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 - Art Blocks Turns 2, Blurs 2nd Airdrop Goes Live and OpenSea Revises Its Royalties Stance…Again
New collection Legend Of COCKPUNCH tops the 7-day volume charts on OpenSea, with CryptoPunks securing second place. Valhalla is in third spot, having had a successful reveal a few days ago, and staple diets Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Yacht Club sit in fourth and fifth respectively.
The crypto/NFT newswires remain full of articles tracking the developments in the FTX/SBF collapse. We’ve picked two of the most recent pieces on this story and included them below should you want to keep across it.
Blur’s 2nd Airdrop went live over the past week. It was accompanied by grumblings from the community about rewards, as it appears some participants were unduly filtered out for suspected wash trading. The platform was quick to respond and is in the process of rectifying the issue.
Art Blocks turned two yesterday and celebrated with a 24hr Twitter Spaces. Their generative art drops continue to attract interest, with new collections LOVE Tennis Art Project by Martin Grasser and Pointers by Steve Pikelny both performing well, and older collections Fontana and Anticyclone seeing good volume too.
In other news, Starbucks have seen ‘unprecedented’ interest in their NFT rewards platform, RTFKT suffered an underwhelming community response to their MNLTH2/Cryptokicks iRL (CiRL) drop, Crypto Twitter is obsessing over AI chat bot ChatGPT and China, Malta and the UK are all reviewing the laws around crypto and NFTs.
There were also more developments with regards to creator royalties as OpenSea adopted a new stance on the topic, seemingly in response to comments by Art Blocks CEO Erick Calderon.
For full articles on all the above and much more, head into the sections below and click on the relevant links.
If you enjoy ZenCaps, don’t miss out on ZenDaily. It’s published Monday to Friday and provides a short recap of the past 24hrs in the NFT space. Subscribe for free here.
Curated News - the biggest stories of the past week
BIGGEST NFT Sale: Bored Ape Yacht Club #3756 - 480.69ETH
Coinbase CEO rejects FTX ‘Accounting Error,’ saying funds were ‘Stolen’
OpenSea Again Changes Course on NFT Royalties After More Creator Pushback
Tensions Erupt Between Magic Eden and Metaplex Over Future of Solana NFTs.
Chinese court says NFTs are virtual property protected by law
UK Includes Crypto Assets in Financial Services Reform Package
CoinDesk Release Their Most Influential 2022 List, The Definitive List of the Biggest Changemakers in Crypto, Blockchain and Web3
Lawsuit Alleges Yuga Labs Conspired With Celebs to Push Bored Ape NFTs
O.G. Audio App Winamp Adds Ethereum and Polygon Music NFT Support
Ledger Announced New Product 'Ledger Stax', Available For Pre-Order
Starbucks Sees 'Unprecedented Interest' as Polygon NFT Rewards Platform Launches
SBF Denies He Tried to Attack Tether, 'Hunted' Three Arrows’ Terra Positions
Sam Bankman-Fried 'Willing' to Testify Before House Financial Services Committee
Educational: A Comprehensive Guide to the Tezos Blockchain and NFTs
Educational: ZenAcademy’s 30 Days Of NFTs - Entry Level NFT Course
A word from our Founder: Welcome to ZenAcademy! and why to join
Project news & things we’re keeping an eye on
Yuga Labs announced “The Fucking Metaverse” Podcast, co-hosted by the founders, is now live
Art Blocks Celebrated 2yrs With A BLOCKTALKATHON, A 24hr Twitter Spaces With A Range Of Guests.
Cool Cats Have Partnered With GAMEE to offer a little bit of festive fun in the Arc8 app!
Memeland Tweeted Details Of The Highly Anticipated Captainz Mint.
Emblem Vault deploys Curated Collections contracts, edging closer to opening up the historical NFT space to the masses.
Porsche revealed Patrick Vogel as the artist working on their new NFT collection
Magic Eden release more technical details on their Royalty Protection solution
ApeCoin Up 6% as Holders Stake $32M in Ethereum Bored Ape Token
Crypto.com’s CRO Surges as It Launches World Cup NFTs With Coca-Cola
RTFKT Responded To Community Unrest Regarding Their Recent MNLTH2/Cryptokicks iRL (CiRL) Drop
Talking Point - Generative Art vs. (almost) Everything Else
For the purposes of this piece i’m referring to generative art in particular, using the Art Blocks platform as an example of what i’m referring to, but in my opinion the same rules apply to notable artworks across the board.
Having looked at the NFT landscape every day for the duration of the bear market, it’s evident that one sector is much more resilient to these market conditions than any other: "blue-chip generative art. Let’s take a look at why.
I’ve witnessed a huge range of projects coming into the space over the past few years, from fly by night cash grabs to goliaths like Yuga Labs, and everything in between. Unfortunately, a lot of projects which showed great early promise with dedicated, passionate and competent leaders, have ultimately capitulated.
One way to look at this is to say “Well there’s simply not enough market liquidity to drive sales, which help provide the much-needed income via royalties”. Yes, this is a fair point. A number of founders have left their posts citing financial reasons. Put simply, they can’t afford to work for free. But money isn’t the sole reason why projects fail. There’s a whole range of factors which can impact an NFT projects potential for success, and these are largely related to human behaviour.
