Beeple’s Tweets are NFA
Beeple’s Tweets are NFA
Fake Drake. FAAFO SZN. And The Most Memeable Meme Coin
👋🏽 Hello everyone, gm gm, WELCOME BACK to another edition of the Overpriced JPEGs newsletter, where we’re catching you up on the world of web3, NFTs, and the metaverse.
Today’s OPJ newsletter is brought to you by Cryptoys! We’re big fans of their surprise packs and loved having CEO Will Weinraub on the pod, catch the episode here.
Two trends we’re watching in 2023: the rise of kidults and investments in nostalgia. Collectors (and TV producers) know we’re drawn to things from our youth, especially during unstable times.
That’s one of the reasons we’re excited about Cryptoys and their partnership with Mattel - bringing the classic, Masters of the Universe, to the blockchain for the first time. Cryptoys has created a way to collect and play unlike anything else on the market today, with characters that come to life the moment you unwrap them.
These limited-edition action figures offer fans a new way to play & create an elevated collector experience. Go grab your surprise packs of Masters of the Universe Cryptoys Cubes and check out everything Cryptoys is up to here!
🐸 A Ribbiting New Development
PEPE - the most memeable of meme coins - hit the market on Friday and its parabolic rise can only mean one of two things: We’ve hit the top … or rocketship to the moon 🚀🚀🚀
For some context, top-trading meme coins DOGE and SHIB have market caps of $12.3B and $6.5B, while PEPE’s sitting at $130M as of this writing
With low-effort marketing (including raffles for Matt Furie OEs and blatant art ripoffs), the coin jumped 3 million percent fueled by little more than memetic power and hopium; but as they’ve proven time and time again, degens ‘gon degen, and it’s paid off in spades for some early traders
Amidst the early momentum another meme coin, $WOJAK (named after this guy, in case you didn’t know), also started trending when Beeple cleverly coined the phrase $wojacking off
And after weeks of being accused of influencer marketing (which is kinda hard to argue when stuff like this happens), Beeple reminded everyone: DYOR and NFA
It’s anyone’s guess where PEPE hops to next, but: 1) This ain’t the first rodeo for unbridled degenerates; 2) It’s 4/20; and 3) How you gonna argue with this roadmap
If you’re new here, we welcome you to join 140,434 bright + avid readers by subscribing here:
🪦 If FAAFO Doesn’t Get Ya, Taxes Will
It’s been a tough week for whales - and one of our two biggest NFT market makers in particular
FranklinIsBored tweeted that he was stepping back from NFTs after admitting to online gambling losses of 650 ETH and getting rug-pulled on a 2000 ETH investment; he later disclosed he was swindled by someone named nftJorge - an accusation that this account confirmed, but Jorge himself denied
All of it took a toll on the prolific trader, who deleted his Twitter account entirely and went abruptly into retirement after a pretty storied career flipping JPEGs
As if in lock step, Franklin’s counterpart, MachiBigBrother (who himself was down thousands of ETH since Blur’s Airdrop Szn 2 started), announced this week, “I’m out of the nft space FRFR”
Take this with a grain of salt though: A few days after the tweet, he was seen picking up Yuga assets on Blur and dumping 7 wrapped Punks on a bid pool #IfYouCan’tBeat’EmJoin’Em
Tuesday was Tax Day, and even though less than 1% of crypto investors actually pay taxes, a ton of law-abiding folks scrambled for last minute liquidity, including OG Ape J1mmy.eth, who dumped a bunch of assets into WETH bids, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table (one grail that sold for 53.72 WETH got an offer for 9 ETH more a few hours later)
TLDR: With market makers bailing, liquidity drying up, and floor prices disintegrating, there’s only one thing left to do: YOLO on PEPE 😜
🎧 Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe
Love it or hate it, the floodgates are open on AI music after an anon creator dropped the Meek Mill-approved track “Heart on my Sleeve,” using AI-generated vocals of Drake + the Weeknd
Fans say the track is an absolute bop, but Drake’s label Universal Music Group is being a major buzzkill, having the song removed from streaming services and preemptively attempting an outright ban on AI training models in streaming platforms
It feels like a 180 from UMG, which in April of last year invested in Soundful, an AI music generator platform … But as the world’s largest music rights holder, they’re gonna fight tooth and nail to protect their
deep pocketsartists’ IP & rightsUMG’s got their work cut out for them as AI deep fakes drop at breakneck speed; we’ve already seen some bangers “featuring” Eminem, Rihanna x Beyonce, and iconic rock band Oasis
And creators are clearly Dizzy for Drizzy - two more Fake Drake tracks have already popped off since we started writing this - a trend he seems to want nothing to do with
Public Enemy #1 Gary Gensler had his first House oversight hearing in 18 months and republicans just tore into him over his enforcement-over-regulation approach to crypto. The entire 5 ½ hour hearing is worth the watch, but if you’re short on time, this vid will give you all the feels
Speaking of overreach, the SEC wants to categorize DeFi platforms as securities exchanges, which would give them bigger oversight over decentralized activity
