Blur'ed Vision

$Blur's Valentine's Aidrop. Emin-AI-Em. And NFTs Take the Field.

👋🏽 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. 

💰 Bags full of $BLUR

• After months of wash trading airdrop farming, active traders were finally rewarded with $BLUR stimmies, which they immediately flipped into more JPEGs 

• The top dog made 3.2 mil $BLUR, but other folks also got huge bags, including this whale, who spent $39k to pocket a cool $1.6 mil

  db @tier10k

  Blur airdrop #2 landing in your inbox soon

  

• The biggest winners were VPN providers as US citizens scrambled for subs upon the surprise discovery they weren’t eligible to claim without a workaround

• Blur rode the momentum, launching a fresh look for its homepage and throwing another shot across the bow on creator royalties, boldly recommending that creators block OpenSea for the time being

• For their part, creators' ears are perked. Jack Butcher turned Blur bidding back on for Checks and some project teams using Blur earned more in the creator drop than they would’ve earned with royalty enforcement.

  🏈 Web3 takes the field at Super Bowl LVII

• Reddit users mint over 1.6m Super Bowl LVII avatars showing mass adoption doesn’t have to coincide with liquid assets

• Crypto exchanges avoid spending on Super Bowl commercials 🐻

• DigiDaigaku’s commercial sent users to mint their Dragon Egg for around 30 seconds while everyone else who scanned the QR code was sent to Gabriel Leydon’s twitter page 

  • Those who minted were rewarded with a (now) 0.25eth floor as existing collections tanked

• NFL adds to their web3 offerings and embraces metaverse as Saweetie performs virtual Super Bowl concert in Roblox

  ThreadGuy 👑 @notthreadguy

  I dropped everything to watch the Super Bowl for a 30 second ad that was supposed to bring generational wealth from a free mint and all I got was the opportunity to follow a Mfer on Twitter 😭

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👩🏽‍💻 We’re Not Just Flipping JPEGs, We Swear

• Emerging tech and NFTs are exploding in the world of entertainment:

  • Music producer Deputy is selling equity in his royalty rights to a variety of songs, including Rihanna’s ‘Bitch Better Have my Money.’ Napkin math pencils out to +/- $14 a year (so not exactly generational wealth), but with 300 in supply and none listed it’s def a low-key flex 

  • David Guetta used AI to deepfake Eminem’s voice and the vid was pretty eerie. Guettta said ‘obviously I won’t release this commercially,’ but believes AI will define future musical styles

  • Nouns DAO funded a $15,000 USDC TV pilot for adult animated show ‘The Nouners,’ and you’ve gotta buy the NFT to watch it

• Kraken agreed to a $30 mil settlement for unregistered offering of staking services and Gensler celebrated with another signature cringe vid

  • Decision implies that all staked crypto will be automatically unstaked, w/exception of ETH, which will need to wait for Shanghai upgrade

  • Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says staking services aren’t securities & is ready to defend that position in court

• Binance stablecoin issuer Paxos ordered to stop minting its centralized dollar-pegged crypto BUSD  

• More than 60 crypto-related consumer-protection bills have been introduced in 25 states in the aftermath of FTX

• All in all, it’s a crypto crackdown, and things are likely to get worse until we get some regulation

🌐 web3 + NFTs

• Yuga’s Gordon Goner (Wylie Aronow) wrote an emotional thought piece about his heart condition and the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding BAYC

• MoonPay partners with Magic Eden to enable credit card payments on the platform

  • On the same day, Magic Eden lays off 22 employees from a variety of depts.

• Bankless dropped a meaty interview w/ Punk6529

• Proof expands Moonbirds backgrounds collection with Ducrece collab for “Proceed w/Caution” holders

• Popular discord bot MEE6NFT previously raised 965 ETH through NFTs and subscriptions. Now accused of soft rugging after pausing their roadmap due to crypto winter

• Marilyn Monroe’s Estate partners with Zeblocks for Monroe NFTs, dropping on OpenSea in Q1

📈 Brands + Biz

• Sony’s latest patent hints at NFTs in the PlayStation ecosystem; patent describes an ‘interconnected system’ that gives users and spectators a chance to rent NFTs depicting artwork and assets from popular PS5 games

• Microsoft cut its Metaverse Core Team after only 4 months in operation, remains “committed to the industrial metaverse”

• Walmart filed trademarks for Sam’s Club NFTs + Crypto + VR

• A 1/1 LeBron James Sorare player card sold for $69,165 (3rd highest in Sorare’s NBA collection) on the heels of Lebron breaking the NBA’s scoring record last week

🤖 AI + Metaverse

• Paris Hilton’s launching ‘Parisland,’ a metaverse dating experience, because, of course

• Amex and Microsoft collab to develop AI-powered business travel expense reporting

• Christian Mastro and Scott Cullather are the driving force behind Lamborghini’s web3 strategy. They say digital scarcity and loyalty programs pair well with luxury sports vehicles as a way of social signaling. Plus, you know, Wen Lambo?!

• The First Mint is the community for web3 sports enthusiasts. Founder LG Ducet joins Carly for a special collab episode to break down everything going on in the world of sports, from sports betting to collectibles.

• Nick Adler's on the pod for our weekly recap. They’re talking Checks meta, Proof Passes, and Ryan Carson’s true calling. Catch up here.

📣 We’re looking for brands to share with our Overpriced JPEGs audience. If you’ve got a product or service you think we’d love, complete this form and we’ll get in touch to discuss sponsorship opportunities. Get your brand in front of the #1 community in web3. Spots are limited!

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