Headline News - NFT Sales Hit $2 Billion In Feb, Sewer Pass Golden Key Sells for $1.6M, Yuga Announce Bitcoin NFT Collection & ZenAcademy Announce PFP Artist
February’s NFT sales hit $2 billion. This is the highest monthly volume since the Terra crash, with Mutant Ape Yacht Club topping the 7-day volume charts. Bored Ape Yacht Club sits in second, Akuzi is in third, Bored Ape Kennel Club is in fourth and Moonbirds is in fifth.
Momoguru was the most successful new mint of the week, minting out at 0.22ETH, and seeing highs of just over 0.9ETH, before retracing to a respectable 0.6ETH at the time of writing. The collection comes from 9x Emmy-winning animation & storytelling studio, Baobab Studios. They describe the project as "a new multimedia franchise and narrative RPG where you collect and fuse with creatures to unravel the secrets of Momoguro”.
Top Dookey Dasher, Mongraal, sold his Golden Key for 1000 wETH, which translated to over $1.6 million at the time of the sale. The buyer was Adam Weitsman, a recycling entrepreneur.
Bitcoin Punks had another strong week, with the collection being responsible for the vast majority of the 1,600ETH volume seen on Emblem Vault. The floor is currently 1.43ETH. It was also another big week for Parallel, as they launched wave 1 of their early access program, as well as their $PRIME token, which went live on 1st March.
There was no Jack Butcher collection in the Top 10 this week, although his Opepen Edition crept in at number 11. MGLand saw large volume, with the floor price moving from 0.044 ETH to 0.124ETH over the past 7 days. They describe themselves as “the largest NFT Space on blockchain, everyone can bring their NFT into space to socialize, to play games, to hold NFT exhibitions and to trade freely”.
Elsewhere, Yuga Labs announced a new Bitcoin NFT collection called TwelveFold, the Blur founder revealed what’s coming next, Australia announced a CBDC pilot, the crypto market dumped over Silvergate fears, and top companies agreed to create a Japan Metaverse Economic Zone.
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: Sewer Pass #21915 - 1,000WETH
NFT Sales Surge to $2 Billion in February - Highest Since Terra Crash
EU Commissioner Says It’s Time to Define ‘Healthy Competition’ in the Metaverse
Maximizing Profits Will ‘Kill’ Web3: Animoca Brands Chairman
OpenAI Exec Compares ChatGPT API’s Fee With CryptoPunk Alien NFT
Tech Startup MultiversX Starts Web3 'Super App' With Finance, Social Features
Educational: A Guide to Photography NFTs and the Future of Imagery
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
Parallel’s PRIME Token Went Live, And Is Tradeable On Both CEX’s & DEX’s
Nouns 3D-Printed Fashion Collection Turns Heads at NFT Paris
Magic Eden Announce MINT MADNESS: 12+ FREE Gaming Mints Across Polygon, ETH & SOL in March
BAYC Announced The Sewers Have Closed. Scores To Be Shared On March 7th
Magic Eden Announce They Are Pausing Development On iOS & Android Apps
Moonbirds Q1 Update Reveals The Future Of The PROOF Ecosystem
Dan Harmon's Still-Unreleased NFT TV Show 'Krapopolis' Gets Third Season
Sorare NFTs Should Be Regulated Under 'New Category', CEO Says
Illuvium Announce Customisable Collectible Card Game Launches On March 7th
NFT Games 'Aren't Just About Minting': WorldWide Webb Founder
CoinDesk and Art Blocks Release Microcosms To Supercharge IRL Events With NFTs
Talking Point - ZenAcademy PFP Artist Revealed
Yesterday, Zeneca revealed the artist behind the upcoming ZenAcademy PFP project. And that artist is…….drum roll…..Pondering!
For those of you who’ve been with us for a while, this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but we hope everyone shares the insane excitement that Zeneca and the rest of the team do. But who is Pondering? Let us explain.
Pondering is a SuperRare artist & animator from Thailand. He usually creates art from stories and legends, represented by large-scale images of kingdoms. This is the first PFP collection he will be creating.
Pondering has been with ZenAcademy from the beginning. He created our incredible banner as part of the first Zenmas we ran, and his illustrations have set the magical tone and style of our entire world.
He created the assets on our website, he created the ZenChests and he created The 333 Club Membership Card. As we continue to build out the zen universe, packing it with lore, and filling it with characters, we felt there’s no-one better than Pondering to bring these PFPs to life.
His artistic style is the perfect blend of magic and technology - the exact tone we’re after for ZenAcademy. Pondering has been Zeneca’s dream PFP artist since day 1. Initially, we didn't think it would be possible to get him for the project, but that changed towards the end of last year, and is a big reason why we made the pivot in art direction which ended up delaying things. But, we’re absolutely certain it's going to be worth it.
