NFT Review 26 - Universal Music Makes Metaverse History
First metaverse band, RMRK expanding to Moonriver, Discord chickens out, and more.
NFT Review is a weekly newsletter covering NFTs in the Web3 ecosystem on Polkadot’s side of the woods. The newsletter is put together by Bruno Škvorc and gbaci.
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Looking for a primer on NFTs? This should be the last introduction you’ll ever need.
Dear NFT enthusiast,
The most notable happening from the last 7 days is Universal Music Group’s unprecedented dip into the NFT space. ‘Unprecedented’ because of the depth of investment and the novelty of what they are proposing.
If you’ve not seen the news yet, then brace yourself—Universal Music (a record label) created a metaverse band with 4 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs owned by collector Jimmy “j1mmy” McNelis. As in, the label will put its resources—songwriters, producers, mixing engineers, marketers, the full shebang—on a band that doesn’t exist in the real world. The band will release music and perform in the metaverse, with plans to release its own NFT collectibles as well.
This brings to mind many thought-paths about the future of NFTs, each more astounding than the last. For one thing, it’s is an idea that, if it works, will be embraced by more music labels and the corporate entertainment world at large.
But more fascinating is the realization that we actually don’t know the limit to NFT use cases. In all our predictions about the future, no one envisioned this. It’s definitely interesting to see how this plays out.
Will you be attending a show by Kingship in the metaverse? Oh, you didn’t know? The name of the BAYC-composed band is Kingship.
Thank you for reading and have a great week.
— NFT Review
📬 NFT News from Kusama & Polkadot
REJOICE! RMRK is coming to Moonriver.
RMRK published a new article on 4 Applications of NFT 2.0 in Art, Music, and the Metaverse to help spur the imagination of creators.
Referral bonuses have been announced for the Dino x Dino NFT sale.
Bit Country announced a partnership with Manta Network. The partnership will give Manta an opportunity to expand the limits of its privacy technology while giving Bit Country an additional and distinctive value proposition for its ecosystem.
The winner of the Unique Network x United Nations Designathon was announced at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The RMRK Hackathon with over 680 participants has entered its final 2 weeks.
A new Singular Changelog has been published. The most notable highlights are verified collections, a new FAQ page, a new audio player, and collection view in spaces.
RMRK co-founder Yuri Petusko started an open-sourced react hooks library for
polkadot.js. He’s seeking contributions from community members that use React.
🗞 NFT News from Ethereum and Beyond
Despite OpenSea’s massive lead in cumulative settlement volume, popular NFT game Axie Infinity ranks first by user base and total number of trades.
Civic’s Ignite Pass aims to combat bots targeting NFT drops on the Solana network by verifying video-based selfies using artificial intelligence.
Sotheby’s has announced it will accept ETH bids in real-time for its Nov. 18 auction that includes works by famed street artist Banksy. Sotheby’s claims this will be the first time crypto will be accepted as standard payment by an auction house on a physical work of art.
Discord dropped its Ethereum and NFT integration plans after backlash.
After raising $440,000 selling NFTs on Binance, the Hermitage (the world’s largest museum) launched an NFT art exhibition.
A new study from the UK revealed that 58% of game developers have already started exploring blockchain technology for their upcoming titles.
University of Cambridge to launch decentralized carbon credit marketplace on the Tezos blockchain.
The International Chess Federation is the first global sports association with its own NFT marketplace.
Animoca Brands has announced it will partner with Korean record label Cube Entertainment to build a “K-pop metaverse.”
MyEtherWallet allows users to mint Ethereum blocks as NFTs.
Seoul’s metropolitan government will develop its own metaverse platform by the end of 2022.
Genie now supports batch listing NFTs for sale on OpenSea.
Cool Cats are coming to Coinbase NFT.
DAOPunks won Hyype’s Alpha Race #2!
The Blitmap universe is growing.
Generative art dapp Art Blocks is generating $1M to charity to celebrate its 1st birthday
The SuperRare community approves adding Space Race curation parameters.
Check out Birthblock, an NFT project that mints art based on your first Ethereum transaction.
Zynga hires VP of blockchain gaming.
Decentraland DAO approved patron-level support for the Blender Development Fund!
NFT media protocol Mirror has facilitated ~6k ETH in crowdfunds to date!
Per ConsenSys’s Web3 Report Q3 2021, over +500k Ethereum wallets have bought or sold an NFT this year.
The founder of Tezos NFT platform Hic et Nunc shuttered the platform, though the works minted there will live on because of the blockchain.
That’s all for this week, see you in the next edition! Got some links to share with us, artists to feature, NFTs to sell, jobs to promote, or events to popularize? Get in touch with Bruno or gbaci!