NFTs
How “More Mature” Collectors Are Driving the NFT Market’s Return
![How “More Mature” Collectors Are Driving the NFT Market’s Return](https://tokentalk.top/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1714607106_How-More-Mature-Collectors-Are-Driving-the-NFT-Markets-Return.jpg)
In 2021, Jim Cramer, a former hedge fund manager and host of CNBC’s Mad Money, appeared to sound the death knell for Bitcoin investing after the Chinese government cracked down on cryptocurrency mining (the term used for the creation of new bitcoin units). “I sold almost all of my bitcoin. I don’t need it,” Cramer announced on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. This was a year before the value of several cryptocurrencies, such as stablecoins TerraUSD and Luna, as well as the multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange FTX, collapsed, and Bitcoin itself fell 77% below its all-time high.
Is the story over? Difficultly. Bitcoin and other forms of crypto have rallied to new highs, and Cramer himself has reversed course, recently claiming that Bitcoin is “here to stay.”
What was called “crypto winter” has ended, bringing a resurgence in interest and prices for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which include art images. “The hype and speculative frenzy that NFTs saw several years ago has disappeared,” says Ric Edelman, founder of the Council of Digital Asset Financial Professionals, which helps financial advisors understand this new investment domain. “Prices are recovering, trading volume has recovered and we are seeing big inflows again.”
Don’t believe the hype: the market may be moving away from its frenetic start to focus more on Florent Tournier’s artistic value
The NFT market took off in 2021, with museums, artists, groups new to the market such as Yuga Labs (of Bored Ape Yacht Club fame), Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties) and National Basketball Association Top Shots, as well as celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Damien Hirst and Lindsay Lohan minting their own blockchain-based digital assets, which can be purchased with cryptography. The NFT market, registered on blockchain platforms and markets, reportedly reached $41 billion in 2021, falling to around $21 billion at the end of 2022, before losing around 95% of its value in 2023.
Bernadine Bröcker Wieder, CEO of Arcual, a company with offices in Berlin, London and Zurich that uses blockchain technology “to facilitate a new and updated standard for secure transactions in the art market”, says that the “value of digital art acquired in NFT markets were indeed inflated over a period of time, along with cryptocurrency prices, thanks to speculation sparked after the pandemic, and there has been a swing of the pendulum back in 2023.” She adds that “activity in NFT markets has also increased, likely due to positive news about cryptocurrencies in the press.”
The art market’s interest in NFTs has matured, according to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and investor in OpenSea, one of the largest marketplaces for user-owned digital goods that includes collectibles, game items, names domain names, digital art and other blockchain-based assets. “It’s much more deliberate and collector-oriented,” says Cuban, adding that “people are less focused on immediate appreciation and more on appreciating the art itself.”
Others involved in the NFT world also disagree with the perception that this form of collectible is more hype than substance. “Our goal is to support artists represented by Pace Gallery in their new media investigations,” says Ariel Hudes, head of Pace’s NFT division, Pace Verso, which was created in 2021. “We’re not trying to increase [price] speculation. We are doing this because we believe in the artists and the work they are creating.”
Artistic value
Others make similar claims about helping artists rather than fueling a frenzied market. Brian McAlister, co-founder of Objkt.com, which claims to be the largest NFT marketplace on the Tezos blockchain, says “our focus as a platform has always been on the artistic value and potential of digital art, not speculative trends.” in cryptocurrency.” He adds that “as speculation calmed, true collectors and art enthusiasts continued to search for real value and artistic integrity. These collectors are not primarily motivated by potential earnings, but are motivated more by the desire to engage in sponsorship and directly support the artists behind the work.”
Another big player in this space, Sunil Singhvi, head of arts and culture at London-based TriliTech (which works with entrepreneurs and artists to build projects on the Tezos blockchain), says “there has been a huge amount of energy and speculation around the NFTs during the pandemic,” with some purchasing them “as an investment piece or as a launch into the art world.” Many of these pieces are now “less valuable than they were two years ago.” However, he says TriliTech continues to work with artists whose main goal is to “find an audience,” and for many artists and collectors the goal is to “belong to a group of people” with similar tastes and interests.
