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 - Twitter, Apple, Meta, Reddit & Royalties
This weeks NFT news has been full of household names such as Twitter, Apple, Meta and Reddit, for both positive and negative reasons, the full details of which are linked to below in the Curated News section.
Other leading stories have been focused around NFT marketplaces and the ongoing royalties debate, with LooksRare tweeting they “will no longer support creator royalties by default, and instead, share 25% of the LooksRare Protocol fee with creators/collection owners”. This comes shortly after Magic Eden did a u-turn on its royalties stance last week. Both moves are an act to retain market share as volumes started to drop off with competitors moving to optional royalties.
CryptoPunks top the weekly volume charts with several big sales occurring over the past week. BAYC, Otherside and MAYC are also in the top five, with new entry ‘RTFKT x RIMOWA Meta-Artisan Collection’ making an appearance in third place. Several Reddit Avatar collections experienced high volumes too and new mint R Planet has been impressive, sitting at 11th in weekly volume.
Blur.io continues to make an impact in the NFT marketplace domain (there’s more on this below), Azuki sold the 8 most expensive skateboards ever, the Elon Musk Twitter takeover was accompanied by NFT-related platform news and Reddit has been busy onboarding millions of users via its Collectible Avatars.
We saw the crypto markets go positively green this week, with Ethereum up a whopping 25% over the past 7 days. It’s currently trading at $1,625.
For full details on all these stories and more, please see the sections below.
Curated News - the biggest stories of the past week
BIGGEST NFT Sale: CryptoPunk #924 sold for 475ETH
Twitter Will Allow Users to Buy and Sell NFTs Through Tweets
Crypto Twitter Reacts to Elon Musk’s First Day as 'Chief Twit'
Could this trademark application indicate that PayPal is developing an NFT market?
Another NFT Marketplace Goes Zero Royalties in 'Race to the Bottom'
Reddit NFT trading volume hits all-time high as wallet holders near 3 million
Meta's Metaverse Division Reports $3.67 Billion Quarterly Loss
Aptos Is Luring Away Solana NFT Traders and Creators—Will It Last?
Educational: From Minting To Trading: Useful NFT Tips
Educational: ZenAcademy’s 30 Days Of NFTs - Entry Level NFT Course
Project news & things we’re keeping an eye on
Breaking: Snowfro Just Announced First Art Blocks Project Since Chromie Squiggles
@robinkunz_ produced an excellent thread on the Reddit Avatar Collections
The Sandbox announced a $SAND giveaway for loyal LAND owners
The BAYC merch drop, featuring collabs with artists McBess and The Dudes, went live 3 days ago
R Planet successfully minted out at 0.08ETH, has 650+ETH of secondary sales and a current floor of 0.13ETH
CryptoPunks Gains Notoriety in the Latest Guinness Book of Records
Talking Point - Intro to Blur.io
In case anyone’s been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, I thought we’d bring to your attention the latest NFT marketplace/aggregator (yes, it’s both) on the block.
Blur.io officially launched on the 19th October with a headline tweet which read “To celebrate our launch we’re airdropping Care Packages containing $BLUR tokens to everyone who’s stuck around in the bear market. You have 14 days to claim.”
The market reacted, and before long the platform started to gain momentum. Volume picked up and within 8 days of launch, the team tweeted this:
Just yesterday, the platform hit another milestone tweeting they’d “reached a new all time high of 1694 ETH volume today!”. That’s approximately $2.6m. For some perspective, that’s more than the average daily volume seen on Magic Eden over the past week, and represents roughly 20-25% of that going through OpenSea. Not bad for 10 days on the job.
So it’s popular, and that popularity is growing. But why? Well of course there’s the incentives around the second airdrop requirements. The TLDR on this is essentially the more you use (list/trade etc.) the platform, the more $BLUR tokens you’ll be rewarded with. The first airdrop is available to anyone who has traded Ethereum-based NFTs in the last six months, as long as they list one NFT on the BLUR.io platform within two weeks of launch. But that aside, the platform boasts much more, with the fact that it’s the fastest marketplace around being a key USP, providing pro traders with an invaluable edge.
