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 - Hacks, Double Downs and Folds
CryptoPunks again tops the 7-day volume charts. Bored Ape Yacht Club is in second, Mutant Ape Yacht Club is third, Bored Ape Kennel Club is fourth and The Potatoz is in fifth. New collection Kubz has seen good volume over the past week, racking up over 1,750ETH in sales. It acts as a pass to the second tier level of the Keungz ecosystem, providing access to all Keungz-related projects, such as YogaPetz.
Savage nation, who sit in 8th spot by weekly volume, had their reveal several days ago. The floor moved from around 0.3ETH to currently 0.15ETH. Mutant Hound announced the Collar burn date will be 11th January and the collection has seen some big sales, with one buyer paying just over 54ETH for one of the Mega Collars.
Based Heads only launched yesterday and has already seen over 1,000ETH in sales, sitting in 13th for weekly volume. Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys cooled off a bit, but still claimed 18th and 19th spot respectively.
Outside of the charts, there was plenty of news across the NFT space. Unfortunately, a large proportion was regarding hacks. Two notable figures in the NFT environment had assets stolen from their wallets, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Across the same period, Magic Eden’s third-party image hosting provider was “compromised.” This was not a hack as such, and no assets were lost, but still represents the malicious intent that’s ever-present in this nascent industry.
There was also news of companies, such as Animoca Brands, cutting back on web3 expenditure, and others announcing they are shutting down for good. At the same time, we’ve seen details that Square Enix is set to double down on blockchain game development in 2023, according to a Jan. 1 letter from the Japanese company's president, Yosuke Matsuda.
Global brands continue piling into the space, with Shopify, Mastercard, LG, BMW and Rolling Stone all in the headlines this week for their endeavours into the web3 environment. And there’s an air of positivity in the markets as lots of the collections are pumping in the first week of 2023. Things are looking good so far. Let’s hope it continues.
For full articles on all the above and much, 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: CryptoPunk #2066 - 1,155ETH
Polygon Paid y00ts NFT Collection $3 Million to Leave Solana
Fanatic Sells 60% Stake In Candy Digital Amid ‘imploding NFT market’
Final Fantasy Creator Reveals ‘aggressive investment’ In Blockchain Games
Logan Paul Threatens To Sue Coffeezilla Over CryptoZoo ‘scam’ Allegations
LG Electronics Partners With PIXELYNX To Enter The Metaverse
Mutant Ape Planet Creator Arrested In NY For Alleged $2.9M NFT ‘fraud’
Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Buys Stake In Nft Platform Candy Digital
Shopify Merchants Can Now Design, Mint and Sell Avalanche NFTs
NFT Influencer Falls Victim To Cyberattack, Loses $300K+ CryptoPunks
Mintable and Moonpay Partner To Accelerate NFTs on Immutable X
‘WTH did I just witness?' Magic Eden Turns Porno After Hosting Service Hacked
Ethereum's Impending Shanghai Upgrade Powers Lido DAO, SWISE, RPL Tokens Higher
Celebs Who Got Burned Endorsing Crypto And Those That Got Away With It
NFT Sales in 2022 Nearly Matched the 2021 Boom, Despite Market Crash
Here’s the Latest in the SBF FTX Fraud Case—And How We Got Here
Were You Rekt by FTX? This Website Connects You to Law Enforcement
Educational: How Smart TVs Could Help the Metaverse Crack the Mass Market
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
Crypto exchange adoption boosts ENS registrations to over 2.2M
ApeFest 2023 Detaches Itself From NFT.NYC To Explore New Locations
Animoca Slashes Target For Metaverse Fund to $1 Billion: ‘It Could Be Less’
Deepak Thapliyal says Tiffany's 'NFTiffs' show promise of luxury web3 products
Metaverse Tokens ApeCoin, Axie Infinity Ring in New Year With 6% Surge
Rolling Stone Unveils ‘Matriarchy Now’ With Pussy Riot Superstar
Sappy Seals Made a Splash As Smaller NFT Collections Find Traction
Magic Eden to refund users after fake NFTs sold due to exploit
Talking Point - Don’t Ignore AI, Embrace It
If you’ve not already noticed, we’re pretty into AI technology here at ZenAcademy. Zeneca’s infectious passion for the tech is rubbing off onto the Z-team, and we’re all diving deeper into how we can utilize this emerging tech to our advantage.
The AI space can seem daunting and/or overwhelming at times, so Zeneca has been delivering short, bite-sized threads on the topic, which are easily digestible for everyone. Just yesterday, he shared one such tweet, which outlines some simple tools he’s using to make his days more efficient and productive. You can find the thread below.