The artistic NFT market has not gone into hibernation. Sotheby’s continued to hold digital art auctions, including a small sale of Bitcoin ordinals (which function similarly to NFTs) in December and a larger one in January that raised a total of $1.55 million, as well as a generative art that began last July with the sale of works by Vera Molnár, a Hungarian artist who died in December at the age of 99, who made US$1.2 million. (Generative art refers to computer-generated artwork determined by algorithms.) The auction house’s next generative art sale will take place in June and will feature renowned French sculptor Bernar Venet, who will launch his first art project digital with this auction.
Michael Bouhanna, a contemporary art expert and head of digital art and NFT sales at Sotheby’s, says some galleries “have had an impact on the NFT market,” citing Gagosian and Pace, but that Sotheby’s and Christie’s, their auction arch-rivals sector, have “led the market, achieving first market sales”. He points to “a shift in collectors” of NFTs over the past year to “more mature, more educated” buyers, as opposed to those entering the market in 2021, which has become “a field for speculators more interested in making a quick profit.”
Auction house endorsement
Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s accept payment for digital art in crypto and occasionally for physical artwork. At Sotheby’s, Bouhanna estimates that about half of NFT buyers pay in crypto (although it is rare for physical art to be paid for in this way), although this is a “relatively rare occurrence,” according to Nicole Sales Giles, director of digital art sales at Christie’s, “but we’re happy to do it” if a collector requests it. “Many digital art buyers firmly believe in the future of crypto, and some prefer to settle by fiat [government-backed currency] and keep your encryption for that reason,” says Sales Giles. On the auction house’s on-chain sales platform, Christie’s 3.0, “100% of payments and settlements are automatically in ethereum, as the platform is completely on-chain.” She adds that crypto is not accepted as a form of payment in any other department at Christie’s.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have gained wider acceptance in the financial sector this year, as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the launch of several bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January, allowing shares in trusts that holders of cryptocurrency are bought and sold on exchanges regulated by the SEC. Franklin Templeton Investments, which manages a portfolio of assets worth $1.3 trillion, launched the first on-chain money market fund in 2023, and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, launched its own fund tokenized in March. Both companies, along with Fidelity, which launched its own bitcoin fund in January (with assets of $6.9 billion), and others, “believe that tokenization will revolutionize the financial services industry in the coming years.” five years,” says Edelman. “The era of the ‘crypto brothers’ is quickly ending, and while they have managed to get 5% of the world’s population involved in crypto, the financial services industry will involve the other 95%.” He adds: “We project that independent advisors will put $150 billion into bitcoin over the next two years.”
Cryptocurrencies have been and continue to be riskier than government-backed money like US dollars and euros. Given that they are created through computers, computer hacking – especially enabled by quantum computing, which can break encryption – has the potential to lead to chaos in digital financial markets. Furthermore, flaws in the computer code, which have appeared twice with Bitcoin since 2010, can increase currency price volatility.
NFTs
RTFKT Announces Project Animus Reveal, Launches Egg Unboxing Event Amid Mixed Reactions | NFT CULTURE | NFT News | Web3 Culture
![RTFKT Announces Project Animus Reveal, Launches Egg Unboxing Event Amid Mixed Reactions | NFT CULTURE | NFT News | Web3 Culture](https://tokentalk.top/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/RTFKT-Announces-Project-Animus-Reveal-Launches-Egg-Unboxing-Event-Amid.png)
RTFKT, the innovative creator-led company renowned for its cutting-edge sneakers and metaverse collectibles, has officially unveiled its highly anticipated collection, Project Animus. This project marks a significant milestone in RTFKT’s journey, introducing a new dimension to its digital universe after a long period of development. However, the initial market response has been disappointing, with the revealed Animi trading at a floor price of 0.05 ETH, significantly lower than the eggs’ floor price of 0.09 ETH.
