CoinMarketCap takes a look at some of the most prominent play-to-earn and NFT events — from a BAYC owner selling his Ape for just $3,000, to another collector dumping CryptoPunk #4156.
![Weekly Roundup: What Happened in Play2Earn Games and NFTs This Week? [Dec. 19, 2021]](https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/1c66b629c9c14177a761cde8d682942f.jpg)
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Find out some of the most existing play-to-earn (P2E) and non-fungible token (NFT) news over the past week.
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Pay Your Tuition With NFTs on New Web 2 Educational Platform
At the beginning of the year, Grayscale’s CEO Michael Sonnenshein said that education was the missing link between cryptocurrencies and mainstream adoption. Although the industry has welcomed more users since Sonnenshein aired his views, there is still an educational gap in the crypto space. For instance, there have been a lot of talks about a shift to Web 3.0, but very few people know what this means and how to join the bandwagon.
That being said, a team of veteran educators has launched Invisible College, a new platform aimed at teaching people about the core features of Web 3.0. Although the curriculum of the college will be decided upon by its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the lessons will likely involve NFTs, building play-to-earn economies and decentralized communities, one of the "Invisible College" founders — Nick deWilde said.
The most interesting part of the whole initiative is the fact that NFTs will be used as a form of tuition credit. The team behind the project has released a collection of 10,000 NFT aliens on the Solana blockchain. Students will need to purchase one of these tokens to access the courses.
Another interesting twist to the model is that students will be able to sell their NFTs after completing the courses. deWilde believes this model will allow students to recoup their investment after learning.
CryptoPunk Owner Sells NFT for $10M Following IP Dispute
A disgruntled owner of a CryptoPunk has sold his avatar for 2,500 ETH (over $10 million) following growing concerns about the project’s future.
Despite being the highly-coveted O.G., Ethereum-based NFT profile picture (PFP) collection and recording more than $1.75 billion in trading volume to date, CryptoPunks may be losing its shine. As discontent swirls around the Larva Labs’ collection, a pseudonymous collector known as Punk4156 has bowed out of the party and decided it is “time to move on.”
Punk4156 purchased the CryptoPunk in February for 650 ETH ($1.25 million). Back then, it was the largest-ever single CryptoPunk sale. The collector proceeded to build a brand around his pixelated avatar and has grown his Twitter fanbase to more than 100,000 followers. He also co-founded the Nouns NFT project.
While speaking with crypto news site Decrypt, the pseudonym collector said that when he tried to interact with one of Larva Labs’ co-founders John Watkinson about copyright, he was ignored and unfollowed on Twitter. He further explained:
“Over that time, it became clear to me that there was probably no chance that I would ever own the rights to the thing that I was building,” he said. “It's just kind of an illogical position to continue building your brand around something over which you don't have the strongest claim.”
Most recent NFT projects are adding elements of utility and additional perks. However, in the case of Larva Labs, the team has remained silent on issues like licensing and commercial usage. Comparatively, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), another popular NFT collection, allows users to turn their NFTs into merchandise and music acts. A number of collectors are beginning to view CryptoPunks as a relic.
Punk #4156 was bought by Vincent Van Dough, another high-profile NFT collector who runs the Starry Night collection.
UNICEF Taps on NFTs to Connect Schools to the Internet
The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) will be turning to NFTs to raise funds for its Giga initiative.
The organization announced that it was launching a collection of NFTs to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Proceeds from the January 2022 NFT sales will be used to support a plethora of projects, including the Giga, “a global initiative to connect every school to the internet and every young person to information.”
The NFT collection, known as Patchwork Kingdoms is the brainchild of digital artist and data scientist Nadieh Bremer. It was created in collaboration with NFT marketplace Snowcrash Labs, Metagood, the Ethereum Foundation and several others.
Patchwork Kingdoms features 1,000 NFTs, which UNICEF says subtly conveys the importance of Giga as each piece is created using data collected from over 282,000 schools in 21 countries.
Meanwhile, Bremer’s art is inspired by the work of “It’s a Small World” creator Mary Blair. The digital artist noted that she began with simple geometric shapes; circles, squares and triangles.
"In the final visuals, each school has become a tiny square, interlocking with other schools to form Kingdoms, split between those connected and disconnected to the internet.”
Despite its latest romance with NFTs to raise funds, the UN agency has been in the blockchain space since before the launch of its CryptoFund in 2019. UNICEF Innovation Fund has been investing in the space and funding early-stage open-source Web 3 projects.
Hackers Steal $140M From NFT Marketplace Vulcan Forged
NFT marketplaces may be the next soft targets for malicious actors. Vulcan Forged, a Polygon-based NFT marketplace, lost a whopping $140 million on Monday after suffering a security breach.
The project’s team confirmed the attack, noting that about 4.5 million native PYR tokens (valued at $140 million at the time of the attack) were stolen from the wallets of customers.
The attack was targeted at Vulcan’s wallet service known as MyForge. 96 high-vale wallets on the platform were compromised. The attacker managed to cart away with 23% of the circulating supply of the PYR tokens, which were then offloaded on various crypto exchanges.
