NFTS: Just Jpegs? Digging Deeper Into The Future of NFT’s

NFTS: Just Jpegs? Digging Deeper Into The Future of NFT’s

“Why would someone pay $1,000,000 for a picture of a monkey? It’s just a jpeg”

“Is the NFT industry dead?’

There is a lot of confusion about NFT’s both amongst web3 enthusiasts and those yet to dabble on the blockchain. Of course, like anything with a secondary market (see: baseball cards, beanie babies, pokemon collectibles, gun collectors, art colelctors, etc) there is a speculative aspect to buying and selling these assets. Speculation is typically a combination of intrisinc value, speculative intrinsic value, game theory and timing. 

Intrinsic value is simply what it means to a single individual. If Barry Bonds is your childhood hero, you may value a game worn autographed jersey more than someone else does. If he signed it right in front of you, you may value it more than anyone would ever be willing to pay to take it from you. 

Speculative intrinsic value is what you believe someone out there would be willing pay to for it given what it means to them. You might buy an expensive autographed, game worn jersey even if you don’t value it as such because you speculate that someone out there will value it far more than what you have paid for it. 

It’s not uncommon for ticket scalpers to buy hundreds of tickets to events they have no interest in attending because they believe that there are hundreds of people that will value it more than what they paid to acquire them. 

NFT’s are similar but present and interesting challenge; what are we speculating that people will value? In ticket sales, there is an experience people are valuing, not the ticket itself. In sport memorabilia it’s a connection with or fandom of the sport figure that speculators hope people value, not the price of the item itself.

For examples of this, we look to Gray Wolf Labs. Gray Wolf Labs has been featured on CoinNetwork before in an article called “Changing the Conversation About NFT’s With Wolf Pups”. Gray Wolf Labs publishes companies, brands and project onto the blockchain in a very stealth way to keep speculation so minimum. Instead, they are finding industry movers and shakers and helping them solve their problems using blockchain tech. 

Oftentimes, NFTs are a solution to some of their problems. 

The next three publishing projects from Gray Wolf Labs are Palladium Protocol, The DZP ALL EXCE$$ PASS Celebrity Chef Mark Tarbell’s forthcoming Wine Club, and The Black Swan Web3 Experience. 

All three are existing companies with track records of success spanning decades. So why move to the blockchain and integrate NFTs into and already successful business?

Provenance and Royalties. 

We will use the DZP ALL EXCESS PASS as an example:

Danny Zelikso has been a prominent show promoter for over 50 years. He has worked with the Beatles, Ozzy Osbourne, Shania Twain, The Grateful Dead, Snoop Dogg… you name the artist or comedian and he has worked with and probably become good friends with them. Over those 50 years, Danny has collected thousands of items from autographed beatles guitars to the furniture from Ozy Osbourne’s home. The collection fills 4 homes and 5 storage units in and around Phoenix Arizona

Almost all of it was personally gifted to him, each item has an incredible story. 

Recently, Danny decided it was time to share the collection and the stories with the world and provide exclusive events, opportunities and experiences for the biggest fans of rock and roll history. 

As explained on the one-pager for the membership pass:

 

Beyond the stories

After being kept under wraps for decades, Danny’s truly authentic, iconic, and personal keepsakes are available to you now for the first time. He plans on creating a large museum-like space for one and all to be able to view these treasures, as well as development grants and music tuition incentives for sincere enthusiasts from the proceeds of the collection. DZP All Exce$$ pass holders will get opportunities to win one-of-a-kind memorabilia and get invited to exclusive experiences.

The tech

NFTs are still in the early stages, but their impact on artists and their art is profound. Blockchain technology puts the power back into the hands of artists, performers, creators, and true collectors.

Provenance

The history of collectibles is a long and complicated one due to the complexity of provenance. Provenance is “a proof of ownership of art, antique or collectible, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.” Historically, the origin of an object has been determined by following a trail back to its origin. To determine authenticity, NFTs’ proof of creation is stored on the blockchain and each transaction is permanently recorded on the blockchain, along with its transfer history. Your All Excess Pass can easily be verified as an original since the record is stored securely on the Ethereum network.

Royalties

Marketplaces for secondary sales like eBay and StubHub often make 12-25% of the transaction fees on the secondary and subsequent markets. Rarely does this fee go back to the original creator. The blockchain removes the secondary market fees and allows for royalties or “creator” fees to be coded into the asset and go directly to the original creator or artist.

