đđ˝ Hello everyone, gm gm, WELCOME BACK to another edition of the Overpriced JPEGs newsletter, where weâre catching you up on the web3, NFTs, and the greater world of emerging tech.
âď¸ Happy Hour Tour Update âď¸
We are postponing this Fridayâs live event in LA with Betty due to an unexpected family emergency. Weâre rescheduling ASAP, so keep your eyes on our Twitter for updates! Thanks for your understanding!
Weâre excited and grateful that todayâs Overpriced newsletter is brought to you by LACOSTE!
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The quests kick off on UNDW3 website
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đ° Doom + Gloom
Following Azukiâs disaster of a mint last week, most of us were happy to touch grass, down hot dogs, and get absolutely lit this weekend
The PFP market, however, didnât get the Good Vibes Only memo and continued on such a horrific slide that even the normie news made it a point to slap us with a loud âI told you soâ on prime time tv
Over the weekend, post-Elementals capitulation and market panic triggered a historic series of margin calls on seriously over-leveraged traders who resorted to begging for help to save their precious JPEGs from liquidation
In the midst of the bloodbath:
 A group of angry âdiamond Azuki holdersâ hastily spun up a DAO to raise funds to sue the team over the botched Elementals mint; The proposal to hire a lawyer passed, but the DAO governance token was exploited for 35E in the process
Memelandâs Captainz revealed its choose-your-own-adventure PFPs to very mixed reviews, with the prevailing sentiment being the art was low-effort at best and this at worst:
Several folks zeroed in on the lazy layering technique in some of the Captainz art, but it looks like the trait errors may have been an intentional part of the teamâs bug bounty programÂ
In all, TylerD estimates that on the very low end, we saw $1.5B market cap drained from PFP NFTs. Some collections saw a slight bounce in the early part of the week (upgraded PFPs, we see you đđ˝), but we all know weâre just playing a game of musical chairs - except here, the last man standing is the bag holder, not the winner.
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đđž Blaming Blur
While weâre ripping the band-aids off, letâs talk about the big elephant in the room: Blur
Since its inception, Blurâs incentive mechanics and business model have been incredibly divisive, with one camp claiming their liquidity incentives are saving us from ourselves and the other side calling it the match that lit this whole market on đĽđĽđĽ
Every move Blurâs ever made - from driving marketplaces to 0% royalties to offering high-risk loans to degens - has been met with controversy and increasing scrutiny
And as collections bled out over the weekend & over-leveraged traders were rekt on defaulted loans, NFT Twitter was quick to pile on, taking jabs at Blurâs incentive structure, tokenomics, and lack of transparency
So it should be of no surprise that when the team announced Blur v2 this week - and more specifically, new incentives for trait bidding - the backlash was immediate and fierce
Blur founder Pacman, who rarely responds to the noise on CT, went big on defense, calling Waleâs dilution theory âfalse news,â and accusing folks of spreading âbad takesâ while low-key throwing Azuki under the bus for draining $40M from the market last week
Blurâs probably feeling the pressure as competitor LooksRare stages a comeback with a new rewards structure that seems to be pretty profitable for those paying attention
đ Meanwhile âŚ
Beanie Maxi is back - this time as a shit-posting, podcasting âMedia Beanie,â and he kicked things off with a spicy AMA, where he offered mostly negative takes on everything from Ordinals to investing in Blur
DeGods announced a DeLay to the start of Season 3, but is keeping themselves busy with a new roadmap and website and potential new IP rights in the works for holders
Pudgy Penguinsâ Banana Suit physicals are dropping July 8 in limited quantities, reflecting their 2-prong approach to toy collectibles: 1) Mass-produced toys on Amazon; and 2) high-end products for top-tier physical collectors who havenât gotten into NFTs yet
ON1 revealed plans in its token-gated discord for a 10k collection on Ordinals and Tropoâs just not buying itÂ
NFT Twitter had a lot to say about the current state of the market throughout the week. We compiled a few interesting takes ICYMI: Leonidas on collectors v. investors; Franklin on the importance of small flips; Udi on strong communities; CozomoMedici on the resiliency of crypto art
And because we love good vibes here at OPJ - here are 25 good things that happened in NFTs this summer đ
