gm.
I got a special surprise for everyone today…notice anything different?
yes…I have a new logo and branding thanks to kipz.eth (who FWIW has been a day one supporter of BivNFT).
I wanted to commission him to make the newsletter more fun. how’d we do?
ALPHA ⚓️
on Friday, RTFKT dropped a trailer for Clone X called ‘Project Animus’. and from the looks of it, it certainly seems like Clone holders will be getting “eggs” in 2023. what’s in those eggs?
it could be anything! it could even be a boat! *Peter Griffin voice*
are these cute imps what are in those eggs? why is that big alien hunter from Lilo & Stitch there too? time will tell, but it’ll be an exciting reveal for the Clone X community.
but despite the airdrop announcement, all that anyone can talk about from the trailer is that one of the creatures bears a strong resemblance to the Otherside’s Kodas.
should every project have a cute imp as part of their narrative now? RTFKT argues, yes.
BETA ⚓️
I regret to inform you that the 0% royalties discussion is back.
after a weekend that saw y00ts and deGods cofounder Frank announce that his projects would be moving to 0% royalties…the debate sparked again on Twitter.
on the whole, 0% royalties feels like yet another giant step backward for NFTs…a space that once was a safe haven for artists to feel *valued* and *compensated* for their work.
I, for one, was ignorant enough to believe that royalties could be coded into the smart contract for a long time. I falsely assumed, for that reason, that royalties were a feature (not a bug) of the NFT space.
however, Sudoswap, X2Y2, and now even project founders are showing that 0% royalties are not only possible but *could* also be here to stay. it would be naive to say that everyone participating in NFT culture *now* is “in it for the art”.
(in fact, 90% of projects on Solana would violently push back against “art” being a factor whatsoever).
in a perfect world, we move on from Web2 (where artists are devalued and poorly compensated) into Web3 where the opposite is the case.
unfortunately, watching everything unfold over the past year has made me skeptical that’ll be the reality of Web3 after all.
DELTA ⚓️
it might not be *sexy* news but certainly, anything surrounding the C-suite at our biggest NFT marketplace should be newsworthy. what does the CFO (who likely helped them raise all their money) leaving mean for OpenSea? I have no idea…I’ve never been good with money.
shout out to the first grassroots ENS auction (for the community, by the community). this auction reinforces the idea that we don’t need old companies like Soethby’s or Christie’s in Web3. we can continue to try stuff on our own and forge our own paths. I’ll write more on ENS tomorrow too 👀
