NFT Innovation Digest #47

Featured Artwork: Diverse no.9 from the Refuge Collection by Blanco Art Space: a collective of artist-musicians that advocates for musical diversity.

Most innovative (author's pick)

Samsung and Theta Labs are continuing their push to onboard more people into NFTs with a major campaign, aiming for at least 100,000 users. NFT holders will receive online and offline perks, including in-store benefits such as gift vouchers and giveaways at retailers across South Korea. Samsung declared this was the first stage in building a Galaxy NFT Ecosystem.

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• To develop this ecosystem, Samsung signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Theta Labs, Samsung Electronics, Show Golf, Galaxy Store, Shilla Duty Free, E-cruise and NFC solution company Alllink.

Most discussed

Meta has enlisted stars from the popular TV competition RuPaul’s Drag Race for the first Metaverse drag show: Queens of the Metaverse. Blu Hydrangea, Tia Kofi and Adam All have used Meta's VR and AR technologies to create virtual outfits that will also be rendered physically and revealed at an IRL event in London.

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• The drag stars used Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s VR platform, to create their designs.
• According to Ineke Paulsen, Meta's director of EMEA Marketing: "Drag is art, culture, performance. It’s visual storytelling. The hope is that technologies like virtual reality will help the drag community and other creatives unleash their potential in new and exciting ways."
  

17 celebrities have been warned by a consumer watchdog about promoting NFTs without making clear their connection with the project. Those notified include Snoop Dogg, Eva Longoria, Floyd Mayweather, Tom Brady, DJ Khaled and Gwyneth Paltrow.

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• Justin Bieber was also reprimanded for how he promoted the InBetweeners NFT collection. His legal team replied that he would “update his post concerning InBetweeners in order to further underscore his widely publicized connection with the company.”

Mainstream adoption

Dabber Labs, a global blockchain gaming company, has partnered with American football team the L.A. Rams. This will be a season-long partnership, with plenty of limited edition NFT releases to come and unique perks related to Dapper Labs' popular NFL ALL DAY platform.

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• The first release will be Super Bowl LVI commemorative ring NFTs to celebrate the Rams' 2022 competition win. 6050 rings will be sold via the L.A. Rams' shop from the 11th of August, with three rarity tiers available.

Paris Hilton announced she is building Paris World in the Sandbox Metaverse, partly inspired by Snoop Dogg's Sandbox collaboration. A glamorous video trailer was released, indicating that Hilton plans to create a virtual Malibu mansion where she will throw social events, meet fans and sell NFTs.

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• Hilton already built Paris Hilton World in the Roblox metaverse last year, where she threw a New Year's Eve launch party and DJ'ed the event via a virtual avatar. According to Roblox, 544,000 fans have paid it a visit.

Netflix has launched a maze in the Decentraland Metaverse that recreates a scene from their latest film, The Gray Man, starring Ryan Gosling. Players must complete the maze as quickly as possible using their knowledge of the film and can win digital wearables.

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• In June of this year, Netflix also released an NFT-based game for the launch of Stranger Things season four.

New products and ideas

Nvidia, the technology company best known for its GPU manufacturing, unveiled a new set of developer tools that will be useful in Metaverse environments, such as new AI capabilities and support for creating digital avatars.

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• A key component is the Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), through which "developers can build, configure and deploy their avatar applications across nearly any engine, in any public or private cloud" according to the official statement. Improving avatars' display of digital emotions was also made a priority.

OpenSea has made changes to their stolen items policy in response to community feedback. The main update is that police theft reports will now be required within 7 days of reporting an NFT as stolen on the platform. Buying and selling will be re-enabled after 7 days if a report is not received.

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• OpenSea acknowledged that some users had been unfairly penalized in the past. They also claimed to be working on automating threat and theft detection.

Only a week since announcing it would support Ethereum NFTs, Magic Eden revealed a proposal for a bespoke Bored Ape Yacht Club marketplace. They shared mock-ups, offered to build it for free and said their fees would be reduced to 0.75%. If successful, this move would be a major blow to rivals OpenSea.

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• The full proposal can be read here on the ApeCoin forum.

Recommended reading

• Inside Axie Infinity: A Deep Dive Into the World’s Largest P2E Game: Get to know Axie Infinity in this guide by Jex Exmundo for NFT NOW;
• Buy a Bored Ape Now and Pay Later With New Service for Ethereum NFTs: In this article for Decrypt, Andrew Hayward breaks down the details of Teller's new BNPL feature and the ethical questions around it.

New podcasts and shows

• Podcast 1: In this episode of Overpriced JPEGs, Carly Reilly talks to Ashley Benson about her new film 18 and Over, that is being released to NFT holders. They are also joined by Director Jimmy Giannopoulos and entrepreneur Vincent Harrison;
• Podcast 2: In this episode of Web3 with a16z, the team break down key terms and concepts such as VDFs, zk-rollups and SNARKs.

Save the date

• 17 - 18 September 2022: NFT Show Europe takes place in Valencia, Spain
• 3-4 November 2022: NFT.LONDON (brought to you by NFT.NYC) takes place in London, UK

NFT space in numbers

The values below are from 6 - 12 August. Source: DappRadar.

Top Marketplaces

Top Sales

Top Collections

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