Fun fact: Pondering doesn't speak English, and nobody on the ZA team speaks Thai. He spent the first several months of our communication using Google translate, and then brought his brother on board who acts as a translator. To us, this is a beautiful example of how incredible web3 is - connecting artists with collectors worldwide, breaking down geographical and language barriers. Below you can find links to everything Pondering.
Tip Of The Week - Staying Safe With NordPass
In a digital world, with ever-increasing needs for password security, we’ve decided to partner with a leading expert in the space, NordPass.
Designed for ease of use and equipped with advanced encryption, the NordPass password manager is the most convenient and secure way to store and access your passwords, credit cards, and personal information.
You only need one Master password to access all of the passwords you've saved there. Members of the ZenAcademy team are using the product and we can highly recommend it to our community.
As always, in full transparency, this is an affiliate link that will generate a commission for ZenAcademy. We will reinvest that commission back into the community. Check Out NordPass Here
ZenAcademy & 333 Club Noticeboard
ZenAcademy Community News
The ZenAcademy PFP Artist has been revealed!!! It’s Pondering! We are SO excited to have the privilege of working with him, and love everything he does. For a full rundown of this news, please see the Talking Point section above.
We’ve launched monthly community-centric Newsletter. It's designed to be a quick read to give you a high level overview of what's been going on, including details of any exciting developments. Moving forward we hope to start highlighting and showcasing more community initiatives and spotlighting members for some of the awesome things they're doing. ZA members can click here to read in full.
Introducing ‘333 Fireside Chats’. The premise is that prominent people in the space/world will be invited to have a conversation with the 333 Club members. Any 333 Club member will be able to come on stage and ask questions, and the recording will be kept forever. Potentially, we'll open it up to allow the rest of the community to watch/listen to the conversation, but the ability to ask questions and be there live, will be exclusive to 333ers. You can find more details here.
ZenCaps turns ONE! ZenCaps was born a year ago today. We’d like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who’s supported us. It’s really appreciated, and we hope you continue to enjoy these weekly roundups. Watch out for next weeks edition, where we’ll be running a little Giveaway.
Ryan Carson has recommended ZenAcademy and ZenDaily as a new home to his Daily Dose community as he opts to discontinue the show. We believe the values and mission of both spaces align well: to educate, inform, entertain and cultivate community. For a more detailed rundown, ZA members can check out the full announcement here, in our Discord.
ZenAcademy’s Student IDs are here and available for everyone! We’re so excited to have rolled this out, with almost 11,000 Student IDs already claimed. This is a FREE access point into our community for anyone wants to join. If you’ve not done so yet, Claim your token here: https://zenacademy.com/enroll. Remember, these are Soulbound NFTs which means that they cannot be sold or transferred out of the wallet that mints them. Also, the supply is unlimited which means that you do not need to rush.
Zeneca’s Office Hours are still open and available throughout March to 333 Club Members. Check this 333 Club announcement for more details.
ZenAcademy - Latest Content Releases
YouTube Video: Episode #71 of Two Bored Apes is now available - BLUR Airdrop, Centre Pompidou and LACMA acquiring NFTs
YouTube Video: Episode #70 of Two Bored Apes is now available - ZenAcademy Student IDs (FREE NFT), Bitcoin NFTs, Dookey Dash Bots
Zeneca Newsletter: Letter 35: Lessons From Poker to Crypto
YouTube Shorts: What NFT Marketplace is Better?
YouTube Shorts: How To Stay On Top Of All The NFT News
ZenAcademy Regular Events
The ZenDaily Show hosted by Zeneca and Emileevee, every Mon-Fri (at 10:30am EST). This space is all about education, information and entertainment. It has a focus on Web3 education, topical perspectives, and being a forum for the ZA community and beyond to join in and discuss what’s going on in the web3 world. Additionally, Zeneca will be doing what he does best: distilling complicated information into easily digestible bites.
Wellness Wednesdays - Hosted by @Kit777 every other Wednesday. Kit talks with one of our highly esteemed members in a Twitter spaces where we pause, take a break and discuss all things related to mental health/wellness and our shared human journey in life.
Artists Corner - Every other Wednesday, hosted by KingInTheCastle, this event takes place in our Discord for our members. Artists take to the mic and share their journey, experiences and knowledge with our community. Hop in the call to learn and have fun.
333 Club’s weekly ‘This Week in NFTs’ Twitter Spaces, each and every Sunday. Follow the 333 Club Twitter page here for more info.
Join Poker Nights via our Discord. Events held weekly, with prizes to be won.
There’s a ‘global-events’ forum in the ZA Discord to help facilitate IRL meet-ups amongst the community. Find more details here.
Don’t forget to keep across the Giveaways Discord channel, with plenty of allowlist spots up for grabs on a regular basis.
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 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.