Welcome to the OpenSea digest. Let’s look back through the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.

Pudgy Penguins launches soulbound token for early party supporters

Pudgy Penguins, the NFT brand behind the new mobile game Pudgy Party, has introduced an “Early to the Party” Soulbound Token. A soulbound token is a digital badge that cannot be transferred or sold, designed in this case to honor community members who joined early and helped bring the character Pengu into mobile gaming. 

To qualify, fans need to pre-download Pudgy Party from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store using a Pudgy-provided link, then register online here. Eligible wallets will receive the token once the game officially launches. 

The initiative deepens engagement for Pudgy Penguins enthusiasts during another exciting time, right as the brand expands with a NASCAR partnership that fans predict will put Pengu on Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 47 car.

EU weighs Ethereum and Solana for digital euro

The European Central Bank (ECB) is accelerating plans for a digital euro and evaluating whether the future cryptocurrency could run on public blockchains like Ethereum or Solana, according to the Financial Times. 

As web3 enthusiasts know, public blockchains act as shared ledgers anyone can access, unlike private systems that keep participation limited. Advocates say the choice to use a public chain could plug Europe’s digital currency straight into the fast-growing web of blockchain apps built over the past decade.

The ECB is expected to make a final call by the end of 2025, leaving plenty of room for speculation about whether the digital euro will debut on the same rails that power today’s most active crypto networks.

MetaMask to launch wallet-native stablecoin (mUSD) on Ethereum and Linea

MetaMask, the widely used crypto wallet, confirmed it will roll out its own stablecoin, MetaMask USD (mUSD), later this year on Ethereum and Consensys’s Linea network. 

The new token will be created by Bridge, a payments company owned by Stripe, and every token will be backed by real U.S. dollars and government bonds. The technical side of producing the tokens will be managed by M0, a finance startup that builds tools for running digital money on the blockchain.

This will be the first time a crypto wallet like MetaMask creates its own stablecoin, and it will plug right into the wallet’s built-in tools for buying, selling, and moving money between blockchains, and spending with the MetaMask Card.

The timing is notable: the U.S. just passed its first national law on stablecoins, and people have already moved more than $1 trillion worth of them in recent months, according to an industry report by stablecoin issuer Circle. 

Pirate Nation shifts from full RPG to arcade-style blockchain games

The Ethereum role-playing game Pirate Nation will shut down its large-scale version in September, with developer Proof of Play studio moving the project into smaller arcade-style games on the Abstract blockchain. 

Proof of Play, the San Francisco-based gaming startup, said on X the pivot allows it to focus on features that worked best without carrying the heavy costs of running entire blockchains for a limited player base. 

From the announcement, it appears players will be able to exchange their in-game items for Plunder Certificates that unlock rewards in the new arcade. The studio also emphasized it will continue expanding its ecosystem, using Pirate Nation’s technology and community as the foundation for future blockchain-powered experiences

Moonbirds announces Football.fun rewards for NFT holders

Moonbirds announced on August 25 that its NFT holders, along with Mythics and Oddities collectors, will now get rewards in Football.fun.

Football.fun is a soccer prediction app built on Coinbase’s Base blockchain. The platform launched earlier this month and lets users acquire digital shares of professional players to use in fantasy-style contests based on real match results. 

In less than two weeks, more than 12,000 accounts have reportedly joined, making the Moonbirds update one of the first major crossovers between an NFT community and the growing app.

OpenSea’s new MCP brings real-time web3 data to AI apps and agents

OpenSea announced the public beta launch of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, a new open standard that gives AI apps, developers, and the general public plug-and-play access to real-time NFT and wallet data across more than 20 blockchains.

The MCP server acts like a single connection that lets your AI tools and apps instantly tap into OpenSea’s rich context without custom integrations. This launch positions OpenSea at the forefront of the convergence between AI and web3 by delivering a production-ready protocol for developers building next-generation agent experiences. Beta access is currently open for applications.

Note: The mention of a token is for informational purposes only nor is it intended as financial or investment advice.