CoinMarketCap takes a look at some of the most prominent P2E and NFT events — from KPMG Canada acquiring a NFT and ENS name, to Pixelmon's NFT art generating hype for all the wrong reasons.
![Weekly Roundup: What Happened in Play2Earn Games and NFTs This Week? [Mar. 3, 2022]](https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/63c4ae428a9b4180bc88af82cd8dd063.jpg)
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) might be the easiest way to raise funds in today’s modern world. From political activists tapping on digital collectibles to support people in Ukraine to movie producers turning to NFTs to raise funds, this could be the next evolution of the decentralized world. Nevertheless, launching an NFT collection may not be as easy as you thought.
Find out more about the most interesting events in the NFT space over the past week…
KPMG Canada Acquires World of Women NFT and ENS Domain Name
Weeks after adding Bitcoin and Ethereum to its balance sheet, the Canadian outpost of KPMG has purchased an NFT from the World of Women (WoW) collection. The global accounting firm spent 25 ETH (about $72,000) on WoW #2681, a female NFT avatar with wavy hair and blue skin.
Apart from the WoW NFT, KPMG Canada also purchased an Ethereum Name Service domain name – kpmgca-eth. Taking a look at the wallet on Nansen’s wallet profiler reveals that Gemini was the CEX used to deposit ETH and the wallet currently still holds ~30.3 WETH and ~2.9 ETH. Will we see more NFT purchases from KPMG in the near future? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Nansen Wallet Profiler Dashboard for kpmgca.eth
Commenting on the decision, KPMG Partner and National Risk Consulting Leader Nancy Chase said in a statement that “women are underrepresented in the world of all things crypto,” and purchasing the artwork makes the company proud to make its “first NFT acquisition in a collection that supports women.”
KPMG Canada confirmed the purchase in a Twitter post:
Meanwhile, KPMG’s Cryptoassets and Blockchain Services co-leader Kareem Sadek stated that NFTs appear to have “numerous use cases,” including in areas like philanthropy, talent recruitment, marketing, and customer relationship. That being said, KPMG Canada is hoping to build corporate strategies around NFT acquisition and storage. And although it is still unclear whether the company will delve deeper into the NFT waters, they reportedly said that they are open to considering collections that “align with KPMG in Canada’s values and brand, and we will look for creative ways to invest in the space and support the right causes.”
A $70 Million ‘Horrible’ Mistake: Pixelmon NFT Turns Out To Be a Huge Flop
Weeks after spending around $10,000 on NFTs, many investors have been taught a bitter lesson that it takes more than hype to build a successful crypto project.
Pixelmon, an open-world RPG NFT game, appears to be starting on the wrong foot after the art reveal for its $70 million mint became the laughing stock of Crypto Twitter.
Prior to its mint last month, the Pixelmon team told potential buyers that they would receive “the largest and highest quality game the NFT space has ever seen.” The project had planned to build out a play-to-earn metaverse platform that offers special perks to holders of its “Generation 1” Pixelmon.
7,750 NFTs were sold via a Dutch auction, with mint prices starting at 3 ETH. Being a Dutch auction, prices dropped by 0.1 ETH every 10 minutes, meaning that some mints were less than 3 ETH. Nonetheless, collectors paid a high price for these NFTs.
The supposed “high quality” NFTs were revealed over the weekend and the art was nothing short of appalling, with many participants in the NFT community voicing their disappointment with the artwork. One Twitter user (@DiscoverXnf) said:
Another user, @zachxbt, expressed his shock at the wide gap between what users paid and the quality of work they received. He said:
The most outspoken critic of all might be @cobie, who had much to say about the artwork launch:
Surprisingly, despite the obvious flop, the NFT is managing to retain some value on the secondary market. As of press time, the floor price of the Pixelmon NFTs on OpenSea was 0.4 ETH or $1,160. Even more intriguing is the total volume traded of around 12,600 ETH. However, holders are losing confidence with many of them selling their NFTs after the disappointing reveal.
