If You're in AI, Pivot to Friend Tech
Machi's Proposal. Job Shake Ups. And your Overpriced Jin is Here.
👋🏽 Hello everyone, gm gm, WELCOME BACK to another edition of the Overpriced JPEGs newsletter, where we’re catching you up on web3, NFTs, and the greater world of emerging tech.
A couple of things before we jump in:
Big news this week for OPJ NFT holders - you can (finally 😉) start claiming your bottles of Overpriced Jin!!! Use this link to start the redemption, and be sure to drop your party pix on X. Cheers! 🍸
You asked, we listened. After Stoner Cats became the second NFT project in a matter of weeks to get hit with securities charges by the SEC, Carly released her full interview with Tom Bilyeu early, exclusively on X. Tom’s the head of Impact Theory, which was the target of the first SEC action against an NFT company. It’s a must-see interview for everyone in web3, from founders to collectors, and it’s now streaming on all our usual platforms.
Lastly, don’t miss the boat on Cryptoys’ Buy One, Get One deal on Disney’s Mickey and Friends cubes below 👇🏾
Today’s OPJ newsletter is brought to you by Cryptoys!
Disney’s Mickey and Friends Cryptoys Drop Is Live!
Unbox and watch Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Pluto transform into cute collectibles with big personalities and adorable moves!
These 15 digital toys - each with an accessory - give fans a fun way to collect Common, Rare, Legendary, Grail and Ultra Grail rarities.
And to help collectors complete their Disney's Mickey and Friends Cryptoys sets and earn a Grail or Ultra Grail Disney Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey Special Edition, Cryptoys will match you cube-for-cube on every Mickey and Friends Volume I cube you buy before Sunday, Sept. 24 @ 11:59pm ET (while supplies last).
🪞 Don’t Blame the Mirror
Vincent Van Dough used their platform as the artist for Opepen Set 18 to make a pointed commentary about the current state of the market. Upon reveal, ‘Nopepen’ art turned out to be little more than the very faint outline of an Opepen on a single-colored background. When called out by the community, VVD had this to say:
“The NFT Space currently functions more like a casino than an art market. Participants chase unrevealed drop after unrevealed drop until most are left with nothing. Nopepen was intended to highlight this. The title told you what to expect and you still chose to gamble.” - VVD
With degens willing to risk it all on - well, literally anything and nothing - it’s a point that’s hard to argue these days. And in the spirit of FAFO, we’ve compiled some of the latest shenanigans in crypto and NFTs so you all can sit back, relax, and keep rolling the dice.
Anyone remember Momoguro? Backed by the experienced & stacked team at Baobab, their roadmap called for games, IP, metaverse, and airdrops galore. After minting out 8,888 tokens at .22 earlier this year, though, they’ve got very little to show for it and may be on their way to pulling a Recur, according to Loki the Bird’s damning ‘investigation’ into the project.
Machi’s ApeCoin DAO proposal to use 11M in $APE to purchase Apes/Mutants/Punks to get them into museums passed after Machi sealed the deal with 4.1M worth of voting power. Other whale votes were mixed: In Favor - Pimp Capital w/1.4M + JRNY CLUB w/1.9M votes; Against - Mocaverse w/1.8M votes
If you haven’t read the proposal, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, including the creation of an entire team of people whose job it would be to curate a collection of high-value JPEGs and ‘reach out’ to ‘notable institutions’ to display them
Feels like an interesting experiment, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this isn’t how museums curate art. If The Louvre wanted an Ape on the wall, The Louvre would have an Ape on the wall … No Machi required.
If you’re new here, we welcome you to join 140,434 bright + avid readers by subscribing here:
🕹 Game On?
Sugartown Oras, the free mint from FarmVille creator Zynga, went gangbusters this week, flirting with a .4 floor price on 1,700E+ in volume. But is it indicative of a larger trend in rising demand for gaming NFTs or an isolated case due to Zynga’s immense popularity?