There is a 10% royalty coded into the All Exce$$ pass, instead of those funds going to a marketplace, they go into improving the pass holder experience.

 

NFTs allow Danny to share the collection and personal experiences while minimizing much of the mundane that comes with memberships sites. No usernames, no passwords, no forgeries. It also lowers the total fees for the buyers, as traditional marketplaces and CC processors wil end up with 20% of each sale from hidden fees, while redirecting the fees to the creators in the form of creator royalties. 

These royalties, unlike ebay or ticketmaster fees, go 100% back into improving the specific experience the buyers of the passes are investing in. 

In other words, for Danny Zelisko, NFT technology presents a solution to an existing problem he and others like him have been facing. It’s not about pumping the price or increasing the speculative value of the NFT. It’s about making incremental improvements to an established brand using the tech most suited to do so.

Are NFTs just jpegs?

Perhaps to many, that is all they will ever bet. But that is certainty not all that they can be. Gray Wolf Labs, Polygon, Horizon/Sequence and many others are bringing in a new wave of NFTs creators that are using NFTs to improve proven products, services and experiences. Since we own a few Wolf Pup NFTs ourselves, we have a front row seat to the growing utility of NFTs in different industries and domains. 

The future of NFT, blockchain tech and Web3 is very bright. The NFT “industry” – meaning speculating on speculation might be dead, it might not. Exciting tech is unpredictable. But NFTs are just getting started. As clarity around regulation comes, more large companies will be adopting and integrating NFT tech for the utilities. They will find ways to use NFT tech that we cannot even imagine at this point in time.

NFTs are certainty not dead. 

Some NFT utilities already adopted and implemented:

  • Starbucks reward program is driven by the blockchain
  • Food services around the world are using blockchain tech for provenance, saving them hours a week on tracking down inventory and verifying authenticity of product
  • A speakeasy in Arizona is using NFTs to verify membership, the NFTs also unlock personal lockers and benefits on location
  • Nike and other apparel companies are using NFT tech to prove ownership and legitimacy of high end products to eliminate forgeries.
Pi NFT: The First NFT Marketplace On Pi Network

Pi NFT: The First NFT Marketplace On Pi Network

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are indivisible digital assets kept on a distributed ledger. They have grown in prominence in recent years as a means of verifying the ownership and originality of digital assets, and they can represent everything from digital artwork to collectibles to virtual real estate.
If Pi NFT is indeed a platform for trading NFTs on the Pi Network blockchain, it might give makers of digital material a new way to make money, while also giving collectors a chance to get their hands on rare digital commodities. In conclusion, NFTs are an exciting new technology that has the potential to profoundly alter our understanding of property rights and monetary worth in the digital realm. Whether or not they will be effective in the long run is unknown, as is the case with any new technology. A variety of factors, including as the Pi Network’s popularity and the desire of users to buy NFTs, would determine whether or not such a market would be successful.

An Online Shopping Mall Built on the Pi Chain

One of the most popular Dapps on the Pi Network is the Pi Chain Mall (PCM). With PCM, a global community of users can purchase, sell, and trade products and services using Pi tokens as payment. The Pi Chain Shopping Center is a breeze to use. After creating a profile and connecting it to their Pi Wallet, users can begin transacting with one another. According to the PCM payments smart contract on the Pi Blockexplorer, users are constantly making transactions and conducting business. While full KYC is not necessary to join Pi Chain Mall at this time, this will change as the Pi Network migrates to the open mainnet. The online market is hosted on the Pi Network’s private mainnet. As a result, shoppers at the Pi Chain Mall are restricted in some ways.
Throughout Pi Network’s infancy, the Pi Chain Mall has been expanding. PCM took first place at the very first Pi Network Hackathon in October of 2021.

Members of the PCM Network can be found all across the world, from China to Nigeria. Business app PCM came in second place at the Hackathon, only behind a marketplace for finding and hiring new employees called Pi Workforce Pool. The PCM group just tweeted their accomplishments to the world. Pi tokens cannot be exchanged for fiat currency by Pi Network users. Currently, the only currency that can be bought or sold within the app is Pi itself.
Every minute, there are transactions on the blockchain. According to the daily volume of transactions, we also have the largest user base of any Pi application,” Edwin, PCM World Community Manager, told BSC News. Despite the fact that “most of the pioneers haven’t get KYCed” and “we are still on enclosed mainnet.” A lot of the Pi Ecosystem’s projects have solid rapport with the Pi Chain Mall crew. The group is in constant contact with Pi Core Team members and can suggest updates to the Pi Network as a whole.

