NFT Innovation Digest #40

Cover: entretiempos by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

Most innovative (author's pick)

DeviantArt, a prominent user-generated online art gallery, is expanding their web-wide protocol to counter NFT copyright theft. The initiative has been coined ‘A neighborhood watch for NFTs’ and it aims to find and flag cases of artwork theft before the infringer can make illegal profits.

More:

• The DeviantArt Protect Protocol allows anyone to submit their work to be tracked around the internet. To date, it has indexed more than 400 million NFTs—and found nearly 330,000 NFT copyright infringements;
• “If we want to create this layer of trust and safety in Web3 to see adoption by creators, we really need to put in the checks and balances,” says CEO Moti Levy.

Most discussed

Ukraine announced the sale of CryptoPunk #5364, which it received as a donation in March 2022 as part of a fundraising campaign in its war against Russia.

More:

• The anonymous buyer paid 90 ETH, worth roughly $100,000 at the time of sale. The Punk's value was estimated at around $260,000 when it was first donated;
• In total, Ukraine has raised more than $135M in crypto donations since making its wallet public in February, including $6.75M from the sale of a Ukrainian flag NFT.

An anti-NFT protest in New York has been revealed as a marketing stunt by streetwear brand The Hundreds. The stunt, which quickly went viral, featured slogans such as God Hates NFTs and Crypto is a Sin. The Hundreds has its own NFT collection, "Adam Bomb Squad", and is hosting events to coincide with NFT.NYC throughout the week.

More:

• The gathering took place in a busy SoHo street in Manhattan on Monday 20th June, with protesters carrying signs and chanting “N-F-T! Not for me!”;
• It was organised by The Hundreds' co-founder Bobby Kim, who commented “I find the line between the skeptics and the devotees to be really interesting within crypto. Nobody wants to go near this debate.”

Uniswap Labs is acquiring the NFT aggregation platform Genie. Genie enables users to purchase multiple items in one transaction and offers aggregation tools to compare listings across rival marketplaces.

More:

• Uniswap Labs is the company behind the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Uniswap, and first entered the NFT space in 2019 with the Unisocks project;
• In celebration of this acquisition, they will be airdropping USDC to anyone who used Genie more than once before April 15 or holds a Genie Genesis NFT;
• According to Uniswap founder and CEO Hayden Adams, “We’re trying to bring everything we brought to the ERC-20 space to the NFT space."

Mainstream adoption

eBay continues its push into Web3 and digital collectibles with the acquisition of NFT marketplace Known Origin. According to Known Origin: "There will be no immediate changes, overtime we will integrate KO assets into eBay and add further NFT capabilities to both KO and eBay."

More:

• eBay launched its first NFT collection in May 2022 in partnership with Web3 platform OneOf;
• eBay CEO Jamie Iannone stated that “KnownOrigin has built up an impressive, passionate and loyal group of artists and collectors making them a perfect addition to our community of sellers and buyers. We look forward to welcoming these innovators as they join the eBay community.”

Elton John announced a collaboration with Web3 augmented reality gaming platform Jadu to auction a one-of-a-kind Rocket Man hoverboard. All proceeds will go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

More:

• The hoverboard will grant its holder access to future fan events through the Rocket NFT Club;
• Elton John commented that “Whilst I’m no metaverse expert (!) I wanted to make sure that my first NFT was something true to me, and collaborating with LGBTQ+ artist Voxel Bunny and Jadu on something so unique which benefits the Elton John AIDS Foundation for Pride month, was the perfect opportunity. Web3 has the potential to bring people from across the world together like never before and I’m excited for the opportunities to connect with my fans in a vibrant and growing community.”

Pharrell Williams was announced as Chief Brand Officer of Doodles NFT at an NFT NYC event, alongside news that the project has raised its first round of funding led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s VC firm.

More:

• Demonstrating the depth of this partnership, Williams will produce an NFT-inspired album titled Doodles Records: Volume 1, which will be launched with Columbia Records;
• Doodles' CEO Julian Holguin also announced the forthcoming Doodles 2, a more accessible version of the collection that will be built on a non-Ethereum chain.

New products and ideas

The creators of HBO’s hit series Silicon Valley have unveiled a new Web3 project: Terrible Pets. Participants will use NFTs based around 8 characters and described as "one-liner blocks of performance" that can be assembled in various ways to create comedic content.

More:

• There will be eight anthropomorphic creatures that make up the Terrible Pets’ cast, described as “human-like animals with relatable traumas, wrapped in absurdism" such as the "WAGMI Meerkat";
• The creatures will meet at Animals Anonymous, a wilderness camp that serves as an emotional support group.

Arbitrum, a layer two scaling solution designed to make Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper, launched an 8 week program called The Arbitrum Odyssey.

More:

• Throughout the 8 weeks, people will be encouraged to perform on-chain requests and engage with dApps available on Arbitrum;
• NFTs will be offered as rewards for those who take part in the testing, with more information to be released as the Odyssey unfolds.

Ledger, best known for its hardware crypto wallets, is launching an NFT marketplace and services platform for enterprises.

More:

• The first confirmed Ledger Market collaborators are RTFKT, TAG Heuer, Deadfellaz, BRICK, and Jen Stark. A growing team of celebrity ambassadors will include Mike Shinoda, Dan Held and Bobby Hundreds;
• In an interview with CoinDesk, Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier emphasized the current security issues in the industry and stated that “Everyone's building NFTs like they were building websites in the 2000s."

Recommended reading

• 10 Tips for Avoiding Scams and Staying Safe on the Decentralized Web: This guide from NFT Plazas offers practical advice on how to spot scams and key steps you can take to protect yourself;
• A Practical Guide to NFT Memberships for Creators: This article by Peter Yang breaks down the benefits and challenges of NFT memberships, including guidance on creating and managing membership schemes.

New podcasts and shows

• Inside: In this YouTube interview, Inside.com's Stephanie Zielinkski talks to Noah Davis, the head of digital sales at Christie’s who recently announced a move to CryptoPunks, about the future of the art market;
• Overpriced JPEGs: In this podcast episode, Carly Reilly interviews Michael Le, aka Just Maiko, a 22 year old Web2 mega-influencer about his entry to the Web3 gaming space as co-founder of Joystick.

Save the date

• 29 - 31 July 2022: NFT Expoverse takes place in Los Angeles
• 17 - 18 September 2022: NFT Show Europe takes place in Valencia, Spain

NFT space in numbers

The values below are from 25th June - 1st July. Source: DappRadar.

Top Marketplaces

Top Sales

Top Collections

*Most of the sales in the collection occurred on the LooksRare marketplace and may be the subject of wash trading.