There’s plenty of evidence that web3 gaming is on the rise and just getting started, including:
KartParty, is a Grand Prix-themed game with art by Shin Joon-Woo, the chief artist of popular Korean game series Lineage. Kart minted for free, did 308E in volume, and is sitting at just under a 1E floor.
Parallel Avatars jumped 30% to .3E following the introduction of Echo Replication, that puts card supply in the hands of the holders.
Major League Baseball just unveiled its first simulcast live game in a virtual stadium this week, recreating the Rays v. Angels game in realtime.
On the flipside, there’s also lots to suggest we’ve got a ways to go before wider adoption:
Atari founder, known as ‘the Godfather of video games,’ says the future of web3 will require a move away from Play-to-Earn dynamics with a stronger focus on virtual worlds emphasizing AR and VR tech
Several experts mirrored that sentiment in a recent TechCrunch interview with eight web3 gaming execs, where they noted P2E and UX as some of the bigger industry hurdles to overcome
📢 Over 140,000 crypto natives, web2 business leaders, and web3 builders rely on Overpriced JPEGs for the latest insights and trends in NFT technology.
If you’d like to showcase your brand in front of a well-educated, high income audience, complete this form and we’ll get in touch.
👀 Trending in Web3
X’d Out: It’s not just NFTs - Twitter is down bad too. Engagement sucks. Advertisers are bailing. Bots are running rampant. And now, Elon wants to start charging everyone who’s still left using the platform. It’s honestly no wonder everyone is moving to …
Friend Tech: FT is once again the biggest thing happening in crypto. Here’s a quick recap of the latest, but if you’re looking for 24/7 FT coverage, TylerD is your guy, along with this Dune dashboard.
Activity dipped slightly after Friday’s points distribution, where it appeared points were distributed based heavily (if not primarily) on portfolio value, but FT continues to outpace the dying NFT market, with some of the leading keys flipping the floors of most mid-caps
“Creators” are doing everything under the sun to attract followers, from giveaways to free art claims to using fee revenues to buy collection floors - although 3,3 (buy & hold each other’s keys) appeared to be the meta this week.
3LAU abruptly quit FT after more carefully analyzing the risks to his brand. Notably, after being accused of dumping, he said something that will likely become more obvious to folks when the tide inevitably turns - that there’s no real path for creators to exit gracefully without leaving someone holding the bag. At some point, the ride’s going to end and everyone’s got to get off.
Web3 Jobs: We’re continuing to see a ton of shake ups in the market. Art Blocks CTO Purple Hat is stepping down to return to job at Google; PROOF President Joshua Cook is rejoining Goodwin law firm as partner; and SuperRare recently laid off ‘a number of valued teammates’
Fashion Week: A pair of Karl Lagerfield’s ‘Pop Karl phygitals’ sold out in advance of Paris fashion week (despite flying under the radar of most collectors), and web3 teams are still making the case for experiential programming at NY Fashion Week with digital wearables, AI runways, and interactive fashion gaming
Big Banks: Citigroup is launching a permissioned blockchain and a digital token to enable real-time payments for its institutional customers
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce continues the good fight for crypto, urges regulators and lawmakers for clarity on digital assets
Citigroup is launching a permissioned blockchain and a digital token to enable real-time payments for institutional customers
Early indicators from PayPal’s first PYUSD report suggests user adoption has a long way to go
Familiar names in crypto and fintech start $60M venture fund; Oak Grove Ventures will focus on web3, AI, and biotech
Bankrupt FTX estate sues SBF’s parents in attempt to get back some of the misappropriated funds
New York regulators propose guidance aimed at making crypto companies to be more transparent about listings and delistings
Coinbase offers $3k product management bounty to builders to create the next great dApp or protocol
Judge rejects SEC’s request for immediate access to Binance.US software after the SEC accused Finance of non-cooperation
North Korean hacker group stole $3.4B+ in crypto, in part by posting fake job ads on LinkedIn
Optimism announces its 3rd airdrop: 19M OP to be distributed to 31k+ addresses
🌐 web3 + NFTs
Photographer John Knopf had some insightful commentary on digital artwork after CATH Simard’s high-res NFT files are stolen and sold on Etsy
Memeland announces a collab with Trekki, an NFT project backed by Trip.com
round21 launches 2 new special edition basketballs featuring artwork from late greats Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat
Snowfro responded to a post challenging Chromie Squiggles trait data as mathematically incorrect, saying that Ryan’s research is now a part of the Squiggle story and that existing trait data would not be changed
Cool Cats introduces SidKX collection (a burn for 2 pets) and drops a first look at the Macy’s Day Parade balloon, a first for an NFT brand
HELLO Labs and CoinMarketCap dropped a trailer for ‘Killer Whales’ Season 1, a Shark Tank-esque take on web3 featuring CT influencers, including MarioNawfal, Scaramucci, NFT God, and Kmoney.
