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

Doodles premieres ‘Dullsville and the Doodleverse’ at TIFF

On September 8, Doodles brought the fictional town of Dullsville to life at the Toronto International Film Festival with the world premiere of Dullsville and the Doodleverse. Executive producer Pharrell Williams and rapper Coi Leray, who voiced a character in the 20-minute animated special, attended the event alongside the Doodles team and other collaborators. 

Fans can stream Dullsville and the Doodleverse on Doodlesᵗᵛ starting Friday, September 13, at 6 p.m. ET. The show comes on the heels of the release of “Can’t Hold Me Down,” which, according to Doodles head of business development Austin Hurwitz, attracted 1 million views in its first 72 hours.

Illuvium introduces Gauntlet Leviathan Mode

Illuvium, the open-world auto-battler RPG that launched its mainnet on July 25, debuted a new software patch that reportedly allows players to use their highest-level NFTs to progress in the game.

The update, called “Gauntlet Leviathan Mode,” appears to give dedicated players a competitive advantage by letting them boost the power of their Illuvials, Weapons, and Suits NFTs. The patch also fixes software bugs and improves existing Overworld and Arena modes.

Portal partners with Immutable as Guild of the Guardians surpasses 1M downloads

Web3 distribution platform Portal is partnering with Immutable, a layer-two blockchain designed for gaming. This partnership effectively connects over 300 Immutable games to Portal’s stack. 

Announced at Korea Blockchain Week, the collaboration aims to simplify user experience and payments in blockchain games. Portal’s platform supports transactions like data, payments, and rewards across 200+ games.

With Immutable’s games joining the Portal system, players expect to have more opportunities for interaction and collaboration, along with easier payments. The news follows Immutable’s recent announcement that its game, Guild of the Guardians, which debuted May 15, surpassed 1 million downloads.

Justin Aversano’s ‘INTRO-SPECTIVE: Trust the Process’ exhibition opens in Austria

Photographer and NFT artist Justin Aversano is back with a new solo exhibition. Curated by contemporary art advisor Marlène Corbun, “INTRO-SPECTIVE: Trust the Process” opened on September 3 in the Francisco Carolinium Linz in Austria.

Aversano’s show features both digital and physical pieces selected from his portfolio that span his 12-year career. In an interview with digital art news outlet nft now, he describes the exhibition as a play on the traditional retrospective format with an emphasis on self-reflection and processing the emotions expressed through his photos.

Sony Pictures and Music launches its own blockchain and web3 incubator

Sony Group announced it is launching Soneium Spark, a web3 incubator to help developers create decentralized apps (dApps) for Sony Pictures and Sony Music divisions. 

Developers in the incubator will build on Soneium Minato, a new Ethereum layer-two solution developed by Sony Block Solutions Labs, Sony’s in-house web3 team created in partnership with developer group Startale Labs. 

A Sony press release says the company is “aiming for a world where web3 use cases are a part of daily life.” This partnership with Startale Labs has attracted the backing of Samsung’s investment arm Samsung Next.

Pudgy Penguin’s soulbound token is for collectors who have kept their penguin for over 1,000 days

Pudgy Penguins is celebrating its most loyal holders with a new “1,000 Pengus Club” soulbound token. The token will be non-transferable and permanently linked to collectors who have held onto their Pudgy Penguin NFT for over 1,000 days.

If eligible, collectors can verify their ownership in the Pudgy Penguin Discord to receive their token, which will be distributed monthly from now on.

Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum story hits theaters for a one-day-only screening

A new documentary about Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin will premiere globally on September 18. Directed by activist filmmakers Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, who together co-founded the nonprofit Optimist, the film follows Buterin and Ethereum’s community of developers and hackers in their pursuit of building a decentralized internet.

Tickets are available now at ethereumfilm.xyz, but select theaters might already be sold out. Onchain streaming, presented in partnership with Coinbase layer-two blockchain Base, will be available for a period of 30 days starting September 20. Learn more and mint your streaming pass here.

PayPal and Venmo now support Ethereum Name Service for crypto payments

Users of the popular money-sending apps PayPal and Venmo might notice a recent upgrade to their services. Both platforms recently added support for Ethereum Name Service (ENS) for U.S. users. The new feature lets users send crypto by entering a simplified ENS name instead of a long wallet address, thereby reducing the chance for errors.

This move comes as part of PayPal’s broader push into crypto, namely its recent partnership with payment onramp MoonPay. According to The Block, a crypto news outlet, ENS currently records over 2 million names registered on chain.