Welcome to the 34th issue of the DeFi Arts Intelligencer, your weekly source for key happenings around Ethereum art, collectibles, games, finance, and more. Subscribe here.
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For this dispatch:
🎨 Digital Art & Collectibles
ERC-2309 became an Ethereum token standard this week. The standard lets creators use a single transaction to mint as many NFTs as they want.
The price floor for CryptoPunks have been drifting upward across NFT marketplaces this week on the heels of collector, creator, and prolific NFT trader Pranksy listing wrapped CryptoPunks on Rarible …
The artist Pak almost immediately sold out all 7 of their Nifty Gateway drops this week, and artist Twisted Vacancy had a great week on the NG marketplace too.
Programmable art platform Async Art unveiled its V2 system, which is jam-packed with new features and optimizations.
Art marketplace SuperRare hosted its first Generative & AI Art Week, and with it a series of panels and talks featuring noted folks like Artnome, Helena Sarin, and more.
Artist Coldie sold “GANdinsky - Obscured by Clouds” on SuperRare for 9 ETH.
Artist Javier Arres sold “The Fantastic Coffee” machine to collector WhaleShark for 13 ETH on art platform MakersPlace.
Missed The WIP Meetup in Cryptovoxels on Thursday? No worries, I published a WIP intro and recap piece in ETHwriter this week.
Blockchain investment firm CoinFund invested into Rarible.
Avastars mintings have taken on new importance, as collectors are going to be airdropped Replicant Tokens on a 1:1 basis with the Avastars they hold. These tokens will be the only way to mint synthetic Avastars in the future.
Virtual world Decentraland unveiled Smart Items in the Decentraland Builder. These items can be video streams, teleporters, and more.
New art marketplace Cargo has introduced Magic Minting, a gas-free NFT creation system.
Developer Andre Cronje has taken DeFi by storm this year with yEarn, a “DeFi made simple” yield aggregator protocol and beyond. As the DeFi and NFT sectors continue to intermingle, Cronje’s popularity is bleeding over into NFT collectibles, too …
🕹️ Blockchain Games
Crypto exchange Binance purchased +4,000 LAND parcels from The Sandbox, a gaming world built on Ethereum.
Ethereum trading card game Gods Unchained launched its new Trial of the Gods expansion set.
The Whaxie Smackathon kicked off, a tournament for Axie Infinity players to compete for $WHALE prizes and more.
Cargo has added support for Axie Infinity assets.
No-loss Ethereum savings game PoolTogether has distributed over $30,000 in prizes to date 🎉
♦️♦️ DeFi News
- In the first week of September, trading protocol Uniswap generated more revenue than it did in the entirety of August 2020, which was already a record revenue month for the exchange.
- Rarible rolled out native support for yEarn’s yInsurance products, which are DeFi insurance policies tokenized as NFTs.
- Venture DAO group The LAO invested in Aavegotchi, Aave’s DeFi-powered NFTs project.
- NFT lending project Rocket completed its Loan Wave 1, and in the process returned 6% on ETH to members within 7 months.
- Grammy award-winning recording artist RAC has discovered Audius, a decentralized music streaming app financially empowering artists on Ethereum.
📰Fresh Content
- “A ROI Guide to Cryptoart” - matthew.cent.eth
- “Matty DCL Blogger - The OG NFT Trader - Zima Red Ep. 33” - Andrew Steinwold
- “How Africa's Foremost Crypto Artist Is Changing The Way We Perceive Masculinity” - Lydia Ume
- “MetaCartel: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff” - Peter Pan
- “Blockchain, Creativity, and Arts Intertwine” - Sasha Shilina
Thanks for reading, and stay creative on- and off-chain!
Keep an 👁️ out for the 35th issue of the DeFi Arts Intelligencer this time next week, too. Cheers ✌️
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About DeFi Arts Intelligencer
The DeFi Arts Intelligencer is curated by me, William M. Peaster, a professional writer and editor who’s been tracking the Ethereum and DeFi beats in recent years.
I’m passionate about art and a DeFi/NFT optimist, so putting together this newsletter is both fun and informative for me. I hope others may find the content helpful, too. But be mindful, the information herein should not be construed as investment advice. I’m not a financial adviser, and these are my opinions. Always take care to seriously consider the various layers of risk you face in participating in the still-maturing cryptoeconomy.
If you have a DeFi tip or lead, questions or comments, or would be interested in commissioning me for a writing gig, you can ping me at wmpeaster@gmail.com or on Telegram at @wmpeaster.
If you enjoy this newsletter and want to support it, feel free to subscribe or have a like-minded friend subscribe as well. I have collected NFTs open for offers, too, as well as my own art NFTs available on OpenSea. Tips also accepted at wmpeaster.eth. Thanks kindly!