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT (a very impressive chat bot) and Midjourney (a text-to-image generator) for some time now, and they are just fantastic, if not a little distracting (initially) from getting on with actual work. One of the key factors in being able to get the most out of these applications is knowing how best to communicate with them. By this I mean the better your inputs/commands are, the better results they yield. But thankfully it doesn’t take too long to get to grips with, and you can have a lot of fun from the get go.
I’m currently exploring HypeFury and mem.ai (which you can find links for in the thread below). I looked at hemingway app some time ago, although it’s not for me (sorry Zeneca) as I feel it detracts too much from a writers own style. Just personal opinion. That said, it’s a great tool for those looking for both content correction and reduction (making the text more concise).
AI tech can benefit everyone. It’s already here and it’s only going to become more prevalent. Embrace it fearlessly and utilize it to your advantage. That’s what i’d recommend. Don’t shy away from it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t presume it’s irrelevent to your field of work. Those who master it, will surely prosper. Below is the thread by Zeneca featuring all five AI tools he’s currently working with. Enjoy.
Tip Of The Week - DO NOT MISS ZenDaily Twitter Spaces
Starting Monday 9th January, Zeneca and emileevee will be hosting a daily (Mon-Fri) 1hr Twitter spaces. I’ve been privy to some test runs, and it’s amazing! It’s going to be informative, educational and entertaining, with a web3/NFT focus, but also a sprinkle of other fascinating topics in the world of emerging tech and beyond.
Each show has a segment for listener participation, with the premise of the spaces being to bring the community together through our shared passions.
Of course everyone is welcome, so it’s also an excellent opportunity to get to know more about the community if you’re not yet part of it.
Set your reminders for the 1st episode by clicking the link in the tweet below. You don’t want to miss this. Trust me.
ZenAcademy & 333 Club Noticeboard
ZenAcademy Community News
Happy New Year everyone! And a big ‘welcome’ to all of our new members. We’re so excited to have you on board and we have so much in the works to ensure 2023 is an EPIC year for the entire ZenAcademy community. If you’ve recently purchased a ZenChest, check out this amazing thread by emileevee, which explains our ecosystem, and how best to integrate into it from the get go.
Very, VERY EXCITED!! The Z-Team have been working behind the scenes on a new, regular feature for our ecosystem, and it’s amazing! It’s called the ZenDaily Twitter Spaces, and will be going live from Monday 9th January. It will be broadcast daily, Mon-Fri every week, and is co-hosted by Zeneca and emileevee. The trial runs have been awesome. It’s fresh, it’s fun, it’s informative, it’s engaging and you won’t want to miss it.
Zenmas, an initiative to support emerging artists, has recently come to its conclusion. ZenAcademy members were airdropped 12 fantastic artworks over 12 days, created by our talented contributors. We’d like to thank all the artists for participating in this round of Zenmas, and congratulations to the two community members who were lucky enough to win the physical pieces. They’ll be another Zenmas in the not-too-distant future, so keep across our socials to stay updated.
In just under two weeks time, our community members have the opportunity to attend a ZenAcademy exclusive gratitude event/experience, hosted by one of the best in the world: Chris Schembra. Chris is the bestselling author of "Gratitude and Pasta: The Secret Sauce for Human Connection", chronicling his adventures as one of the most sought-after dinner hosts in the World. Forbes ranks his book as the #2 book of 2020 to create Human Connection, USA Today calls him the "Gratitude Guru", and Inc. Magazine has named him one of their "Icons and Innovators". This will be 90 min of connection, stories, and gratitude. The goal of this experience is to help connect you to each other as members of ZenAcademy. Click here to learn more.
Gabe Weis and The Stoics x ZenAcademy Collab - We are pleased to announce we have partnered with Gabe Weis and The Stoics to give away a special Zenmas inspired piece! There are 100 editions of this piece. If you are 1 of the 40 ZenAcademy + Stoic holders you will be airdropped your piece shortly (check your hidden folder). 10 will be given away to the Stoic community and 50 will be given away to YOU! See full details here to get involved.
ZenAcademy - Latest Content Releases
YouTube Video: ZenAcademy Town Hall (PFP, our future, and much more!)
YouTube Video: Episode #66 of Two Bored Apes is now available - 2023 NFTs Prediction & 2022 Recap
Zeneca Newsletter: Letter 32: Artificial Intelligence
YouTube Video: Onboarding Millions Into NFTs And Web3
YouTube Shorts: How To Make Money With NFTs in 2023
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.
Please record the twitter spaces, I have yo work during the live space, i can listen in after work. Thank you