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IRS is cracking down on pseudo-anonymous transactions and crypto tax fraud; hereâs how to stay off their radar
BlackRock refiled its ETF app, naming Coinbase its Surveillance-Sharing partner and brokerage firm Bernstein said the odds of an approval are fairly high
Crypto outperformed major indexes by more than 2x in the first half of the year
A new Ethereum standard, ERC-7265, would enable DeFi protocols to trigger a circuit breaker to mitigate damage from hacks by preventing drains on all tokens
Crypto ATM provider âBitcoin Depotâ is the first of its kind listed on Nasdaq
Mastercard launched one of its âmost ambitiousâ blockchain projects, the Multi Token Network (MTN); designed for mass adoption and improving trust & confidence in the tech
Jack Dorsey and Brian Armstrong call out Apple for blocking software and not supporting BitcoinÂ
Singapore & Thailand ban advertisements for crypto lending and crack down on crypto staking
An analysis declared DCAâing into Bitcoin proved to be a successful strategy no matter when you started investing
Blockworks compiled some of CTâs best Gensler ratios over the years; calls it cryptoâs most powerful protest
Bankruptcy Court approves Celsiusâ request to sell all its altcoins for ETH and BTCHÂ
New Ethereum standard, ERC-7265, would enable DeFi protocols to trigger a circuit breaker to mitigate damage from hacks by preventing drains on all tokens
đ web3 + NFTs
Luminexâ new BRC-69 Standard could reduce the cost of inscriptions for Bitcoin Ordinals by >90%
Decentralized AI artist Botto contributes 365 âSocially Umpired Animals,â to 6529 Meme Cards; itâs Bottoâs first large edition
Ubisoft reveals its next web3 game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicals, a PvP RPG experience
KRO released a mini âState of the Moonbirdsâ thread and RTFKT dropped a short trailer for Project Animus
A Lost Robbie was sold for the first time for 175E, nearly half the cost of the most recent sale of 300E
World of Women teased the upcoming release of its WoW Galaxy-themed Monopoly game
Boss Beauties gives holders a chance to have their BB featured on physical merch from âa MAJOR retailerâ - and get paid for it
Six months after promising to make amends, Logan Paul still hasnât refunded $1.8M to people who bought into his non-existent CryptoZoo video game
Recursion allowed someone to put a fully on-chain music engine onto Bitcoin over the weekend; by entering just a few key words, anyone can instantly generate a music track
đ Brands + Biz
100,000 Funko Stranger Things NFTs are dropping on July 13; a small portion will be redeemable for Funko Pop physicalsÂ
ALTs by Adidas opens chapter 2 with âCollect Your Traitsâ teaser
Winners of the 2023 European Games will receive NFT medals; European Olympic Committee said itâs a stepping stone towards monetizable NFT medals at future events
Sega is releasing its first blockchain game, Sangokushi Taisen, on the Oasys Chain
Lacoste announced a gamified, mission-based experience for its UNDW3 Card holdersÂ
Dior announces B33, a limited run menâs sneaker line paired with an NFT and an NFC chip in the shoe
Sony Network invests $3.5M; collabs with web3 infrastructure firm Startale LabsÂ
Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse collabs with Swiss Football Association on NFT collection to support the womenâs national team
Madhappy partners with MoonPay to launch its membership loyalty program
đ¤ AI + Metaverse
Stability AI CEO says thereâll be no human programmers in 5 years after study shows 41% of code right now is generated by AI
Political satirist / video editor banned from Midjourney for making deep fakes of Presidents and politicians cheating on their wives
Googleâs new privacy policy allows for scraping of public data to improve its AI models
Microsoft adds an AI chat interface into Windows; previews âWindows Copilotâ
Carlyâs joined by Alex Taub (aka AJT) from Truth Labs, the team behind Goblintown, Illuminati, and more recently, Big Inc.. Alex shares Truthâs vision for the ecosystem, his take on the current PFP NFT model, and the story behind Goblintownâs inclusion in the viral Twitch video game, Only Up! Plus, he hints at whatâs next for his DAO-in-a-Box platform, Upstream. Check it out below âŹď¸
Carly and Zeneca dissect the Azuki drama, from Follow the Rabbit to the botched mint to the shocking reveal. They also chime in on Ordinals and Ether (the project, no the token đ) and NFT Asian joins the show to reveal whatâs really going on in the Japanese web3 scene. Catch it all here!
Thanks again to our generous sponsor, Lacoste!
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