NFTs in a nutshell: A weekly review
Gaming dominated the conversation around NFTs this past week, with Epic Games, Minecraft, and Square Enix all taking some sort of stance on non-fungible tokens this week. Meanwhile, a LinkedIn co-founder is working on a new project, and it’s a beer brand that’s reportedly exploring loyalty programs through your favorite jpegs.
That’s all the action from the last week of NFTs – let’s review.
This week’s non-fungible token news
Minecraft bans NFTs, Epic Games remains open to the idea
When one door closes, another opens. At least that seems to be the case when it comes to gaming companies and blockchain technology this past week; Minecraft’s staff posted a new blog outlining a strong anti-NFT stance, effectively banning them from the older video game.
Is scarcity inherently linked to lack of access? Minecraft creators claim that the answer is a firm yes, and that they prefer to take a stance that emphasizes accessibility and a level playing field for players across the board.
Meanwhile, Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney took the opportunity to reiterate his perspective, stating in a Twitter response that “developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you’re free to decide whether you want to play them. .. I think stores and operating systems decision makers should not interfere by forcing their views on others. We definitely don’t want that.”
Square Enix and Enjin launch Final Fantasy NFTs
Video game companies with an NFT perspective weren’t limited to Majong’s Minecraft and Epic Games this past week, as Square Enix also got in on the action. The major Japanese video game company has linked up with the Enjin blockchain to announce upcoming NFTs around Final Fantasy VII, which celebrates the game’s 25th anniversary. Designs, price tags and coin counts have yet to be revealed.
Budweiser to explore loyalty programs?
Benefit, benefit, benefit. It’s the word we hear all the time around NFTs, from critics to fanatics. Budweiser was one of the first beer brands to dive into NFTs when we began covering the brand’s involvement in the space over a year ago.
This past week, the brand signed a deal with B2B startup Hang, which aims to help brands build loyalty programs around NFTs. Loyalty programs have been cited by many Web3 advocates as one of the most clear, straightforward opportunities for significant potential for NFTs to integrate at scale.
LinkedIn co-founder takes to coinage
Apparently, innovation in non-fungible tokens is as simple as taking the output of AI tool DALL-E and sending it straight to coin – at least according to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Hoffman takes to Solana to create new NFTs produced straight from DALL-E, titled “Untranslatable Words.”
DALL-E has been a point of contention in the NFT community, as the AI project was initially cited as not being available for commercial use – a topic that has apparently been turned on its head.
The bottom line: DALL-E is built to be an open source tool, and selling NFTs from an open source tool is far from innovative, and is not emblematic of what Hoffman described as being “inspired by the potential of DALL• E and NFTs” – but simply benefits from both.
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Microsoft, the parent company of Majong - the original creators of Minecraft - is seemingly aligning with an anti-NFT perspective, while competitors such as Epic Games remain open to having developers make their individual decisions on the matter. | Source: NASDAQ: MSFT on TradingView.com
OpenSea volume shows poor performance among top setups
Some of the biggest projects on the market collectively recorded dismal volumes over the weekend, according to reports. Take a look at some of the data quickly provided below, courtesy of Flipside Crypto and presented by NFTstatistics.
While some have responded noting that the launch of X2Y2 could lead to lost data, NFTstatistics states a belief that X2Y2 primarily sees wash trading – and regardless, OpenSea remains the dominant marketplace and emblematic of the NFT market movement at large.
OpenSea volume collapsed among the top sets yesterday.
Only 1800 ETH between these sets:
BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Otherdeed, Doodles, Azuki, CloneX, Punks, Meebits, Moonbirds, WoW, CoolCats, VeeFriends
The last time this metric was this low was November, when many of these sets did not exist pic.twitter.com/6lT5NlDa35
— NFTstatistics.eth (@punk9059) 24 July 2022
After one year, Tencent closes NFT Marketplace
Reports from the past week have emerged to reveal that less than a year since its inception, Chinese powerhouse Tencent has closed the doors on its NFT platform following a government ban. Chinese media reports that Huanhe – a firm that creates and distributes NFTs for the platform – is shutting down. The move comes just weeks after a number of Chinese tech firms, including Tencent, backed a development proposal to promote the digital collectibles industry.
Related Reading | Sports fans ready to go beyond the hype and make NFT investments: survey report
Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com
The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.
