Weekly Roundup: What Happened in Play2Earn Games and NFTs This Week? [Nov. 12, 2021]

Solana is growing to become quite popular among investors and developers. Popular crypto analytics tool Nansen will be enabling support for Solana-based protocols on its platform. Similarly, Todd McFarlane is set to launch an NFT marketplace on the network. Find out some of the interesting things that happened in the NFT space this week.

Civic Debuts Free Digital IDs for NFTs to Solve Bot Problem

Solana, which touts itself as the world’s fastest blockchain, was almost brought to its knees as it struggled to cope with a surge in demand of almost 400,000 transactions per second.

The Solana Foundation blamed “resource exhaustion” for the disruption in service. The pressure on the network was caused by a group of bots, even though their intended use was to outsmart other traders and not to take down the network.

The reality is that bots have grown to become an integral part of financial markets, including decentralized markets. However, their use can often manipulate the markets and cause significant problems for blockchain developers.

In the case of NFTs, bots can be programmed to bid on tokens, as alleged in the case of TIME magazine.

To deal with the growing problem, Civic, a decentralized identity protocol, will be launching a free version of its Civic Ignite Pass. Consequently, buyers of NFTs will need to prove their “liveness” before they can participate in sales.

Similar to reCAPTCHA by Google, buyers will need to verify that they are not a bot. Commenting on the development, CEO of Civic Chris Hart, said:

“We think it is important that genuine supporters of NFT projects control the marketplaces and not bots. So, our goal in distributing tools like Civic Ignite Pass for free is to help cut the growing threat off at the pass and allow users to focus on creating and collecting art.”

In addition to its free version, Civic will also be offering a paid upgrade option that includes KYC and AML requirements for high-value auctions.

NFT “Smart Money” Tool Nansen to Enable Support for Solana

Amid its latest price rally and uptick in activity, Solana is rapidly rising to become one of Ethereum’s major rivals in the NFT and decentralized finance markets.

Speaking of developers, Nansen announced on Tuesday that it would soon integrate Solana. Solana is set to join the ranks of Ethereum and other popular blockchains that are already being supported by the fan-favorite crypto analytics platform.

The new functionality is expected to launch in Q1 2022. Users will be able to gain insight into activity within Solana DeFi protocols, including how new Solana-based NFT collections are performing, as well as their sales and price patterns.

Nansen is one of the most popular resources for NFT collectors and traders. The platform currently tracks more than 100 million crypto wallets from Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, and Binance Smart Chain. With this info, NFT traders can view and filter highly-coveted NFT collections.

Todd McFarlane Teams up With Steve Aoki to Launch NFT Marketplace on Solana

Nearly 30 years after launching Image Comics, Todd McFarlane is back to flip another industry on its head. The “Spawn” creator has teamed up with musician and artist Steve Aoki to build an NFT marketplace equivalent of his Image Comics. 

Back in 1992, the legendary comic book creator pioneered creator-owned stories through Image Comic after leaving Marvel and DC. This time around, he is looking to create a marketplace that is “designed to empower creators to showcase and sell authenticated digital art.”

Dubbed “OddKey,” the NFT marketplace is built on Solana. It is focused solely on creator-owned content as third-party licenses and knock-offs will not be able to make the cut. McFarlane believes that his new platform will provide the “best deal out in the marketplace” for NFT creators. Moreover, he will be auctioning off original art from Spawn as NFTs on the platform in the near future. While speaking to crypto news site Decrypt, the Amazing Spider-Man artist said:

“At Image Comics, we came up with this thing where we gave the best possible deal we could to the owners. And then we said, ‘If anybody wants to join us, you basically get the owners’ deal.’ Not surprisingly, people came […] The space that you're coming into—if you have any interest in NFT's—is going to be headed by creative people. You can hang out with people in suits that basically count money, and try to figure out how to skim off of you every day of their life, or you can hang out with us. We already pay our bills. We're not here to do any of what they're doing.”

Japanese Mobile Publisher Mixi Expands Into Blockchain-powered Games and NFT-driven Experiences

Leading Japanese mobile game and app publisher Mixi announced over the weekend that it will be expanding its business into the blockchain sector.

The Monster Strike publisher will be using the Flow blockchain to deploy blockchain-powered games and NFT-driven experiences.

Although the details of its plan are still sketchy, the CEO of Dapper Labs Roham Gharegozlou said that the Mixi had an “epic NFT strategy,” adding that the publisher will also be deploying NFT experiences targeted at Japanese customers.

Dapper Labs is the creator of the Flow blockchain and also the brain behind NBA Top Shot, one of the earliest success stories of the NFT boom in 2021. While referencing the success of NBA Top Shot, Koki Kimura, Mixi’s President and Representative Director, said:

"Dapper Labs' creativity in design and functionality is so outstanding that it almost inspires a sense of jealousy. In the U.S., they have already become a major presence in the sports economy. We hope to bring that same energy into the Japanese NFT market by transforming a variety of entertainment and sports content into digital assets.”

‘NFT Winter’ Is Coming According to Gary Vee

But despite the general high spirits, investor and NFT entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk wants you to brace up for a possible NFT winter. According to him, there might be a significant pullback in the valuation of NFTs anytime soon.

Gary Vee aired his bearish sentiments while speaking with Decrypt Editor in Chief Dan Roberts at the Crypto Goes Mainstream event in collaboration with Yahoo Finance. On the flip side, the top NFT collector is confident that NFTs are here to stay. He explained:

“The conversation is about to get very interesting when we hit an NFT winter, because there's way too much short-term greed, and supply and demand issues […] There’s gonna be a real [crash], I think. The person on the other side is gonna be like, ‘Gary, look, the [CryptoPunks] are worth $30,000, they were $800,000.’ And I'm gonna say, ‘Here, look at this chart on Yahoo Finance that shows you Amazon stock. Look what happened in March/April 2000, when the whole internet craze crashed.’ Yes, everything got caught up in that undercurrent, because greed and short-term financial interests overvalued everything—short-term behavior overvalued everything. It got washed. And this was the time to buy Amazon and eBay, because those were real companies.”

Vee is confident that a significant percentage of NFTs will ultimately lose their value over time. But similar to companies like Amazon, blue chip projects will surge to new highs. He cited items from collections like CryptoPunks, XCOPY and Bored Ape Yacht Club, as possible blue-chip projects.

“I do believe firmly that 90% of the NFT projects right now, [their] values will be less than that when it's all said and done. The problem is the 2% are going to be so much more extraordinarily high... that one is required to do the homework to see the opportunity.”

Beeple Scores Another Multi-Million-Dollar Sale

Beeple followed up his record-breaking sale with another $28.9 million sale on Wednesday. His latest work, dubbed “HUMAN ONE” is a hybrid physical and digital work. It features a physical sculpture and comes with an NFT.

With a price tag of nearly $29 million, this is the second-largest sum that has been paid for an NFT.

The artwork is a 3D moving sculpture that depicts a person in a spacesuit traveling through a plethora of climates.

Interestingly, Christie’s had earlier estimated that the piece would fetch about $15 million. However, the auction dragged to $25 million, with the auction house netting $3.9 million for the buyer’s premium.