Vulcan Forged operates an NFT marketplace and a decentralized exchange for gaming tokens. It has also created several blockchain games, including Berserk, Vulcan Chess, Forge Arena and BlockBabies. Interestingly, the team has taken responsibility for the incident and has promised to refund affected users from its treasury.
A more recent update claims that most users have been refunded their PYR tokens. However, this was not enough to stop the price of the token from crashing. The value of its PYR token tumbled by 26.2% following the incident.
As a secondary measure, Vulcan disclosed that it will disable its “semi-custodial solution from the entire Vulcan ecosystem.” In its current system, the private keys of users are co-managed by the company. Failure to secure it at the company’s side led to the security breach. In the future, users will have total control of their wallets and private keys.
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Sells at Massive Discount Thanks to Fat Finger Error
The owner of a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT is probably kicking himself after accidentally selling Bored Ape #3547 for 0.75 ETH instead of 75 ETH.
BAYC NFTs have grown to become one of the most expensive and popular collections in the market. However, a collector made a grave mistake on Saturday when he sold a piece valued at $300,000 for just $3,015.
According to the transaction history on OpenSea, the owner previously purchased the NFT for 1 ETH on May 30. Back then, Ethereum was priced at around $2,290. The seller was supposed to list the piece for 75 ETH but accidentally inputted 0.75 ETH.
The NFT holder blamed “a lapse of concentration” for the error. He reportedly said:
“I list a lot of items every day and just wasn’t paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 ETH of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250,000 was gone.”
This means that the buyer spent just 8.75 ETH or $35,000 to pick up Max’s NFT worth $300,000. The seller appears to have taken his mistake quite well. He said:
“The industry is so new, bad things are going to happen whether it’s your fault or the tech. Once you no longer have control of the outcome, forget and move on.”
Silicon Valley Creator Mike Judge Joins NFT Bandwagon
A month after touting the NFT community with avatars that looked like “King of the Hill” characters reimagined as pixelated CryptoPunks, Mike Judge has launched his first NFTs.
Speaking to Decrypt, the “Beavis and Butt-Head” creator and “Silicon Valley” and “King of the Hill” co-creator described the NFT market as “absurd” and “disturbing.”
While the artist plans on composing new works, his first NFT digs into his personal archive. “Dancing Dan” is a single-edition animated short that Judge began working on in his early days. It is inspired by older people dancing on “The Lawrence Welk Show” and is available on SuperRare. The piece also features music performed by Judge on guitar, drums and upright bass.
“I love animating, but rather than have to do a whole story, and the whole show or movie… you can't have 10 seconds of animation and have it be a painting on a wall, or a show on TV. I just thought: Wow, this is kind of a perfect way to do that. And it's just fun to do.”
The winning bidder will receive three signed physical sketches along with the NFT.
NFTs as Collateral: Nexo Will Soon Let You Borrow Cash With NFTs
Crypto lending was quite a hot topic in 2020. However, with NFTs being the latest buzzword in the crypto space, some companies are beginning to explore NFT-backed loans.
Crypto lending platform Nexo is collaborating with Three Arrows Capital to launch a new crypto credit service backed by NFTs. Similar to the firm’s existing products, customers will be able to use their valuable NFTs as collateral to borrow stablecoins and other digital currencies.
The Nexo NFT Lending Desk is opening this service to pieces from CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, both highly-coveted and expensive NFT collections. More collections will be added to the service in the upcoming weeks.
Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev described the initiative as “a definitive move towards providing financial instruments and Web 3.0-native MetaFi,” adding that “NFTs' potential reaches far beyond art, encompassing ownership, exclusive access, functions, and features.”
“As we continue to discover the full scope of this asset class, services like Nexo’s lending will be in high demand to unlock NFTs’ underlying value while allowing users to retain ownership.”
Trouble in Paradise as Hermès Called Out MetaBirkins NFT Project for Trademark Infringement
It is not unusual to have a new project borrow the name of an already successful franchise or brand in the crypto space. One of the most profound cases of this is the Squid Game rug pull in November.
An NFT collection called MetaBirkins may be in for a long ride after Hermès, the company behind the famous Birkin line of handbags, called it out for infringement on the Hermès trademark.
A representative of the luxury brand told the Financial Times that "Hermès did not authorise nor consent to the commercialisation or creation of our Birkin bag by Mason Rothschild in the metaverse. These NFTs infringe upon the intellectual property and trademark rights of Hermès and are an example of fake Hermès products in the metaverse."
The issue here is that Hermès does not want people to think that MetaBirkins is an official release from its company. Meanwhile, the collection has raked in nearly $1 million, according to OpenSea.
The NFT collection is the work of digital artist Mason Rothschild. It is the second Birkin-themed collection from the artist, featuring faux fur and bright variants of the Birkin handbag. Surprisingly, despite not being affiliated with Hermès, Rothschild has also complained to Yahoo Finance that his designs were being copied.
"Before my collection dropped, there was a bunch of, like, counterfeit NFTs that weren't from my collection."
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