happy frensgiving, frens!
happy frensgiving, frens!
Tomorrow here in the US is Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday centered around eating mainly. But you’re also supposed to be grateful and give thanks for all that you have. Mostly though, it’s evolved into a time where you sit around a table with family and talk about uncomfortable subjects.
No doubt this year, my NFTs will be making an appearance at Thanksgiving dinner. Which JPG should I lead with? How do I talk about all the money laundering that I’m doing with them? How will I explain a CryptoDickButt to my mother-in-law?
At least I have you all who get me. Even though we can’t get together IRL, we can gather around a virtual Thanksgiving day table right now for the newsletter’s first “Frensgiving”.
Today, I’m thankful for everyone in NFT community (especially my subscribers) who have been so supportive and cool over the past year. It’s been crazy, but I can say not only am I happier than I was a year ago, but I also made some awesome friends along the way.
Even if our cartoon JPGs go to zero, at least we have each other<3.
ALPHA
First, it was Squid Game, now it’s Wolf Game.
The new P2E (play-to-earn) game took the NFT world by storm over the weekend jumping to as much as 5 ETH for sheep. Yes, the jokes write themselves about who are the “sheep” and who are the “wolves” here.
It all started when everyone’s least favorite influencer Beanie noted the game theory behind Wolf Game in a tweet, and it took off from there (see photo above).
It works like this: Players (aka farmers) can have sheep that create $wool, a governance token. That in-game currency can be then be traded and swapped. Seems easy enough, right? Well, this is where it gets fun. There are also wolves who have the ability to abduct the sheep. According to Beanie, once you lose the sheep, they are gone for good, making it high-stakes. And if we know anything so far, it’s that NFT degens LOVE high-stakes.
The Wolf Game skyrocketed atop OpenSea’s daily volume chart and the team quickly capitalized on their popularity by announcing that Gen 0 users of Wolf Game would be able to claim in-game land that could be used for essentially a low-res, blockchain version of Farmville.
The real mystery here? Who is The Shepard surrounding this sensation? The overlord of Wolf Game is probably doing quite well for himself and we are not sure of who he or she is yet…
BETA
Let’s quickly talk about NFT influencers a little…Or as I proposed last week, NFT “tastemakers”. And this will be the last we speak of them.
Perhaps this is a hot take, but I do think there is a place for them in our ecosystem. They drive engagement and conversation. Even better, when something bad happens to them (like this past week with the ArtChick x ItsTylerSays) we can all collectively dunk on them, which in turn brings us closer together as a community.
If you weren’t following, the Artist Formerly Known As ArtChick (now known as @Punk2476) came to @ItsTylerSays to help him launch his own NFT.
The only issue? It was a “rug” that drained 55 ETH from Tyler’s own followers.
The FUDToken that was created on behalf of Tyler by ArtChick did nothing besides lift from wallets and many were irate that so-called “trusted” voices in the community would do that to their own kind.
Tyler got rekt by Twitter, while ArtChick took a hiatus only to return saying she will now ‘doxx’ herself (meaning her identity would no longer be anonymous). This was a response to her allegedly being a man named Tanner, and not an art chick at all. She claims this is not true and the rumor stems from tweets that were created for an old affiliate marketing campaign she did.
I don’t think there is room for these types of “influencers”. For those who are honest, however, why I think they should be rebranded to “tastemakers” is simply this: they should not be influencing anyone. If you’re buying something because someone else tells you, well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re a sheep (see Wolf Game).
What makes Web3 special is ownership and agency. You have the ability to control what you buy. Others can see what you buy, so you better have some conviction when you do it as it’s actually a reflection of your own self (not to sound too dramatic).
DELTA
An update from last week’s Delta section: the bid to buy a copy of the US Constitution failed…only after the ConstitutionDAO team announced they had the winning bid. The brutal blows continued as it was revealed the winning bidder (at $43.2 million) was the Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin who famously shorted GameStop and earned the ire of r/WallStreetBets subreddit. This simulation we live in is getting really weird, I gotta say.
Robotos, created by artist Pablo Stanley, are getting a TV show. The animated series will be produced by TIME and marks the highest-profile attempt at an NFT series unless we are counting StonerCats. They still haven’t heard back from Ethereum though on if their second season was renewed or not.
From the looks of it, FTX will be launching its own NFT ETH marketplace. As Coinbase continues to roll out who will be featured in theirs, FTX wants in on the action too. FTX tweeted these ominous silhouettes of Apes, Punks, and Cool Cats on Tuesday. As for the fourth, I’m pretty tuned into the NFT community but can’t say with certainty what the upper right one is. It appears to be a Doodle? Plz help.