Welcome to the NFT Deep Dive Weekly News Recap. In this newsletter, we talk about the latest happenings in the world of NFTs for the week ending Jan 23, 2022.
We’ll cover:
Twitter getting NFT avatars...and Elon Musk not being a fan
The latest market crash...and how NFT sales have shown to be resilient
USPS entering the world of NFT's and trying to be hip + relevant
Ozzy Osbourne's NFT project 'CryptoBatz' had their Discord hacked and members lost thousands of $$$
Hermès hit MetaBirkins creator, Mason Rothschild, with a cease & desist, OpenSea took the project down, and the creator responds
The Cincinnati Bengals and the NFL are releasing a limited edition NFT in collaboration with TicketMaster
A student in Indonesia became an unexpected millionaire after listing 5 years worth of daily selfies on NFT as a joke (we also talk about someone doing this daily with songs...and making $$$ in the process)
A good marketing example by a non-NFT company that is taking advantage of NFT hype
Story 1: Twitter NFT Profile Pictures
Twitter Blue is $3 a month and lets you get an NFT hexagon avatar and unsend tweets (but it turns out it just waits 30 seconds before posting)
Twitter Blue is still a work in progress - it’s supported on IOS but not on Android
People have already created a way to silence any account that uses NFT avatars (Check out the code here: https://github.com/eramdam/BetterTweetDeck)
Twitter Launched Blue via a short video that features some of the biggest names in the NFT world, such as Faorkh, Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and more. You can check it out here:
Read more:
Story 2: Elon Musk thinks that Twitter’s NFT Avatars are annoying
Elon says that engineering resources should be focused on something serious, like getting rid of all the crypto scammers, instead of focussing on making “BS” like NFT avatars
Story 3: Apparently the world was so shocked that Twitter launched NFT avatars, that it caused a crypto crash
That’s a joke…but the market did in fact crash
More than $136 BILLION of value was wiped out on Friday
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other coins were down more than 20% on Friday
Despite the crypto market crash, NFT’s have been doing quite well - with sales reaching $4.7 Billion, up 81% from the previous week
Read more:
Story 4: The USPS is entering the NFT world
The Post Office is trying to stay hip and modern by following the latest trends
It launched a podcast called ‘Mailin It’
The USPS has done clothing collaborations with both Forever 21 and Vans
Launched limited edition Christmas NFTs on VEVE that started at $6 (Veve is a platform for digital licensed collectibles - aka licensed NFTs, think Marvel and other companies)
The USPS has said it plans to ramp up its NFT division
Read more:
Interesting side note:
NASA has been huge into licensing, making it simple for brands to use their logo on their clothes
NFTs, however, are off-limits - NASA is not allowing anyone to use their likeness to make NFTs
Read more:
Story 5: Izzy Osborne’s NFT project ‘CryptoBatz’ got hacked
A link to fake discord posted in CryptoBatz Discord by official moderators
Over 1,300 people were scammed into following the link
This shows you still be to pay attention to be safe - it’s still early and hacks happen
The Nelk Boys NFT project, Metacard.io, also had their discord hacked (listen to our episode about the Nelk Boys NFT project)
Read more:
Story 6: Hermès suing MetaBirkins NFT creator
Hermès is suing American digital artist Mason Rothschild who created the NFT project MetaBirkins
They hit their founder with a cease and desist for using their likeness in the digital world
He has not made physical bags, but had a digital collection on OpenSea, with bags trading at a floor price of 8 Eth
This case is going to be a big proving ground that trademark laws extend into the metaverse
This week the project’s founder, Mason Rothschild wrote three open letters to Hermes, OpenSea, and his community
Read more:
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/hermes-lawsuit-metabirkins-mason-rothschild-nft-7736973/
https://snobette.com/2021/12/metabirkins-nft-removed-opensea-following-hermes-cease-and-desist/
Story 7: The Cincinnati Bengals launch an NFT
The NFL and the Bengals are launching limited edition NFTs in collaboration with Ticketmaster
Two different NFTs will be available - with one for season ticket holders and one for individual buyers
The NFTs will be emailed to the ticketholders after the game
Only buyers who purchased tickets through the NFL Ticketing Network (Ticketmaster, StubHub or SeatGeek, or through the Bengals Ticket Office) are eligible
Read more:
Story 7: Student becomes millionaire selling selfie NFTs
Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, an Indonesian student, took a photo of himself every day for five years
He is 22 and studies Computer Science
He listed 933 selfies entitled "Ghozali Every Day" on the trading platform OpenSea
Ghozali priced the project at only $3 and was quoted saying "I never thought anybody would want to buy the selfies, which is why I only priced them at $3,"
Over 500 people have bought the NFT, and it has brought in over $1 Million
People have even made merch with his face on it and wrote songs
Merch:
Song:
Fun fact: The creator of the song has been writing a song everyday for over 13 years
He sells the song on songaday.world
This song received 11 bids and sold for .5 Eth (Man I love the NFT world lol)
Ghozali plans to invest money and wants to open an animation studio one day
Funnily enough, he has not told his parents about his newfound wealth because he says that they won’t understand where he got it
Considering the average salary in Indonesia is ~$10,000, explaining that you just got $1,000,000 in a few days for selling selfies…could be difficult
Read more:
And, that wraps up the NFT Deep Dive Weekly News Recap.
I hope you enjoyed reading it and learned something new. I’m sure that I missed a bunch of stuff, so if you have interesting news that you think I should mention - leave it in the comments!
Please subscribe and share this with any of your friends who might be interested in the world of NFTs, it helps us grow and means a lot.
Check out and subscribe to the NFT Deep Dive Podcast here: anchor.fm/nftdeepdive
Follow us on:
IG - (@nftdeepdive)
Twitter - (@nftdeepdive)