NFT Review 78 - NFT scams exposed
NFT Review 78 - NFT scams exposed
Dungeons & Dragons reverse NFT ban, NFT fund shuts down, new RMRK EIPs merged, 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 NFT market is an exciting and rapidly growing space, but it also faces its share of challenges and issues. Last week we talked about one such issue–hacks. This week, the issues are related to scams. Thankfully, no one got scammed. Instead, two different parties exposed scams within the NFT industry.
The first is a YouTuber who baited an MMA fighter into secretly shilling fake NFTs for $1K. The second, and more intriguing (or damning, depending on your POV) is the Little Shapes NFT project. They revealed that the project was a "social experiment" designed to shed light on large-scale NFT bot network scams on Twitter. According to the Little Shapes founder, "Over the past year, NFT Twitter has been manipulated and controlled mostly by a singular Twitter botnet. It showed up mostly in February 2022, and then was used in conjunction with a network of influencers and alpha groups to sell out projects."
This is simultaneously scary and reassuring. Scary because it has been happening and is most likely still happening. Reassuring because there are still good people in the space who are trying to make it safer for everyone.
In more upbeat news, Dungeons & Dragons reversed its NFT ban amid backlash. This is a positive sign of the growing acceptance and recognition of NFTs as a legitimate and valuable asset class. But more importantly, it shows the growing power of the NFT community.
Catch the rest of this week’s updates below. Thank you for reading and have a great week.
— NFT Review
📬 NFT News from Kusama & Polkadot
2 more RMRK lego EIPs (Emotables and Soulbound) have been merged. That makes a total of 5 RMRK lego EIPs.
RMRK hosted dotinsights in a Twitter Space to discuss Polkadot growth, NFTs, and what’s coming in 2023.
Astar announced that RMRK-ink! is coming soon. This is the ink! version of the RMRK protocol, similar to how we have the EVM version).
Steven (RMRK’s Solidity dev) published 3 video tutorials on how to use RMRK on EVM. Check out his YouTube channel for all the tutorials he’s made so far.
Manta hosted a Twitter Space with RMRK to share experiences and insights on Building with Polkadot.
Efinity announced that users can now mint NFTs using Polkadot-JS.
Subsquid announced a partnership with Enjin to provide indexing and infrastructure support to NFT builders and game developers.
Bit.Country hosted two Twitter spaces, one with DFG (investment firm) CEO James Wo titled Metaverse Musings, and another titled Pioneering Kaosland: Best ways to utilise digital land & grow fans.
B.C launched a Land Sales button on its metaverse land map, making it easier for users to trade land.
B.C published a 5-month recap of its progress since launching the Pioneer metaverse network.
Exosama hosted a community call to discuss the present and future of its NFT marketplace.
🗞 NFT News from Ethereum and Beyond
Yuga Labs settles lawsuit with developer involved in copycat BAYCs.
‘Haunts me to this day’ — Webaverse hacked for $4M in a hotel lobby.
Japanese prime minister says DAOs and NFTs help support the government's ‘Cool Japan’ strategy.
English Premier League gets Ethereum-based digital cards with Sorare partnership.
Hermès v MetaBirkin: NFT trademark stoush heads to trial in Manhattan.
Bitcoin NFT mints are rising—but so are transaction fees.
Nouns comic books turn ethereum NFTs into ‘unconstrained anarchy’.
Coinbase NFT pauses creator drops, insists marketplace is not shutting down.
OpenSea’s Polygon NFT sales top Ethereum for second straight month.
Cool Cats are going multi-chain—and adding customizable NFTs.
Steve Aoki, Seth Green will let NFT holders shape animated short.
First exchange-traded NFT fund shuts down.
Blur introduced a Collector Mode.
CryptoSlam, the NFT analytics site, integrated TradingView charting tools.
delegate.cash launched Liquid Delegate, a system for no-risk NFT rentals.
House of Nouns open-sourced its new suite of NFT governance tools.
OpenSea introduced a 3hr Hold Period security mechanism.
Manifold is introducing a small flat fee for monetization when buyers collect NFTs through Manifold Apps.
BattleFly Battlegrounds is launching on Feb. 6th.
BLVKHVND introduced STADIUM, an onchain esports protocol.
Curio launched Treaty, a fully onchain strategy game.
NFTfi (the specific lending protocol, not the general category) facilitated a 40,000 USDC loan against 32 goblintown.wtf NFTs.
Sudoswap launched $SUDO governance.
Wilder World released a pre-alpha premiere video.
Panda Jackson on how Blur bypassed OpenSea’s blocklist.
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!