics release date as 21st September in tweet
Proof Collective Announces A European Tour Of Real Life Events
Historical Insight: The Curio Apples NFT is the first card/mint in the My Curio Cards collection. It’s regarded as a must-have vintage NFT due to Curio Cards status as being the first ever art exhibition on the Ethereum blockchain. This bear market has seen the floor price fall below 2ETH at times, with the average all-time sales price being 4.25ETH. The current floor is 2.59ETH.
Talking Point - The Ethereum Merge
Two days ago saw the culmination of years of work reach a pivotal moment, when the Ethereum blockchain transitioned from a PoW (Proof of Work) to a PoS (Proof of Stake) consensus model, a migration otherwise known as The Merge.
Since The Merge offered up so many discussion points it seemed fitting to dedicate this weekly segment to it, offering readers an opportunity to get fully accustomed with what actually happened, why it matters and the stories that surrounded it.
Leading up the event itself, my curiosity grew as to what might be happening on certain livestreams. I joined some forty-one thousand people from around the globe to witness the event via the ‘Ethereum Mainnet Merge Viewing Party’ stream, a full livestream of which can be found here, packed full of information: Full stream Merge Party. During the livestream, Vitalik Buterin was asked how he felt about the merge, and responded as follows:
“This is the first step in Ethereums big journey toward being a very mature system, and there’s still steps to go. We still have to scale, we still have to fix privacy, we still have to make the thing actually secure for regular users and all of this stuff….To me the Merge just symbolises the difference between early stage Ethereum and the Ethereum we’ve always wanted early stage Ethereum to become. So let’s go and build out the rest of that ecosystem and make Ethereum what we want it to be”.
Once the Merge had been successfully completed, a lot of news articles, memes, GIFs, opinions and a few Merge-related NFT collections started to circulate. Let’s dig in.
First of all, for those who simply want an overview of how the Merge unfolded and what it actually means, please have a read of the following articles:
The Ethereum Merge Is Done, Opening a New Era for the Second-Biggest Blockchain
Ethereum Energy Usage, Carbon Footprint Down 99.99% After Merge: Report
For those interested in seeing how the Ethereum community and the larger crypto/NFT communities reacted to the Merge, please read the following:
The Merge Is Finalized: Here’s The Best of Twitter’s Reactions
Ethereum Merge: Community reacts with memes, GIFs and tributes
The next set of articles explore the NFT aspect. They cover those attempting to mint the last ever NFT on the PoW network, as well as those competing to mint the first ever NFT on the PoS network.
Other notable post-Merge news includes the following:
And finally, as a bit of fun, some people released an NFT collection called ‘Set In Merge’. They describe it as follows: ‘the first and last NFT collection that is minted both in Ethereum's PoS and PoW parts of blockchain. Dedicated to The Merge, it captures and absorbs the historical moment of the great event, turning it into its inner value’. It saw some decent volume initially, with just under 3,000 sales on day 1, but interest has since declined dramatically. See collection here.
In summary, the Merge was a resounding success, and a completely seamless experience for the end-user. The major talking point is the enormous improvement to the blockchains carbon footprint, with claims that the move to PoS will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%. As Vitalik said, there’s still much work to be done, but this milestone could not have gone any smoother.
Tip Of The Day - How to access your ETHW
During the Merge, a snapshot was taken of all addresses holding ETH. This was done for the ETHW hard fork, an Ethereum blockchain which will continue to operate using the PoW consensus model.
All addresses that had ETH on the Ethereum network, will subsequently have the equivalent number of ETHW on the EthereumPoW network, and this is already the case.
Here’s how to access your ETHW:
Configure the ETHW network on Metamask by going to ‘Add Network’ on the drop-down menu located at the top of the Chrome extension, and entering the following information:
Network Name: ETHW-Mainnet
New RPC URL: https://mainnet.ethereumpow.org/
Chain ID: 10001
Currency Symbol: ETHW
Block Explorer URL(Optional): https://mainnet.ethwscan.com/
Block Explorer URL(Optional): https://www.oklink.com/en/ethw
Once saved/confirmed, you should be able to see your ETHW balance/s in your Metamask wallet/s when looking at the ETHW-Mainnet.
If you’d like to trade your ETHW, go to any of your wallets holding the asset and send it to an exchange that trades ETHW. Here's an extensive list of those which do: List of exchanges that trade ETHW
Please note that ETHW is currently classified as an IOU, and for full details of the asset you should read this FAQ (last updated 14th September) by the EthereumPoW team, and ask further questions to their community if anything is unclear.
ZenAcademy and 333 Club Noticeboard
Regular Event Reminders
Don’t miss the 333 Club’s weekly ‘This Week in NFTs’ Twitter Spaces, each and every Sunday. Follow the 333 Club Twitter page here for more info.
Don’t forget to keep across the Giveaways Discord channel, with plenty of allowlist spots up for grabs on a regular basis.
As a ZenAcademy member you get exclusive access to periodic market health statistics in the Discord content channel.
Join poker nights via our Discord. Events held weekly, with prizes to be won.
Weekly Movie Nights are going strong. Click here for the latest info.
As part of the ZA community you have free access to the Misfit Robot Discord (focused on mental health & recovery), and several of their “Members Only” rooms. Check them out here: https://discord.gg/misfitrobots
Season 2 of the ZA Trivia Challenge is underway. Click here for more info.
There’s a new ‘global-events’ forum in the ZA Discord to help facilitate IRL meet-ups amongst the community. Find more details here.
Irregular Events and Community News
ZA has partnered with pfpedia, who provide a new way to interact, discover and stay up to date with NFT projects. The ZA community get 3-months premium access to their platform. Click here for more details.
ZA has officially made the switch to Vulcan and turned off Collab Land. This won't affect the vast majority of members, but if you or someone you see hasn't re-verified, please direct them to ⛩│castle-gate in Discord.
Please note that in the ZA Discord, Free Member Chat has been renamed to 🆓│orientation.
Zeneca will be speaking at the web3 conference, W3BX, being held in Las Vegas from Oct 10-13. ZenAcademy are going to be running a 4 day workshop on "Building a web3 / NFT business". They're also planning to have some side events exclusive for ZAG / 333 token holders. Click here for more info.
Additional ZA Content
YouTube Video: Welcome to ZenAcademy! and why to join
YouTube Video: How to Keep Your NFTs Safe (#1 Most Secure Way!)
YouTube Shorts: What am I MOST BULLISH on in the NFT space? (Zeneca)
YouTube Shorts: WHY NFT artists’ revenue is DRASTICALLY decreasing
YouTube Video: Watch ZenChats #41 where Zeneca talks to Phraze about Being an Artist in Web3, Creator Royalties and PhrazeBoard
YouTube Video: Episode #51 of Two Bored Apes is now available, where the guys discuss Tornado Cash, Royalties, Burps and a Zancan. Click here to watch.
Video: An Introduction to FX Hash on TEZOS in collaboration with InPeak
Zeneca’s latest Newsletter is now out, entitled ‘Creator Royalties in NFTs’. Click here to read the full article.
The ZenAcademy GITBOOK is now live! It’s a repository for all of the information relating to ZA (our values, the team, our partners, perks, and plenty of helpful resources). You can visit it by clicking here.
Nothing in this or any other ZenCaps publication should be construed as financial or investment advice. The views and opinions expressed in ZenCaps publications do not reflect those of Zeneca_33 or the ZenAcademy.
Always exercise caution within the NFT space and adhere to best practices when it comes to making any investments. There is plenty of potential, but this comes with inherent risks.
Stay safe, and as always, good luck.