As it stands, PCM users can only make Pi by selling items. But, they are unable to cash out or otherwise use their Pi earnings. “This restricts the availability of Pi on our platform,” Edwin, PCM’s Global Community Manager, said. But PCM will allow withdrawals beginning next month. Users can move their PCM holdings to their pi mainnet wallet via the PCM app. To explain, Pi Network is a mobile blockchain mining project with the goal of bringing the bitcoin revolution to everyone. A group of Stanford University Ph.D. candidates created the project and developed a blockchain mining algorithm suitable for use on mobile devices. For us, this will be an important and landmark event as we usher in a new era in the evolution of pi’s ecological applications. As a result of increased circulation, the value of Pi will increase.

Mobile and desktop browser users can shop at the Pi Chain Mall. The Pi Network App and the Pi Browser both provide PCM access. After years of development, a hackathon, and the creation of two functional Pi blockchain applications, Pi Network is nearing completion of the last stages of transfer to the mainnet.

Tensor Raises $3M For Solana-Focused NFT Trading Platform

Tensor Raises $3M For Solana-Focused NFT Trading Platform

The Solana blockchain will be the primary focus of Tensor, a business that has acquired $3 million in seed funding to develop an NFT (non-fungible token) trading platform. Electric Capital was the primary investor in Tensor’s fundraising round, with several others. Tensor will use the funds to complete development of its NFT trading system and increase its presence in the Solana ecosystem. With its maximum bandwidth and scalability, Solana, a fast, low-cost blockchain, has gained favour in recent months. Because of the platform Tensor is developing, customers of Solana will be able to trade NFTs without incurring excessive trading costs. This is a significant benefit over other block chains that impose prohibitive transaction fees, limiting its appeal to retail NFT traders.

Solana-focused NFT trading software Tensor reportedly raises $3 million in seed round lead by Placeholder, as reported by TechCrunch. Alliance DAO, Big Brain Investments, Solana Ventures, and Solana’s Raj Gokal and Anatoly Yakovenko joined the round as well. Solana’s popularity and the need for a cheap NFT trading platform are two of the many variables that will affect Tensor’s platform’s overall success. Tensor’s platform, on the other hand, has the potential to become a key participant in the NFT industry in light of the increasing interest in NFTs and the increasing usage of Solana.

Tensor, a company with three employees, won between $60,000 and $70,000 at two Solana hackathons in 2022. Wu believes that Tensor’s current yearly run rate of over $1 million is more than sufficient to meet all of the company’s financial obligations. It was in 2022 that Richard Wu and Ilja Moisejevs established Tensor, an NFT trading platform with a special emphasis on the Solana token. Traders can take advantage of its many premium features, such as collection-wide bids, market-making orders, and TradingView connectivity. Moisejevs claims that it has 30,000 unique users per month and over $6.5 million in NFT volume in total.

While many Solana initiatives have merely aped Ethereum, “Solana NFTs may be so much more,” Wu added, describing the platform’s goal. He continued, saying that Tensor expects NFTs to become the “next trillion-dollar asset class,” and that the company’s mission is to build the necessary trading and technology infrastructure to support that. When asked about the similarities between their platform and Blur, Tensor responded by saying they aim to be “similar but different” for Solana. The Tensor team, for instance, considers it a core value to be “financially” and “motivationally” aligned with its users and to view them as partners rather than as customers. Some have drawn parallels between Tensor and the Blur marketplace, which recently caused a stir in the NFT industry by instituting a relatively low creative licence rate of 0.5%. After initially testing out modest creator royalty payments, Tensor has shifted to a “fully enforced royalties standard.”

Several 2023 Fundraising Rounds Have Been Successful

Tensor and its users will benefit greatly from this additional round of investment. But, this is not the only Web3 startup to raise money and succeed this year. Many stories regarding recent investment rounds for Web3 ventures have been published on Rare Sniper. Classic online game Neopets, which was launched in 1999, closed a $4 million starting round in February, with Polygon Ventures as the round’s lead investor. The money will be used to develop a play-to-earn game where players can invest in Neopets NFTs and earn cryptocurrency as a result of their participation. This is a rundown of the day’s most important news.