MetaMask introduces Snaps (the equivalent of browser extensions); learn more in this Bankless interview
FEWOCiOUS is releasing his PFP collection, Fewos, next week; Fewos are the third and final part of FewoWorld, which also includes Paint and Canvas
Boys Club is hosting an invite-only summit during SxSW featuring ‘highly-curated conversations and impeccable vibes’
BAYC is holding a Yacht Club Open House in Hong Kong to introduce non-holders to the ecosystem
Stoner Cats has been delisted from OpenSea and Rarible following the SEC settlement
📈 Brands + Biz
Starbucks Odyssey users who have completed 2 journeys by Sept. 28 will be airdropped a free Stamp celebrating National Coffee Day designed by Vinnie Hager
Honda and Animoca Brands collab this week on the Tokyo F1 event, distributing Honda KEY NFTs to lottery winners; attendees will also receive a commemorative nFT
The public mint for Ducati’s first NFT kicks off on Thursday; 5k collection includes 11 original illustrations of Ducati’s most historically significant bikes
Analysts shared insight into the current landscape of asset tokenization, an industry projected to reach $16 Trillion by 2030
Sony Network Communications Lab, a partnership between Sony and Startale Labs, is working on a new blockchain they hope will be ‘the backbone of the web3 world’
Mr. Beast shares the incredible annual growth of his YouTube channel since he started it at 12 yo
Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence and YT Influencers Meet Kevin and Tom Nash settled their case after being sued for promoting FTX
🤖 AI + Metaverse
Metaphysic AI inked a deal with Creative Artists Agency (CAA); Tom Hanks, Paris Hilton, are supposedly among a group of celebs using the tech to stay head of deepfakes
A Polish beverage company, Dictador, appointed an experimental AI-powered robot CEO last August and she puts in work
Finland startup uses prison labor to train its AI models
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank considers a sizeable investment into OpenAI
Darewise, an Animoca Brands subsidiary, is launching the first metaverse ecosystem token on Bitcoin; engages Horizen labs for token work and consulting
One of Europe’s largest AI startups, defense contractor Helsing, raises $223M Series B
Users claim Google is banning AI artists from using Stable Diffusion on its cloud services; Head of Google Colab says they ‘need to make hard choices sometimes’
Friend Tech may or may not be a ponzi, but Zeneca and Carly have some fun debate the merits of the latest SocialFi craze in this week’s recap. They’re also talking Punks, Penguins, and the Nouns DAO fork. Plus, the latest on the SEC’s case against Stoner Cats and Impact Theory.
Got something to share with our readers? Leave a comment below or connect with me @hawaiianft on Twitter or @sparkitysparkz on Threads 🤙🏾
Subscribe to Overpriced JPEGs!
🍎 Apple Podcasts 🟢 Spotify 🎥 YouTube 🎙 RSS Feed
(Don’t see your podcast player of choice? Find it here.)