Issue 48 šµ Oh, Opensea
Is it too early to call it a sinking ship?
Disclaimer: This newsletter is not financial advice. We buy what we like, and you should buy whatĀ youĀ like.
The past week has been a mess for Opensea.
To start, they sent artists into a panic with an announcement that they were going to limit their lazy minting service. Each creator would ultimately only have a maximum of 250 mints.
Now, the reason why people use Opensea's lazy minting service is that it's free, through some technical maneuvering by Opensea's systems. When fees for minting can cost a few hundred dollars, with no guarantee of even making a sale to recoup that cost, it's understandable why people gravitate to it.
After a lot of uproar, Opensea announced that they weren't going through with the change, citing an increase in fakes and art theft abusing the service as their reasoning for the change.
Like, thatās a valid concern, but was that really the only idea they could come up with?
Not to mention, during all this time, Opensea has yet to completely patch the critically expensive listings bug.
And why care about what Opensea does, right? I guess my unspoken idea was always this: Opensea decentralizing itself will be a landmark event for crypto.
More people probably know of Opensea than DeFi protocols or DAOs and etc. If Opensea can successfully pull off decentralizing itself, it will probably set a precedent for Web3 to come.
But so far, they just keep shooting themselves in the foot. With new general NFT marketplaces like LooksRare actually gaining traction, letās see if Opensea just crumbles to the competition or end up climbing their way out of this mess.
Other news
š± Coachella ā yes, that music and arts festival ā is releasing NFTs in partnership with FTX US. The NFTs will be in the Solana network, and will give owners perks depending on the NFT they get. You can get a copy of their coffee table book, a print of the photo on the NFT, or lifetime access to the festival.
š± After holding a vote, hicetnunc.art will now be known as teia.art. Teia is a fork of the original H=N, but still uses the same OBJKT minter, so NFTs minted there will also be shown on websites like Objkt.com.
š± NFT PvP game Frontier announced that Ubisoft is now their key investor and is helping developing the game. This is probably the first direct foray from a game studio into developing a blockchain game, so eyes peeled for the launch later this year. (Pretty considering the amount of hate the gamers have against NFTs).
Reading List
This video critique against NFTs, āLine Goes Upā has been circulating around. Thereās definitely a lot of valid points, but if you donāt have 2 hours to check it out, the Defiantās response to it is just beautifully thoughtful.
Hereās something you donāt see everyday: a DAO that was formed to acquire BAYCs might start getting dissolved soon. Which yeah, ultimately means selling the NFTs. We find it interesting because you donāt really see the members of a DAO overruling the original creators intents, so go check it out.
Creative Corner
Elle found Dektalkās āHer Sightā collection, and immediately just fell in love. The Thai visual artist specializes in drawing girls. Each piece is clean and colorful, with some masterful use of gradients and lighting effects to really elevate each piece.
Also: theyāre just so cute!
You can check out Dektalk on Twitter, and check out their work on Opensea and Foundation!
Try This
If youāre actively trading NFT, then check out Flips.Finance.
It provides the trending collections, their floor prices, value traded, and a whole lot more data, all in one screen.
Not to mention: itās all free! A lot of data sites were always stuck behind a paywall, so this was a fun find.
If thereās anything we can do to improve, let us know and hit us up onĀ Twitter!