First, in February, Prisms VR, a virtual reality (VR) learning platform, closed a $12.5 million Series A fundraising round headed by a16z. New technologies like virtual reality and 3D experiences are at the centre of the company’s mission to raise the bar for math education in the United States.

Last but not least, “Hub72+ Digital Assets,” a $2 billion fund for Web3 firms, was recently formed by Abu Dhabi’s worldwide technology ecosystem, Hub71. It’s clear that the Web3 industry is a hot topic, with numerous funding rounds being successfully completed. If Tensor can compete with other NFT trading platforms, only time will tell. Yet, it looks that the platform has enough funding to compete for the time being. Binance Labs, the Ton Foundation, and the Venom Foundation have all invested in the fund, which will provide assistance to entrepreneurs at all stages, from inception to unicorn status.

Yuga Labs’ First Bitcoin NFT Auction Nets $16.5M In 24 Hours

Yuga Labs’ First Bitcoin NFT Auction Nets $16.5M In 24 Hours

On Monday afternoon, Yuga Labs Inc., the company behind the top nonfungible token series Bored Ape Yacht Club, held a sale for its first bitcoin-based collection, dubbed “TwelveFold,” and garnered $16.5 million. The company has announced that 288 successful bidders would receive one of the Bitcoin NFTs from the inventory within one week, while failed bidders will have their initial investment returned to them within twenty-four hours.

Late in February, Yuga released a new art series called TwelveFold, which he called “a graphic allegory for the encryption of data on the bitcoin blockchain” and which was “inspired by bitcoin.” Three hundred pieces of the collection’s generative art were created with that motif in mind. Although while NFTs can be launched on the bitcoin blockchain, this is not a common practise. Since the introduction of the project in January, the number of NFTs uploaded to the bitcoin blockchain that make use of Ordinals images that are “inscribed” on the blockchain has increased dramatically.

In contrast to other NFT collections from Yuga Labs, TwelveFold is the first to be distributed via the bitcoin blockchain. Bored Apes Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Otherside virtual land plots, Cryptopunks, and Meebits are just some of the company’s other NFT collections that have been released on the Ethereum blockchain. Each of the 288 Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFTs was auctioned off, with the highest bidder paying just over 7 BTC. Tokens representing non-fungible digital assets, such as works of art, songs, video game items, concert tickets, and other intangible or tangible goods, are known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a subset of crypto assets based on blockchain technology. Due to the fact that NFTs are exchanged on blockchains and stored in crypto wallets, they have a market value that can be purchased, sold, and traded for cryptocurrency.

After only 24 hours, the auction for Yuga Labs’ first collection of Bitcoin Ordinal nonfungible tokens brought in $16.5 million. By using “satoshis,” the smallest unit of bitcoin named after bitcoin’s anonymous developer, Satoshi Nakamoto, it is feasible to store photos on the blockchain. In total, 288 lucky bidders took home a piece of Bitcoin NFT art from the “TwelveFold” series. Yuga promised the inscriptions to the winners will be sent out within a week, and he promised to refund the money to the losers within 24 hours. In a late February announcement, Yuga called the collection a “base 12 art system centred on a 1212 grid, a visual allegory for the mapping of data on the Bitcoin blockchain.” Yuga employed a recently released mechanism for adding NFTs to the bitcoin blockchain called Ordinals, which required a custom protocol.

Debate arises about the bidding process during an auction.

Since all bids had to be sent in bitcoin to a single address that Yuga managed, the auction’s technique was received with scepticism from the cryptocurrency community. They said that those who won would get their NFT and those who didn’t would get their money back. The idea of handing over money to a firm in the event of failure and then having to wait for a reimbursement was unsettling to the community. There were only 300 of these available, and the sale started on Sunday and lasted for 24 hours. There were 3,246 bids in total, with 288 buyers spending a total of $16.49 million in BTC to win the auction. Bidding went as high as 7.1159 BTC, or about $159,500, and as low as 2.2501 BTC, or just over $50,000.

