Return of the NFT Bulls

Dear Bankless Nation,

As recently as last month, some of us joked NFTs were in a bear market. Survey the buy pressure across the ecosystem this week, though, and it’s clear that joke’s decisively dead for now!

Buy pressure and euphoria may come and go, but it does seem clear to me we’ve never been more surrounded by possibilities and opportunities than we are now in the NFT ecosystem.

To that I say make sure you’re having fun. Make sure you’re being safe and shrewd. Back and create stuff you believe in. Don’t let all the noise get to you, or stresss over every missed chance. Show others the way where you can, share your experiences where you can, your story is compelling.

Indeed, I think there’s a decent chance we’ll all look back one day and see that our actions in these times were more important than we could’ve realized. Let’s keep making the most of it then! Have a great weekend everyone, thanks for reading as always,

-WMP

🏆 Digital Collectibles

• Meebit #17522, a rare double-faced pig, sold for a whopping 1,000 ETH last weekend! 🐽🐽

• Spunks, 0xb1’s “vampire attack” project against Binance Smart Chain’s CryptoPunks ripoff series Bunks, sold out this week.
• The Cool Cats team is looking for a “cityscape / environmental illustrator.”

🎨 Cryptoart

• Artist untitled, xyz released FORM FARM, a programmable cryptoart piece and “game of architecture,” on Async Art this week. 

• Cryptoart platform SuperRare introduced Collector Royalties. 

• Generative art dapp Art Blocks is launching Series 4 of its Curated collection on July 23rd. 

• Tyler Hobbs’s Fidenza #77 sold for 50 ETH!

• takenstheorem released the_coin, an experimental art project tracking “on-chain data viz of Bitcoin’s history.”

🕹️ NFT Games

• This week’s Axie Infinity beat: 

  • Axie Infinity is launching an Esports grants program. 

  • People are now logging more web searches for Axie Infinity than popular mainstream battle arena title Dota 2.

  • Currently, players are collectively spending huge amounts of ETH to migrate assets to Axie Infinity’s Ronin sidechain. Once EIP1559 is activated later this summer, Ronin’s going to become an ETH furnace 🔥

  • Axie Infinity’s Twitch activity levels are going parabolic. 

• A new report suggests global fantasy ⚽ game Sorare is on the verge of raising +$530 million in new funding. 

• Digital trading card game Gods Unchained outlined more of its plans for the upcoming $GODS token.

🌐 Virtual Worlds

• The 2nd annual Decentraland Art Week kicked into gear this week!

• The Sandbox sold a large 12 x 12 estate for 530,000 $SAND, or ~$280,000.
• Check out the new Cryptovoxels chat window ...

🛒 NFT News & Platforms

• The zkSync scaling solution now supports minting and transacting with NFTs. 

• NFT layer-two Immutable X announced it’s on the verge of offering permissionless UX.

• Scalar Capital’s Linda Xie is helping to produce “Ethereum: The Infinite Garden,” a documentary now being crowdfunded on Mirror. Artist pplpleasr has created the movie’s poster art!

• NFT-centric social media platform Nifty’s launched, unveiled a partnership with Warner Bros., and raised $10 million in a new funding round. 

• The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) grew by over 10,700 addresses last month. 

💎 DeFi x NFTs

• Ethereum wallet Rainbow 🌈 is working on direct integrations with NFTX and NFT20.
• Over the last month, DeFi dashboard Zapper.fi has seen +100,000 NFTs minted via its new gamified interface.
• GenieSwap is working on an NFT limit order system.
• PleasrDAO is using some of its collected NFTs to underpin a $3.5 million loan from C.R.E.A.M. Finance’s Iron Bank.

Action steps

• 📺 Watch “The Rise of Axie Infinity | Jeff ‘Jiho’ Zirlin” by Bankless
• 📰 Read “How to Mint NFTs on Zora” by Metaversal
• 📰 Read “Let’s Talk NFT Trader” by Metaversal