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

Yuga Labs Acquires PROOF

Yuga Labs, creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherside, TwelveFold, and owners of Meebits, CryptoPunks, and 10KTF, just acquired PROOF. This acquisition encompasses the PROOF Collective, Moonbirds, Oddities, Mythics, and Grails exhibition series.

According to Yuga, the first order of business will be integrating Moonbirds into Otherside, Yuga's metaverse project.

“As a company committed to championing art, culture, and community on the blockchain, we’re excited to have PROOF join the Yuga ecosystem.” said Daniel Alegre, CEO of Yuga Labs. “Moonbirds is a collection with great potential and many unifying brand elements with Otherside. We look forward to PROOF Collective becoming an important part of our ongoing art and community engagement efforts.”

According to the same press release, CEO and Founder of PROOF, Kevin Rose, will undergo a brief handover period before becoming an advisor to the company.

Ether Rock NFTs Continue to Sell for Record Prices

Ether Rocks are rocking the scene as Sotheby's gears up for a sealed auction on February 14. The upcoming event resurfaces one of the oldest NFT collections, first minted in 2017, back into the spotlight. 

The digital rocks fetched hefty sums this week, with EtherRock 19 selling for 279 ETH (roughly $739,015) and EtherRock 46 going for 200 ETH (about $497,479).

The sales appear to be sparking a debate among NFT aficionados over Sotheby's claim that Ether Rocks have shaped the NFT movement.

Sotheby’s revised the auction’s messaging on February 8.

Whatever your take was on the collection’s 2017 minting and meme-inspired 2021 resurgence, Ether Rocks were indeed relevant this week. As for historical importance? Only time will tell.

ERC-404 Token Standard Gains Traction 

A new Ethereum token standard is getting Crypto Twitter’s attention. Created by a collective of pseudonymous developers known as ctrl, Searn, Acme, and Hohenheim under a project called Pandora, ERC-404 provides the basis for what’s being dubbed “semi-fungible tokens.” The new standard mixes the technology behind ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens, two of the most widely used Ethereum token standards.

The ERC-404 standard attempts to solve liquidity issues by allowing for the fractional ownership of digital items, which, in layman’s terms, means that people could use it to buy a single token that represents a portion of an NFT. 

According to The Block, the Pandora team tested the concept by creating 10,000 NFTs called “Replicants” and linking them to 10,000 corresponding Pandora tokens. Buying a Pandora token grants the holder a Replicant NFT. When the holder spends half of their Pandora token, the linked NFT is destroyed, demonstrating the fractional relationship between the token and the Replicant NFT. 

While the potential is interesting to the NFT community, ERC-404 tokens are experimental and need further optimization to better address transaction costs. The new standard is still pending review as an Ethereum Improvement Proposal.

Sasha Stiles’ NFT Poetry on View at Gucci NYC

Acclaimed poet Sasha Stiles is back on the scene with her latest collaboration with Gucci.

Titled, “REPETAE: AGAIN, AGAIN,” the poem is currently on display next to creative director Sabato De Sarno’s debut fashion collection, Ancora, and can be viewed at the newly reopened Gucci boutique on Wooster Street in New York City’s SoHo district.

Stiles’ artwork originally sold at a Christie's x Gucci auction in November 2023 at the impressive price of 3 ETH. The piece’s title nods to De Sarno’s designs: “I was moved by the [Gucci] team’s poetic understanding of ‘Ancora’ – a beautiful word that means ‘still’ or ‘again’ and evokes the complex value of carrying the past forward,” Stiles told web3 outlet nftnow in November 2023.

The poem was created with Stiles’ poetry “alter ego” Technelegy, an AI co-author and collaborator to whom Stiles fed Italian-language material and prompts to produce a novel output.

Terrell Jones Announces First Solo Exhibition At Superchief LA

Exciting news: Artist Terrell Jones will debut his solo exhibition, “PARIAHS,” at Superchief LA this March. The show will feature artwork from the fictional Deville Crime Family in Jones’ distinctive style.

Described by the artist as “pop precisionism,” Jones' work explores themes of inherent evil versus societal influence. His upcoming show will combine immersive installations, interactive pieces, and digital artworks created during his journey from his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan to the Los Angeles art scene.

Farcaster Frames Lets You Build Apps That Can Be Embedded in Social Posts

Decentralized social media protocol Farcaster recently hit a revenue milestone of $600,000 amid its latest surge of popularity. The growth was fueled by the introduction of an in-app monetization tool called Frames and the resulting increase in user engagement. The trend has sparked discussions on the protocol’s sustainability compared to predecessors like social token-driven social network Friend.tech. 

Farcaster charges users for storage and offers unique monetization opportunities paired with interactive elements like polls, live feeds, and photo galleries. Users are reportedly using Frames to embed apps in social posts and reward new followers with NFTs.

Netflix Launches The Black Mirror Experience: Smile Club

The day has finally come when web3 meets the dystopian television series Black Mirror. According to sources, Netflix has teamed up with interactive entertainment platform Pixelynx to create Black Mirror Experiences, a new storytelling series that features gamified challenges, quests, and community moments.

Smile Club, the first experience, is based on the weirdly disconcerting social credit score system that rates people’s social interactions, featured in the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive.” 

Inspired by the episode, Smile Club participants must turn their computer cameras on and smile for at least five seconds to earn a spot on the game’s allowlist. Some speculate that the smiles could be recorded on-chain, with Pixylynx founder Inder Phull calling for 1 million participants to sign up and log their pearly whites. 

Sotheby’s Metaverse Integrates Kresus Wallet

Sotheby’s Metaverse is now partnering with Kresus SuperApp, a user-friendly crypto wallet designed to smoothly onboard newcomers to web3. 

According to sources, the app utilizes advanced security features, such as biometric authentication, to bypass what some see as the hassle of using complex seed phrases. 

The partnership is expected to promote a more familiar wallet experience for art enthusiasts and collectors who’ve come to know Sotheby’s Metaverse as the go-to destination for one-of-a-kind digital fine art collectibles.