Twitter user “ordinally,” whose account is dedicated to the Ordinals, chimed in on the debate as well, calling the situation a “scammer’s fantasy” because the Ordinals were “taking custody of bidders’ bitcoin.” He continued by saying that he had no evidence to suggest that Yuga was acting fraudulently, but that this would be a poor model for future auctions.

Amazon Nfts Will Be Tied To Real-World Assets, Token Possible

Amazon Nfts Will Be Tied To Real-World Assets, Token Possible

Serious speculations abound that the largest e-commerce company in the world will begin offering NFTs. Three people with knowledge of the situation have stated that Amazon is preparing to allow its customers to buy NFTs backed by physical assets and have them shipped directly to their homes.
According to sources, Amazon customers would be able to buy a trendy NFT attached to, say, a pair of jeans and pay for it with a credit card, just like they would for any other product on the website. It has been reported by many sources that Amazon is planning to develop its own private blockchain system, albeit it is unclear whether this would be accomplished by a fork of an existing protocol or not. To the best of the authors’ knowledge at the time of publishing, it was also unclear whether or not an Amazon token would be included in the arrangement; one source described the system as “quite walled garden.” This is a major improvement over the e-commerce giant’s prior steps in establishing its NFT platform, which were also highlighted by Blockworks. And once the digital collectibles project is online, the business plans to notify all Amazon Prime customers, at least in the US, two other people added.
The Big Whale reported April 24 as the debut date for the vast company, although this appears to be subject to change. The Amazon spokesman said they couldn’t comment. Amazon’s plan has been compared to Starbucks’ loyalty programme with Polygon in that “they can enroll thousands of users without educating the people about self-custody,” according to one source. There are roughly 167 million Amazon Prime members in the United States at present. At the latest, two sources predicted that the launch would occur in May of this year. With Amazon’s backing, digital assets and their accompanying Web3 ecosystems could finally enter the mainstream.

Amazon is considering emailing all Prime members in the United States to promote its digital collectibles initiative, according to a reliable source. Two more insiders have confirmed that the corporation intends to inform Prime members in some way, either before or after the product launches. It’s unclear what blockchain technology will be used in the background, and the corporation appears to have toyed with several potential integration strategies since it began working on the lofty project. The Amazon team working on the project has reached out to layer-1 blockchains, digital gaming firms, and other startups and long-standing initiatives dealing with digital assets. Dozens more Web3-focused developers have been hired by or are in talks with the company about joining the team.

The Amazon NFT Scandal Rumor Mill is in Full Gear

There was talk around the end of January that Amazon was working on launching NFTs as part of its Web3 gaming strategy. This would restrict NFTs to to those who have Amazon Prime and buy actual goods. A specialised Web3 media portal, TheBigWhale, cited unnamed sources to back up the claim that Amazon is readying the debut of Amazon Digital Marketplace for April 24.

Amazon had planned to release it earlier, but the company had to postpone the debut owing to the impact from FTX. Amazon’s endeavour is unique because it focuses on “real-world assets” rather than just “digital ones,” like the Web3 plan does. Although it is still unclear whether the Amazon Digital Marketplace will debut in April or May as has been speculated, there is a more vital topic to investigate. In the midst of the current “crypto cold,” what does this mean for the broader crypto ecosystem?

Web3 Entry Amazon As expected

Amazon’s entry into the digital asset market would come as no surprise even if there were no rumours circulating about it. After all, with a market price of $1 trillion, Amazon is much more than just another online retailer. The organisation operates in several interconnected markets. Marketing network with ad sales up 23% to $11.6 billion in Q4 of FY22. Amazon’s vast vendor, seller, and brand ecosystem allows for substantial ad revenue, which in turn supports Amazon’s core e-commerce operation.

Amazon is a content provider through its various channels, including Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Studios, and the MGM Studios, Twitch, Audible, IMDb, and other platforms it has bought. With the addition of Whole Foods and the debut of Amazon Go locations, the company’s physical retail division saw net sales rise by 9% year-over-year, to $514 billion, in the fourth quarter of 2022.

In conclusion, when it comes to commercial logistics, no one does order fulfilment on a larger scale or with more complexity than Amazon. The price of logistics has also been on the rise. With a projected $151.8 billion in net sales in 2021, Amazon’s logistics expenditures will rise from their 2019 level of 27.9% of sales.