Other key selling points, targeted towards “professional” NFT traders, include features like “floor sweeping” across multiple marketplaces, reveal “sniping” and advanced portfolio analytics tools. The platform also claims you can sweep 10x faster than on Gem, with up to 17% less gas fees.
Blur.io has gone for an optional royalties model, but has incentivised users to pay royalties by rewarding those who do so with additional $BLUR tokens. It should be noted that the $BLUR token is not Live until Jan, so please be careful to avoid scammers in the meantime.
So there you have it. A brief rundown of what Blur.io has to offer and how it’s short-lived existence has evolved to date. All that’s left now is to try it out for yourself. Here’s the link: https://blur.io. Enjoy.
For transparencies sake, it should be noted that Zeneca is an early stage investor in Blur.io. Zeneca takes transparency very seriously and has recently published a website which provides details of all the crypto/NFT companies he has a financial interest in. It also provides information of all of his current and past advisory positions. You can find this information here: https://zeneca.xyz/transparency/.
Tip Of The Week - The Power of AI
Zeneca recently posted a YouTube Short touching on the importance and relevance of AI (Artificial Intelligence). He postures that instead of resisting this new technology for fear of it taking away our jobs, a healthier approach is to embrace it. It’s coming, whether we like it or not, and those who become accustomed with how best to use it to their advantage, will certainly prosper.
Here’s a thread which provides a glimpse at what tools are already available, providing an insight into where AI is currently being utilized. Take a look for yourself and see where you might benefit from using this emerging technology.
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
Zeneca recently shared a thread to clear up any possible misconceptions people might have about his/ZA’s relation to the Froopyland/Two Boys project. Click here to read.
The upcoming Town Hall event has been pushed back by a day due to Halloween celebrations. It’ll be hosted on Nov 1st or 2nd dependant upon your time. You can find the time and date for your location by clicking here to see the Discord announcement.
During the Town Hall Zeneca will share more about what we're doing, why we're doing it and who we're doing it for. The town hall will be uploaded to YouTube + shared with everyone after too, in order to allow those who can't attend (work, sleep, time zone stuff) to get an inside look as well.
333 Club members, please check out the most recent announcement in Discord, which includes details of the upcoming 333 Club Town Hall and Zeneca’s ‘office hours’ up until the end of November. Also, don’t forget that three members of the ‘Z-Team’ are also offering up ‘office hours’ to share their knowledge and provide support to the 333 Club community too. Details of their availability will be published shortly.
ZenAcademy is already gearing up and preparing for Zenmas #3 to go out at the end of the year. Zenmas is an initiative which aims to support new artists and creators, especially those struggling to get noticed and find an audience. If you’re an artist who might be interested in taking part, please fill out this form: Zenmas #3 Artist Application Form.
All ZenAcademy holders who applied for the Heymint Launchpad AL can now claim their free Soulbound Token (SBT). This SBT will grant you lifetime access to Heymint's premium features. Token claim: https://s.heymint.xyz/GDwhC.
Additional ZA Content
YouTube Video: Welcome to ZenAcademy! and why to join
YouTube Video: Watch ZenChats #44 where Zeneca talks to SuperMassive about Why Metaverse Is The Biggest Opportunity For Content Creators
YouTube Video: Best NFT Marketing Strategy That Works In 2022
YouTube Video: Episode #58 of Two Bored Apes is now available, featuring Reddit Avatars, Apple Bans NFTs, and a War Between Marketplaces
YouTube Shorts: Save Time and Money with AI
YouTube Shorts: Don’t Sleep On Twitter
Zeneca’s latest Newsletter is now out, entitled ‘How We Onboard Billions to Web3’. Click here to read the full article.
The ZenAcademy GITBOOK is now live! It’s a repository for everything ZA (values, the team, partners, perks & plenty of helpful resources). Visit 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.