As a testament to the flop, Pixelmon’s founder, Syber, admitted that the reveal was “unacceptable.” However, the team will not be abandoning ship, at least not yet.
“I’m not going to sugar coat it – we made a horrible mistake. To put it simply, we are sorry. This is unacceptable. We felt pressured to push reveal and the reality is we weren’t ready to push the artwork. This does not represent the brand and we will fix this as we have let many people down with this reveal.”
Speaking on the issue over the weekend, Syber claimed that the NFTs did not accurately reflect what the in-game assets would look like. He went on to apologize to buyers on Discord, after labeling the reveal as “a horrible mistake.” He also tweeted:
Following the drama and public backlash, Syber announced that the team will allocate $2 million to completely revamp the designs by hiring a renowned studio to work on the project. The assurance did not do much to pacify the community as many criticized the wide gap between what was raised and the amount earmarked for developments – a mere 3% of the total funds.
Meanwhile, Syber along with other members of the team reportedly spent the proceeds from the sales on personal NFTs. They purchased Azukis and BAYC clones. Responding to the allegation, Syber said the “market took a dip so our dev team wallet purchased a few nfts,” with a smiling emoji.
Indie Feature Film ‘Calladita’ Turns to NFTs for Capital
Creating an NFT is growing to become one of the easiest ways to generate capital. For instance, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) set up to support the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from prison raised over $53 million to purchase a one-of-one NFT from the “Censored” collection.
Well, director Miguel Faus is turning to NFTs to finance his film starring Emily Mortimer and Paula Grimaldo. Faus is confident that the first few films to raise funds through NFTs will have a “place in history.” He said:
"They will be pioneers in a new route that I think is going to be huge for indie filmmaking across the world."
His debut feature film titled “Calladita” began its crowdfunding campaign on March 2, with NFT rewards to those who contribute to the raise.
Speaking to crypto news site Decrypt, Faus argued that issuing NFT rewards is more economical than traditional crowdfunding models.
In a Twitter post, the director promised that "CALLADITA is going to be an absolute masterpiece," being one of the first feature films ever funded with NFTs. The short film follows the life of a young Colombian domestic worker called Ana. It stars the likes of Paula Grimaldo, who plays Ana, Emily Mortimer of "The Newsroom," and two-time Goya award winner Antonio de la Torre.
NFT holders will receive videos from the film, a unique four-minute film centered on the Ana character, as well as art inspired by Calladita. It is worth mentioning that the four-minute perk is a one-off and only one backer will own the short. Faus said:
"There are a ton of film buffs in the NFT space—and also people who are excited by something new. Even if they're not particularly cinephiles, they are excited to see a new use-case for NFTs. Everything in the film industry can be disrupted by this technology, and will be. The Netflix killer is going to be Web3 native."
Join us in showcasing the cryptocurrency revolution, one newsletter at a time. Subscribe now to get daily news and market updates right to your inbox, along with our millions of other subscribers (that’s right, millions love us!) — what are you waiting for?
How to Protect Your NFTs
Speaking about films, CoinMarketCap just dropped a video on how to protect your NFTs. With the recent uptick in phishing attacks, make sure your NFTs truly secured. Here's how:
Adult Film Star Lana Rhoades Abandons NFT Project, Deletes Twitter Account
While the team behind Pixelmon has promised to stay back despite their flop, another new NFT artist has decided to call it quits. Apparently, launching a successful NFT collection takes more than just piecing jpegs together.
Adult film star Lana Rhoades has pulled the plug on her NFT project dubbed CryptoSis. According to her, she wants nothing to do with NFTs. Rhoades also proceeded to delete her Twitter account last Thursday.
The CryptoSis project was launched in January. The adult film star frequently promoted the project to her large social media audience of 16.8 million followers on Instagram and 1.5 million on Twitter. According to her, CryptoSis will turn out to become “a lucrative investment for holders.”
