gm.
it’s the start of a new week. hopefully it’s going to be a good one.
Biv should be back tomorrow. :) I’m subvert, and I’ve been filling in for him while he’s been moving.
this is gonna be my last newsletter in this run, but don’t worry — I’ll definitely be back. this is far too fun not to do again.
now, let’s dig into what’s been happening over the weekend…
ALPHA⚓️
RENGA has been pumping. it’s all the timeline has wanted to talk about this entire weekend.
of course, that’s probably because I mentioned it in this newsletter 2 days ago. (I kid, I kid. I wish I had that level of influence, haha.)
it’s gained so much traction that this happened:
why is it pumping so much? here’s what @Zeneca_33 thinks:
(click into the tweet for the whole classic-Zeneca-style 27-tweet thread.)
or, as my fellow Cool Cat @NFT_Shooter puts it:
personally, i see a lot of so-called “smart money” (a lot of Bored Ape and Azuki holders) buying in because the project shows promise.
but while everyone is talking about “storytelling NFTs” and the incredible artwork, here’s a bucket of ice-cold truth serum, just for perspective:
time will tell.
that being said, the RENGA art is fantastic, the roadmap looks solid, the project core team + dev team (WENEW Labs) seem very reputable. really happy for everyone involved and full credit for their well-deserved success.
just remember, don’t FOMO into the hype or spend more than you can afford to lose.
BETA⚓️
OpenSea has been undergoing some notable changes.
in case you haven’t noticed, they sneakily unveiled a new logo two days ago:
and have for the first time ever, started saying gm on Twitter.
I know right. can you believe it — that in its almost 5 years of history, it has never ever tweeted out ‘gm’? (someone fact-check this please)
so the question is, why would they do that (now)?
here are my thoughts: OpenSea is a business. for the most part, they’ve never cared much about appeasing us NFT degens aficionados since they never needed to — we were already using their platform anyways.
but there have been a steady rise of competitors eating into its margins — first LooksRare, then X2Y2 and then SudoSwap, now even Magic Ethen (Magic Eden’s ETH section. the SOL crowd doesn’t like it. thankfully, they changed it back quick.) and hey, maybe even HadeSwap (which I wrote about in this newsletter) will launch on ETH someday soon.
OpenSea’s myriad of upgrades — collection offers, new UI/UX and now launchpad & rebranding — are responses to their competitors innovating in the marketplace wars. we’ve seen this before: it’s not unlike how Instagram copied Stories from Snapchat and Reels from TikTok.
so don’t for one second be fooled that OpenSea is doing this from the goodness of its heart; its bottom line is at stake.
DELTA⚓️
that last section got a bit dark.
so, on a lighter note, the Cool Cats art team seems to collectively be doing Inktober!
awesome stuff so far.
oh and with spooky season around the corner, Halloween merch is a must.
speaking of Halloween… anyone wanna guess what I’m dressing up as this year?
and that’s it, folks.
for some of my own native content, check out my own newsletter, substance. it’s irregular but I promise I’ll publish something really fun soon. click the banner below to subscribe to that.
holler at me @subvert_nft. I’ll see you when I see you.
until next time,
