Volume 2

OpenSea: What are you seeing right now in the NFT space?

Carly Reilly: "I feel like I'm gonna say obvious things here, but I think we're in a…"

Bored Ape Yacht Club is launching a new tool for builders in the Ape and Mutant communities. The tool, Made by Apes, will reportedly serve as an on-chain verification tool and an official directory of projects featuring intellectual property from the BAYC collection. BAYC holders have already been using their NFTs for things like licensed merch lines, a restaurant, and beverage brands, but there has not yet existed an on-chain database for projects sprouting up.

BAYC has teamed up with SaaSyLabs to unveil this solution, which aims to make IP verification a breeze. Further announcements are expected later in July.

From Wimbledon comes a new collaboration between tennis legend Andy Murray and acclaimed generative art team Refik Anadol Studio. Celebrating the historic 10-year anniversary of the end of the 77-year wait for a British Gentlemen's Singles Champion at Wimbledon, “The Exposition” combines sports data and digital art in a way that has never been seen before.

By leveraging proprietary tennis data from IBM, the collection’s artwork utilizes an algorithm to visually interpret data from Murray’s movements and strokes, along with video and audio input from the athlete’s impressive Wimbledon career.

Two weeks ago, we covered the Azuki Elementals drop. Since then, the Azuki community held a vote as to whether or not to change the background metadata for the recently dropped Elementals PFP collection.

Despite debate among Twitter users, the Azuki holder community decided against changing the metadata. This decision sheds light on the importance of community involvement and decentralized decision-making in the NFT space, but is it enough to earn back the support of Azuki’s collectors, who argue Elementals are too similar to the original collection’s designs?

Lacoste’s new interactive rewards program kicks off this month. The new UNDW3 pass is a dynamic NFT that reflects customer loyalty and unlocks new levels of rarity through an experiential “quest” that gamifies brand engagement.

The first season runs from now through December 2023. Once missions are completed, users can earn points and grow their unique ranking. At the end of each chapter, users will collect a badge. The top 200 most engaged users will be eligible to receive rewards. Scores will be displayed directly on the NFTs, which customers can upgrade at the end of each season.

OpenSea now supports the purchase of art pieces minted on Zora, an NFT minting platform and protocol. This collaboration allows artists to showcase and sell their NFTs on OpenSea, while also benefiting from Zora's cost-effective minting process. OpenSea's NFT-related tools will also now be usable on Zora's network.

The Zora Network, which uses Optimism, was originally established in 2020. The platform has since evolved into an open-source protocol enabling users to mint and sell NFTs. By migrating to a layer-2 scaling solution in June, Zora reportedly reduced minting costs by 25 times, thereby providing a more affordable option.