Things didn’t exactly go as planned as the initial collection did not sell out fast. She was forced to lower it to 6,969 and then again 6,069 to boost its appeal. Sadly, all attempts to bring some hype to the project failed, forcing Rhoades to abandon the project.
Many users have accused Rhoades of “rug pull.” For one, she has decided to keep the funds from the mint rather than refund the affected users. In her defense, she claims that the funds will be used to pay out the development team.
As for the NFTs, the floor price has plummeted from its original mint price of 0.1 ETH ($261) to 0.01 ETH ($26) on OpenSea. Despite the poor performance of the NFTs, it’s holders have been holding on to them. 94% of the NFTs have been held for at least 30 days and the number of unique addresses have remained relatively stable at 3.2K unique addresses.
Marvel Producer Arad Wants to Turn Huxley NFT Comics Into a Film
We’ve seen movies and music being converted to NFTs. It’s probably time for the relationship to move the other way – NFTs being converted to movies.
Arad Productions has announced its plans to turn an NFT comic book series into a feature film. Ben Mauro’s Ethereum NFT comic book project Huxley is set to become a feature film, thanks to the Marvel film producer Ari Arad.
Arad Productions will be collaborating with Web3-focused production studio Feature to work on the film. It has also enlisted Academy Award-nominated VFX supervisor Jerome Chen to bring the ideas to life.
For now, there is no target date for the release of the Huxley film. However, there are plans to release Huxley-themed metaverse experiences later this year, leading to the launch of the movie.
Released in October as 10,000 NFTs, Huxley is a science-fiction tale spread across six issues. The second issue has been released, with four more to go.
Data on OpenSea shows that the two issues have so far generated over 1,920 ETH or about $4.9 million at current market prices. Interestingly, data on Nansen’s NFT dashboards reveal that the top holders have been doubling down and increasing their holdings over time.
Nansen’s NFT God Mode Top Balances Dashboard
Almost 50% of the NFTs are held by 42% of addresses and they’ve held it for more than 90 days. The number of unique addresses having at least 1 Huxley Comic NFT has been increasing over time as well, indicating that there is increasing interest in the collection.
NFT Community Comes Together to Raise Funds for Ukraine
Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the crypto community has stepped up in support of the beleaguered nation. Several DAOs have sprung up to help those affected by the invasion.
Last week, Pussy Riot, along with members of PleasrDAO and Trippy Labs, announced the launch of Ukraine DAO. Pussy Riot tweeted:
Nadya Tolokonnikova, a political activist and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also a founding member of Pussy Riot, explained that the decision to purchase the Ukrainian flag was a “pure gesture of solidarity.”
To raise funds, 10,000 Ukrainian flag NFTs will be sold on the Ethereum blockchain. The proceeds will be channeled to the Return Alive Foundation and NGO Proliska. Furthermore, a unique flag NFT has also been released to allow other people to contribute.
At the time this article was published, the DAO had already raised over $6.7 million from 3,271 contributors. It also won the bid for the Ukrainian flag NFT. The DAO has captured the attention of Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit and founder of Seven Seven Six. He has contributed 10 ETH to the DAO via a public wallet address.
Alona Shevchenko, an England-based Ukrainian activist, is one of the brains behind the project. She said:
"Creating a DAO is a good way to get international and Web3 attention and give the Ukrainian people a voice. This is exactly what DAOs are for, making change offline in the real world harnessing the power of blockchain."
This article contains links to third-party websites or other content for information purposes only (“Third-Party Sites”). The Third-Party Sites are not under the control of CoinMarketCap, and CoinMarketCap is not responsible for the content of any Third-Party Site, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Site, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Site. CoinMarketCap is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by CoinMarketCap of the site or any association with its operators.
This article is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is important to do your own research and analysis before making any material decisions related to any of the products or services described. This article is not intended as, and shall not be construed as, financial advice.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s [company’s] own and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinMarketCap.
