ZenCaps: Edition #33

Your weekly NFT recap to cut through the noise

Oct 15, 2022

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 - Bored Ape’s Yuga Labs faces SEC probe

Image: Bored Ape Yacht Club Twitter banner

As always, there’s been plenty to talk about over the past week in the NFT space, but it was the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s SEC story which garnered most attention. After news broke, there was a flurry of activity as a small portion of holders looked to offload their Yuga Labs assets. This led to BAYC, MAYC, Otherdeed for Otherside and BAKC moving up the volume charts with the former three sitting in first, second and third spots in terms of overall volume in past 7 days.

As reported by Decrypt the current TLDR is that the SEC ‘is exploring whether the crypto startup broke federal law by issuing NFTs that act like stocks, as well as exploring the distribution of the Ethereum-based ApeCoin token that launched earlier this year. Yuga Labs has not yet been accused of any wrongdoing and the investigation may not necessarily lead to charges, per the report’.

After the initial sales activity, normality resumed. The floor price of both BAYC and MAYC came off very slightly, but not to any extent that should worry holders. Until there’s more news on the topic, it looks as though it’ll be business as usual.

Yuga Labs told Bloomberg in a statement. “As a leader in the space, Yuga is committed to fully cooperating with any inquiries along the way.”

For a full article on this story, please follow this link: Bored Ape’s Yuga Labs Faces Investigatory SEC Probe.

Also in relation to Bored Ape Yacht Club, there was news of five people having been charged in France for illegal activities relating to NFT fraud. The criminals primarily, although not exclusively, targeted holders of BAYC and MAYC NFTs. The full story is available here: Five Charged in France With $2.5M Fraud Targeting Bored Ape NFT Owners.

For more of the top NFT news stories from the past week, take a look at the sections below.

Curated News - the biggest stories of the past week

Project news & things we’re keeping an eye on

Image: Damien Hirst burning real life art pieces in response to a portion of the community opting to keep the digital renditions instead

Talking Point - What Is Generative Art and Why You Should Care

It’s been interesting to watch the NFT space throughout this bearish period, and it’s been the perfect opportunity to observe which NFT collections or “genres” seem most resilient (in ETH terms at least) in the face of a general market downtrend.

From my observations, i’d suggest there are three key areas which have held up better than most: generative art, historically significant NFTs and those collections which have strong, active communities.

I’ve opted for generative art to be todays topic of choice as I’ve recently immersed myself in it. Last week I decided to take the time to review every single Art Blocks collection in existence. Some 360+ projects. I was interested in refamiliarizing myself with collections i know, as well as exploring those i’m less familiar with. I was also looking to draw up a shopping list of potential projects. Admittedly, some projects were quickly discounted based on my subjective opinion on their visual appeal.

In doing this exercise, whereby I noted many metrics, including overall volume, trading activity and changes in floor price, it was interesting to note the following: many of the more notable collections, primarily ‘Curated’ collections, despite occasional sharp sell-offs, in general, had held up far better than the majority of the NFT market. It’s also been obvious when monitoring the biggest sales of the past six months that a considerable number have related to either generative art or NFTs of historical significance, and sometimes both, such as Autoglyphs.

For these reasons, I felt a renewed sense of conviction in the cultural significance of generative art, and have dedicated extra time to getting know this part of the space more intimately.

In light of this, I thought i’d provide an easy gateway into discovering this wonderful part of the NFT space for those of you who may not be familiar with it yet.

Here’s a great entry level article by the team at DappRadar, which provides a fantastic base for understanding generative art: What Is Generative Art and Why You Should Care. There’s lots of links embedded within the article, allowing you to delve much deeper should you desire. I recommend at least reading the article all about Art Blocks. Enjoy.

Interesting Insight - CryptoArte (2018)

CryptoArte (2018) is an NFT art collection launched on 11th July 2018. It takes a unique approach to telling the history of Ethereum through visuals. Each piece contains 576 Ethereum blocks (18x32) which represents a part of the blockchain in different colours and icons inside the blocks. CryptoArte is arguably the first off-chain generative art NFT collection in existence. It even predates Autoglyphs by over 8 months on being the first tokenized generative art. (Note: Not all collection items were minted at the same time. Most valuable pieces can be found by filtering by ‘Mint Year’).

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.
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.
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/333 Club members, there’s once again 100% free access to Zenecas educational courses/workshops that he created with NasAcademy. The best part is everyone also gets access to several more courses done by partner projects, which cover a wide variety of topics. Find full details here.
Grid Synergy, a Singapore-based award-winning media business, recently created a ZA Introduction video, available on YouTube. Their CEO, Philip, is an enthusiastic supporter of ZenAcademy and a valued member of our community.
As a result, Grid Synergy has offered to select three NFT projects and support the creation of their marketing video at production cost! If you’re interested, please click here for more details.
Our sister community, Curious Addys, is launching a toolbox that allows creators to launch an NFT collection without any technical skills. There are standard features that are free for everybody, but premium features (things like nesting, lending, staking, etc) will cost a fee to use. However! Since ZA is a sister project, all ZA/333 holders are eligible to use ALL features, for free, forever. Full details here.
ZA/333 x Legends of Venari - Legends of Venari (LoV) is a creature collection RPG blockchain game that's currently in its Beta season and can be played on any PC or Mobile browser. ZA has partnered with them to give the community free access to trial their game for 14 days via their Demo Pass Program using a wallet that holds a ZenAcademy NFT. Click here for the full ZA Discord announcement.

Additional ZA Content

YouTube Video: Welcome to ZenAcademy! and why to join
YouTube Shorts: Don’t sleep on Twitter
YouTube Video: Zeneca's Mentorship with Honest Ones - Building a PFP Project
YouTube Video: How To Get A Job In Web3 - Zeneca's Full Guide To Find Your First Job in Web3
YouTube Video: Episode #56 of Two Bored Apes is now available, featuring Q&As, Storytelling NFTs, Best .10ETH Pick and NounsDAO. Click here to watch.
YouTube Video: Watch ZenChats #43 where Zeneca talks to Derek Edws - Time-based Royalties, FlamingoDAO, Art Blocks Curation Board Explained
Zeneca’s latest Newsletter is 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.

ZenCaps: Your Weekly NFT Recap to Cut Through the Noise