As we are nearing the end of the tumultuous 2021, we are seeing the beginning of new trends and the retracing of old ones. Metaverse coins have taken full steam to the point of even old games getting tokenized, such as MIR4 and Gensokishi Online. In the meantime, OpenSea remains the top NFT dog with a $2.38 billion trading volume during the last month, followed by Axie Infinity at $402 million, and CryptoPunks at $147 million.
However, undefeatable Axie Infinity got its competition. CloneX has made a big showing with nearly $30 million sales last week, while adidas Originals topped Axie by a slight margin during the same period at $50.5 million in sales.
On the big video gaming front, Ubisoft made a bad PR move by launching its new NFT marketplace Quartz and Digits NFTs on the back of a fully priced game. However, gaming tokenization is a benefit for gamers in the long run. After all, if NFTs replace microtransactions and loot boxes, they are tradeable outside the game. This effectively transforms any game into a Play-To-Earn (P2E) model, even if it is just constrained to optional cosmetics.
Another notable trend is that traditional auction houses have done exceedingly well by integrating NFTs into their offering. Christie’s, famous for selling Beeple’s “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” NFT for $69 million, made a complete pre-covid recovery. So much so that it achieved the highest total sales in the last five years, $7.1 billion in 2021. Altogether, it sold over 100 NFTs worth about $150 million, gaining new customers who lowered Christie’s average buyer age to 42 years old.
This week’s news items point to further NFT use-cases, mainstreaming, and potential opportunities, starting with the upcoming Christmas holiday season theme.
Merry Christmas NFT
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, already proved that historicity is high in demand when he sold his first-ever tweet for $2.9 million. The same holds true for the first-ever Christmas greeting as an SMS text message.
Vodafone conducted the auction for the “Merry Christmas” SMS, selling it for $121,000 as an NFT at Aguttes, an auction house in Paris. The message was sent 30 years ago to a Vodafone employee, Richard Jarvis, on December 3, 1992. However, because Vodafone is a giant corporation that doesn’t need money, all the proceeds will go to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
Interestingly, NFT trades are technically illegal in France because they constitute intangible goods. For this reason, the Aguttes auction house materialized the NFT by framing the photographed SMS on a first-gen mobile phone.
Classic Mickey Mouse NFT Collection
Not many are familiar with Disney’s iconic Mickey Mouse in its original self. The black & white Mickey first appeared in May 1928 in a silent short dubbed Plane Crazy. However, due to its rather experimental nature, it was not well received.
Having been discarded, another attempt was made on the Plane Crazy character, half a year later. This was the Steamboat Willie short, Mickey Mouse’s first public debut. This time, with a synchronized sound, pushing the world’s cinematic stage.
On December 22, three Steamboat Willie series 1 dropped, having already been sold yesterday for ultra-low prices.
According to the telling by Roy O. Disney, the brother of the iconic father of modern cartoons, Walt Disney was inspired to introduce sound into previously silent cartoons after having watched The Jazz Singer released in 1927. This musical drama was the first one to integrate synchronized sound, both music, and speech, thus triggering a wave of inspiration that birthed modern cinema.
Golden State Warriors Launch “2974 Collection”
Good news for basketball fans hailing from San Francisco, California. The pro basketball team is currently the best NBA offering for the 2021–22 season, having gone through the first 16 games with an impressive 14–2 record.
It is then fitting for Stephen Curry to commemorate Golden State Warrior’s stellar results this year. Curry launched the “2974 Collection” on a website made for the occasion, 2974SC.com, while the actual bids are conducted on the FTX.US NFT marketplace. The number 2974 refers to the sequence of 3-pointers Curry landed throughout his illustrious NBA career.
Combining static imagery with animation, every NFT represents a detailed storyboard of Curry’s masterful 3-pointers.
So far, two NFTs from the 2974 Collection, Cleveland and Oklahoma City, have both received $50k as the highest bids. While Curry came up with the idea, he hired a veteran artist, the 86-year-old Floyd Norman. You may have heard of him as Disney’s first Black animator. In fact, Netflix made a documentary about Norman dubbed ‘Floyd Norman: An Animated Life.’
Such legacy of both Curry and Norman should go a long way in appreciating the NFT collection further. Moreover, first-time buyers will receive a bonus NFT, including tickets, access to additional dropped NFTs, and autographed memorabilia. Golden State Warriors fans should definitely bookmark 2974SC.com for more NFT happenings to come.
Meta Is Not Settling for Metaverse Alone
Facebook, now Meta, is actively exploring to bring Instagram into the NFT fold, according to CEO Adam Mosseri Instagram post. Although he didn’t state anything specific yet, let us remember that Instagram is no stranger to such exploration. In May, the social media platform hosted “Creator’s Week,” having invited exclusively NFT creators to figure out all the ins and outs of NFT creation, monetization, and marketing.
With Adidas, Ubisoft, Nike, and many other corporations joining the NFT ecosystem, a growth boom is imminent. However, this will lead to exorbitant NFT prices down the line. Thankfully, there is a solution to mitigate this barrier to entry — fractional NFTs.
Representing joint NFT ownership, just as one would own a piece of a stock share, the fractionalized NFT market has gone from zero to $268 million this year. However, almost half of that value is held by The Doge NFT, Elon Musk’s favorite meme coin derived from the Shiba Inu dog that gained memetic traction in 2013.
One of the most expensive NFTs per fractional share (shard) is Alexander on Acid, for $5.6k. Interestingly, Alexander Hamilton was one of the founding fathers of the U.S., pivotal by many accounts in creating the central banking system that eventually evolved into the Federal Reserve.
Today, there is no greater force for the crypto market than the Fed when it activates its infinity money printing machine. It is then fitting that Hamilton’s legacy aligns well with a virtual, LSD-laced Hamilton, who now demands a high cost of entry even for a fractional stake.
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