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 Gilbert Bassey.

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Looking for a primer on NFTs? This should be the last introduction you’ll ever need.

👨🏼‍🎨 Artist Spotlight: Mohd

Last week, we had a chat with Mohd, one of Kusama and Singular's most popular crypto artists whose work has found love in the eyes of the Kusama community. If you're unfamiliar with him, then check out his Spunkbits collection on Singular and see for yourself why they are appreciated. We spoke about decentralization, owning Kanaria eggs, RMRK 2.0, and a lot more. Mohd is as insightful as he is talented. Read the full interview here.

📮 RMRK Ecosystem Updates

Hou-ou Festival Begins

The moment Kanaria egg hodlers have been waiting for finally arrived on June 1st. In case you’re unfamiliar, the Hou-ou festival is a month-long festival (till June 30th) where:

1. Unclaimed Kanaria eggs will be burnt

2. Claimed egg will hatch into birds

3. Some special traits of each bird will be revealed

The team released a detailed guide on what to expect and avoid during this fun festival. The most important point to note is that if your claimed egg doesn’t have 3 hatching emotes (🐣🐣🐣) on it by the end of Hou-ou (June 30th), your egg will be stuck as an egg forever. Don’t be eggified for life, go and emote 🐣🐣🐣 on your eggs.

If you wanna join the eggolution, enter Kanaira and save some glorious eggs from getting burnt.

RMRK launches art contest

The RMRK team launched a new art contest in honor of the great Hou-ou festival. It is open to both illustrators and regular users. The prize ranges from $1000 (minimum) to $10000 per person, depending on certain factors. Read this post to learn more.

RMRK partners with Plasm’s Shiden Network

RMRK and Plasm have collaborated to combine Shiden and Kanaria's feature set and extend Shiden-bonuses to existing and new Kanaria bird owners. Specifically, anyone participating in Shiden's crowdloan will be able to use the same crypto address to claim a special Kanaria trait - a child NFT that can be equipped onto one's Kanaria bird, and which will give the owner platform bonuses all across Shiden.

📬 NFT News from Kusama & Polkadot

• Statemine, a "common good" parachain (didn't need to win an auction) that will host fungible tokens, NFTs, and more, started producing blocks. This achievement brings the Kusama ecosystem much closer to crowdloans and parachain auctions.

  Joe Petrowski @joepetrowski

  After two referenda passed by the Kusama community to upgrade Shell, Statemine is now producing blocks as the first featureful parachain on @kusamanetwork. First transaction to say hello:

  

  June 3rd 2021

  212 Retweets730 Likes

• Bit.Country announced that they will reserve a bit country name, ticker, and some land for the first batch of parachain auction winners in the #Kusama District on the Continuum.

  Bit.Country - Your Metaverse Hub of Polkadot @BitDotCountry

  📢📢📢Our BC team will reserve a bit country name, ticker, and some land for the first batch of parachain auction winners in the #Kusama District on the Continuum. 😍Claim it 🚀 hi@bit.country

  

  June 4th 2021

  16 Retweets42 Likes

• Bit.Country invites users to start saving $NUUM, the metaverse’ platform token, on their recently launched testnet. Tokens help users create their own world in the bit country metaverse.

Bit.Country - Your Metaverse Hub of Polkadot @BitDotCountry

Start saving $NUUM for our testnet, use $NUUM to create your kingdom in the #metaverse. 🪙Discord: discord.gg/A83zc2wz7f 🪙Telegram: t.me/BitCountryOffi…

June 3rd 2021

19 Retweets46 Likes

🗞 NFT News from Ethereum and Beyond

• Auction house, Sotheby’s, has developed a replica of its London headquarters in Decentraland.

Sotheby's @Sothebys

We're excited to announce the launch of the Sotheby's Gallery in @decentraland 🌍 Located in the Voltaire Art District, the Sotheby's Gallery is a replica of our iconic London Gallery. Come visit & view the #NativelyDigital NFT sale, open for bidding now! bit.ly/3wZacwMDecentralandbit.ly

June 4th 2021

71 Retweets290 Likes

• Bondly establishes a multi-year partnership with G2 Esports, one of the world’s leading entertainment and Esports brands, to develop and launch G2’s NFT strategy and platform.

• In their latest edition of The Tide, OpenSea announced the launch of gas-free NFT trading and a new music category.

  Jeremy Williams, NFT @jwilliamsnft

  ⏰🚨⏰🚨:Open Sea is now having select projects be Gas free trading!!!! Soon, with this expanding, artists will benefit massively. Happy #gasisdead day!!!!!

  June 4th 2021

  4 Likes

• Sotheby’s ongoing Natively Digital: Curated NFT Sale draws in bids. The current highest bid is $750,000 for Infinite Future by Don Diablo.

• metaverseDAO and Yam Finance team up to create the Museum of Fine Yams in Cryptovoxels.

• Axie Infinity’s numbers are up across the board since the release of the NFT game’s custom-built Ronin sidechain.

  Flying Falcon @Its_Falcon_Time

  Since the launch of Ronin just over one month ago 1) Daily active users up ~150% 📈 2) Axie & Land Volume up ~360% 📈 3) Revenue up ~130% 📈 4) Twitter followers up ~28% 📈 5) Discord users up ~65% 📈 The community is growing fast. Ronin was the catalyst.

  June 2nd 2021

  1 Retweet11 Likes

• Enjin announced the launch of their JumpNet, dubbed by the team as their “forever-free Ethereum scaling solution.” This product enables every individual and business to send, trade, mint, and distribute $ENJ and ERC-1155 #NFTs for free.

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!