NFT Innovation Digest #7

Most innovative (author's pick)

The developer Kevin Z announced a GitHub repository with a concept of a Zero-knowledge NFT powered by zkSNARKs. The concept zk-NFT allows users to create and prove ownership of NFTs as well as their characteristics without revealing the full metadata.

Most discussed

CryptoPunk #9998 sold for a record 124,457 ETH ($532M) by an NFT collector to himself. After the sale, 124,456 ETH was returned to the buyer's wallet.

More:

• The collector used flash loans from different sources to purchase the punk, then used the funds to repay the loans;
• The value would have made it the biggest sale not just for NFTs but in art history, surpassing da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, sold for $486.6M at an adjusted price.

Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta, the new parent name company for Facebook. Zuckerberg stated that Meta was Greek for "beyond" and embodies the company vision to develop the metaverse.

More:

• This year alone Facebook spent at least $10 billion on its metaverse division focused on creating AR and VR hardware, software, and content;
• In a Founder's Letter, Zuckerberg stated that the Metaverse will not be created by a single company, but instead by creators and developers and will not be constrained by one platform;
• "I think we're basically moving from being Facebook first as a company to being Metaverse first" said Zuckerberg.

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, McDonald's is reintroducing its famous hamburger McRib alongside the company's first NFT. The NFT will be a small set of McRib digital collectibles.

More:

• To have a chance of obtaining the NFT, the users must follow McDonald's Twitter account and retweet the promotion tweet between 1st-7th November.

Mainstream Adoption

NFT platform OneOf signed a 3-year partnership with Grammys. The platform will launch NFTs on the Tezos blockchain for the 64th, 65th and 66th Grammy Awards.

More:

• The NFTs will include digital collectibles celebrating the Grammy Award winners and nominees. More details will be revealed in January 2022;
• A part of the proceeds of the sales will go to the Recording Academy's scholarship fund;
• "As an Academy, we are always looking for ways to help artists discover new forms of creative expression, while also creating new ways of income generation and ways for fans to interact with the artists that they love." said Panos Panay, Co-President of the Recording Academy.

Warner Bros partnered with Nifty's to launch ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ NFT Project. The project consists of a set of 100,000 unique Matrix-inspired avatars selling for $50 each starting 30th November.

More:

• The buyers will be given the option of their avatar taking a "Red Pill", transforming them into a resistance fighter;
• Warner has been experimenting with NFTs since early this year, with the previous partnership with Nifty's to launch a set of Space Jam collectibles;
• “Given that enthusiasm [for the franchise], and the very nature of what the Matrix story and settings are about, an NFT program seemed perfect" said Pam Lifford, president of WarnerMedia Global Brands and Experiences.

Film Director Quentin Tarantino announced his plan to auction seven never-seen-before scripts from Pulp Fiction as NFTs. The collectibles will be auctioned on OpenSea.

More:

• The NFTs will be built on the Secret Network, a blockchain that focuses on privacy. For the unique Pulp Fiction collectibles and any other asset on the platform, the NFT content is only viewable to its owner.

New products and ideas

Blockchain firm and crypto exchange Huobi launched its NFT marketplace trial. The company said the launch of the marketplace is a key milestone of its metaverse expansion strategy.

More:

• The company is also working on gaming and DeFi, or GameFi projects. In September, the company's investment arm announced a $10M fund for GameFi.

DeFi Lending Hub Goldfinch announced Unique Identity (UID), the First NFT for Identity. The UID will follow the ERC-1155 standard and will be interoperable with the rest of DeFi, keeping the KYC verification on-chain.

More:

• Goldfinch ensures that no personally identifiable data is stored on-chain, by partnering with Persona offering industry-leading privacy and security practices;
• When the user completes the KYC process, Persona checks if the identity is valid. Once verified, the user can get its UID by submitting an Ethereum transaction that mints the UID that is sent to its address;
• You can get one UID at the Goldfinch verification app.

Former Activision, Disney and Lucas Films developers reveal MetalCore an NFT-powered video game. The massive multiplayer combat game mixes traditional gaming with GameFi features.

More:

• The game will enable players to collect rare weapons, cosmetics and skins that can be used in-game or traded as NFTs in an open marketplace;
• MetalCore players will earn in-game rewards and become virtual landowners which can be used to mine game resources and generate tax revenue.

Recommended Readings

• The History And Future Of NFTs: This Forbes article shortly tell the history of NFTs and explores its current and future use cases such as in gaming, real estate and in the Metaverse;
• Ethereum is metaverse infrastructure: This Metaversal article explores the thesis of Ethereum being the best infrastructure to build an open Metaverse;
• Celebrities are embracing NFTs in a big way: This CoinTelegraph article tries to explain the trend of celebrities embracing NFTs.

New podcasts and shows

• The Scoop Podcast: In this episode, Grammy-nominated DJ Alesso and Lin Dai, CEO of OneOf, explain why artists are getting into NFTs;
• Crypto Conversation Podcast: In this episode, Andy interviews the team of Battle Drones, the NFT project taking crypto games to console;
• Unchained Podcast: In this episode, Tom Bair, the founder of Secret Foundation, explores the Secret Network, including smart contract privacy and private metadata for NFTs.

Save the date

• 30th November - 1st December: DCENTRAL Miami is the largest NFT & DeFi conference in Miami, don't miss it!

NFT space in numbers

The values below are from 29 October - 4th November 2021. Source: DappRadar.

Top Marketplaces

Top Sales

Top Collections

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