With moves like this, it’s no wonder legislation is being introduced to remove Gensler as SEC chair and do away with the position entirely
a16z’s 2023 State of Crypto Report is a must read; catch thecap.eth’s highlights thread for the TLDR
A partnership with ‘social trading network’ eToro lets Twitter users see real-time prices for a wide range of stocks, crypto & other assets via upgraded $Cashtags; even gives users the option to trade crypto & stocks by creating an eToro account
Bittrex is next up on Gensler’s hit list; gets charged for operating an unregistered brokerage selling unregistered securities
Uniswap’s mobile wallet is out of Apple jail and available for download, check out all the features here
After months of dodging process servers working on behalf of plaintiffs in an FTX class action, Shaq was finally served, and it was all caught on his home security cams
No surprise here: Borrowing against NFTs has grown into a billion dollar market
🌐 web3 + NFTs
Jack Dorsey’s decentralized Twitter competitor Bluesky opened for beta about a month ago and early reviews are largely positive; NFT Twitter was thirsty for invites, which were in heavy circulation this week
Trump Digital Trading cards are back for Series 2; Selling for $99 each, the announcement led to a 44% price drop in Series 1 cards, which had a FP of around $500
The Memes by Punk6529 Season 3 launched this week with a pretty cool animation card from Dee Kay
Minted, a doc exploring NFTs and the intersection of art, commerce, and digital ownership, is premiering at Tribeca Film Festival
Memeland teases the GmShow with virtual McD’s billboard knockoff
10ktf confirms what holders have been speculating all along: G-Tags will be the project’s eventual PFPs
The $1,000 Android SOL phone, Saga, starts shipping this month
Luca Netz gave a shout out to active and helpful folks in the Pudgies community, aka the PengPal Mafia,
CyberBrokers’ mech assembly launches this week with 17.5+ billion possible combinations
Thailand’s tourism dept. introduces Szn 2 of Amazing Thailand NFTs; 24k free tokens are available at 20 different IRL tourist sites offering holders discounts on travel, retail, and dining across the country
Every Cryptoys drop is full of new characters to collect. Get your limited-edition Masters of the Universe surprise packs while they last!
📈 Brands + Biz
Canon is launching a curated NFT marketplace on Ethereum, Cadabra; initially available only in the US; will support crypto and credit / debit cards
Mastercard’s free Music Pass NFTs (which unlock an Artist Accelerator Program) are available to mint until the end of April
Adidas holds Into the Metaverse burn for Chapter 1 of its new ALTS Dynamic NFTs, the doorway into its ecosystem; at the end of Chapter 3 holders will get unique PFPs
Early 2000’s file-sharing / music pirating service Limewire launches web3 simulation game that rewards users in crypto for “downloading” pirated music
Hugo Boss adds NFC tags to baseball caps; owners can create NFT digital twins and dress their metaverse avatars
Nike’s first .Swoosh sneaker drop is almost here; the first-ever virtual collection “Our Force 1” will feature hundreds of thousands of digital sneakers for $19.82 each
Starbucks Odyssey is selling its next batch of paid NFTs for $100 each and teases a broader public rollout
Reddit acknowledged its Gen 3 launch challenges; promises to learn, iterate, and improve
🤖 AI + Metaverse
Google is reportedly releasing new AI-powered search tools with expanded features next month
AI skeptic and frontman of the ‘govt needs to put the brakes on AI’ movement, Elon Musk, just started his own AI company
Arbitrum game AI Arena partners with Treasure DAO for a a web3 tourney, ‘Treaure Cup’ with a $100k prize pool
Move over crypto, VC investors are hot for AI these days
New NBA commercial features rapper Jack Harlow getting a basketball rundown from ChatGPT
Adobe adds Firefly to video adding, enabling users to edit using simple text commands
Stanford student Varun Shenoy connected ChatGPT to his phone to enable convos with his digital health history and made the whole code public
In the first stop on our nationwide Happy Hour Tour, Carly interviews Doodles CEO Julian Holguin live from Miami! Julian sheds light on the convergence of Doodles’ parallel paths to lifestyle brands and character IP and the significance of the Golden Wolf acquisition. He also addresses holder frustrations and shares the plan to flip the FUD. Check it out 👇🏾
VeeFriends President Andy Krainak joins OPJ for a token-gated livestream with all the latest. He shares VeeFriends’ tactics for measuring engagement, getting your brand into the public consciousness, and some of their biggest learnings and surprises so far. We’re also talking a little VeeCon, as well as finding inspo from your supposed ‘competitors’.
Carly, Zeneca, and Gavin are back with another stacked weekly recap! They’re talking influencer vibes, Reddit’s latest round of NFTs, and the debate over decentralization and creator empowerment. Catch it all here!
Thank you again to our sponsor Cryptoys!
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Got something to share with our readers? Leave a comment below or connect with me @hawaiianft (Sparkitysparkz) on Twitter or @jacy (Sparkz) on Bluesky 🤙🏾