Examples of this include incompetence, team conflicts, mismanagement of funds, misuse of funds, community unrest, lack of shared vision, lack of development, loss of focus and poorly executed marketing efforts, to name a few. These are all potential pitfalls in a project that relies on a team, and money.
However, this is not true for blue-chip generative art projects. There are certainly other examples too. One that comes to mind is the historical/vintage NFT space. Certain historical collections have strong communities, but their value isn’t typically based around funding or a team. It’s generally determined based on their time of release, scarcity and the degree of innovative mechanics at play. But let’s get back to generative art.
Generative art, and in particular blue-chip collections, comparatively, have held their ETH value reasonably well during this bear market. Their incredibly resilient to these market conditions for all the same reasons that most other projects are not. Once launched, they do not rely on leadership teams, they do not require endless funding, they do not need to maintain interest through endless, costly development/innovation, there can be no issues with conflict on the projects direction and there’s no promises to be broken about future plans. They simply exist, and the market decides on their value. It also seems evident that once there’s enough momentum, and the general consensus is that a collection is inherently valuable, this idea seems to perpetuate. And it rarely falters. Not to any huge extent anyway.
One might argue that Art Blocks in itself is a team with money, that could potentially disband and stop operations. Yes, this is true, but I don’t foresee that outcome impacting the value of the art projects they’ve already released.
Two other elements one could argue help to drive the appeal of generative art collections, specifically Curated Art Blocks collections, are the supply and that fact their curated. The majority of generative art collections have supplies which are smaller than most other NFT projects, such as PFPs. Through simple supply and demand mechanics, this tends to lead to steady floor price increases over time.
With all the noise in the NFT space, it’s often extremely hard to know what to participate in. It takes a lot of time and effort to properly research a project. But with Art Blocks, they’ve largely removed this barrier, and said '“Here, we think this is a good project”, almost applying a stamp of approval. This is very appealing for investors and is another factor which adds to the attraction of their platform, and in particular, their Curated collections.
For all these reasons, i’ve become even more bullish on the generative art sector, and in particular those curated by platforms such as Art Blocks.
I leave you to come to your own conclusions, but without having to deal with all the baggage which is inherent in most other types of NFT projects, generative art certainly has a unique appeal, for me at least.
Tip Of The Week - Blur Airdrop 2
Blur’s Airdrop 2 was calculated based on Blur listings. Listings got a score based on how likely they were to sell and on their collection’s activity. Listings with full royalties received 2x points. Traders got a 5% bonus for sweeping 3 times, and a 50% bonus for sweeping 6 times.
You can claim your Care Packages from Airdrop 2 by placing a single bid for any amount on any collection. Once you've claimed you can reveal your packages immediately. Traders who maintained full loyalty have 2x odds for Rares and Legendaries and 3x odds for Mythicals!
When you bid, you’ll also start earning points towards Airdrop 3, our final and biggest airdrop. Airdrop 3 ends in January when the $BLUR token launches.
You can earn points for Airdrop 3 even if you weren’t eligible for Airdrop 2. Bid now to claim your 2nd airdrop and earn points for Blur’s 3rd and final airdrop. Make sure to maintain your Listing Loyalty — it also determines rarity luck for Airdrop 3!
NOTE: There were some issues with Care Package distribution. Please read the tweet below if you didn't get Care Packages due to wash trading filters. Blur are currently updating the filters to correct this (eta 1-3 days).
ZenAcademy & 333 Club Noticeboard
ZenAcademy Community News
We have some fantastic news for ZenAcademy Genesis and ZenChest holders.
As part of our partnership with CoinStats, we've secured you a 30% discount on their yearly premium subscription.. For details on how to take advantage of this offer, please see the full announcement here.Excited to announce that the first round of the newest Poker Tournament of Champions will be taking place Sunday, 11 December 2022 06:00 (SGT). This first round will be open to ALL ZenAcademy Community Members and will have some great prizes up for grabs! More details here.
In December we have another round of Zenmas, and we’ll be making some improvements to our Alpha Hub.
The Summoning is upon us. Thank you all for the tremendous support. It's been so much fun seeing everyone get their new shiny Chests & 333 Club Passes. If you’ve yet to convert, this is the link: https://zenacademy.com/summon
ZenAcademy - Latest Content Releases
YouTube Video: ZenAcademy Town Hall (PFP, our future, and much more!)
YouTube Video: Episode #62 of Two Bored Apes is now available - Artificial Intelligence, SBF, ZenChests and Concrete
YouTube Video: Onboarding Millions Into NFTs And Web3
YouTube Shorts: Why You Should Go To Web3 Live Events
ZenAcademy Regular Events
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.
Wellness Wednesdays - Every two weeks (keep across Minor Announcements Discord channel for specifics) @Kit777🔮 will chat with one of our highly esteemed members. This is a time to pause, take a break and discuss all things related to mental health / wellness and our shared human journey in life.
Join Poker Nights via our Discord. Events held weekly, with prizes to be won.
There’s a new ‘global-events’ forum in the ZA Discord to help facilitate IRL meet-ups amongst the community. Find more details here.
Look out for our weekly community events in the Discord Announcements channel. Each and every one of us has something to offer and through interaction, learning and networking as a group, we undoubtedly level up both on an individual level, but on a community level too. Come get involved.
Follow RogueRaven on Twitter here: @RogueRavenNFT
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: Edition #41
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