The Genesis of the Project Animus
Initially introduced in October 2022, Project Animus introduces a unique ecosystem of digital creatures called Animi. These Animi are designed to enhance Clone X’s avatars, offering an immersive and engaging experience for the community. The recent reveal showcased a diverse range of Animi species, each with distinct design traits and elemental attributes, breaking away from traditional trait-based rarity systems.
A New Digital Frontier: The History and Evolution of Project Animus
The Animus Project is RTFKT’s latest intellectual property, promising to revolutionize the NFT space with its unique digital creatures. The journey kicked off on October 8, 2022, with an interactive teaser event called “The Eggsperience.” This livestream event allowed attendees to explore a virtual Animus Research Facility, generating intrigue and excitement among the community.
Renowned artist Takashi Murakami played a significant role in the project, revealing the first Murakami-themed Animus creature, Saisei, on April 30, 2023. This collaboration added a layer of artistic prestige to the project, further elevating its status within the NFT community.
Animus Egg Incubation: A Journey from Egg to Animi
Clone X NFT holders had the opportunity to claim an Animus Egg until March 1, 2024. This was followed by the Animus Egg Hatching event, which ran from May 7 to June 4, 2024. During this period, holders of several RTFKT NFTs, including Clone X, Space Pod, Loot Pod, Exo Pod, and Lux Pod, were able to use a points-based system to increase their chances of hatching rarer Animi. The limited supply of Project Animus Eggs is capped at 20,000, with no public sale planned.
Mixed market reception
Despite the excitement and innovative features, the market reaction to the reveal of Project Animus has been lukewarm. Animi is currently trading at a floor price of 0.05 ETH, significantly lower than the eggs’ floor price of 0.09 ETH. This discrepancy has led to disappointment among some collectors who had high expectations for the project.
What Awaits Us: The Future of Project Animus
Following the reveal, RTFKT plans to release a collection of exclusive Animus Artist Edition characters. Holders of Clone X Artist Edition NFTs are guaranteed to get one of these special editions. The distribution will include 88 Special Edition Animus, with 8 Mythic (Dragon Sakura), 40 Shiny, and 40 Ghost Animus. The odds of receiving a Special Edition Animus are the same for all Eggs hatched, regardless of the points accumulated.
The remaining Animus characters will be distributed among unhatched Eggs, encompassing Special Edition Animus, as well as Cosmic Animus and Murakami Element from Generation 1, Generation 2, and Generation 3.
Conclusion
RTFKT’s Project Animus represents a bold step forward in the NFT space, combining cutting-edge technology with artistic collaboration to create an immersive and innovative digital ecosystem. However, the initial market reception highlights the challenges of living up to high expectations in the ever-evolving NFT landscape. As the project continues to evolve, it promises to deliver unique experiences and opportunities for its community, solidifying RTFKT’s position as a leader in the metaverse and digital collectibles arena.
Summary: RTFKT has unveiled Project Animus, introducing a unique ecosystem of digital creatures called Animi designed to enhance Clone X avatars. Despite the excitement, market response has been mixed, with Animi trading at a lower floor price than eggs. The project kicked off with an interactive event in October 2022, featuring collaborations with artist Takashi Murakami. Following the reveal, RTFKT will release special edition Animus characters. The total supply of Animus Eggs is limited to 20,000, with no public sale planned.
NFTs
The Olympics have reportedly ditched Mario and Sonic games in favor of mobile and NFTs
![The Olympics have reportedly ditched Mario and Sonic games in favor of mobile and NFTs](https://tokentalk.top/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-Olympics-have-reportedly-ditched-Mario-and-Sonic-games-in.jpg)
The long and historic partnership between Nintendo and Sega to create video games for the Olympics reportedly ended in 2020 as event organizers sought opportunities elsewhere.
Lee Cocker, who served as executive producer on several Mario & Sonic Olympics titles, said Eurogamer the International Olympic Committee let the licensing agreement lapse because it “wanted to look at other partners, NFTs and esports.”
“Basically, the IOC wanted to bring [it] “Turn inward and look for other partners so you can get more money,” Cocker added.
The 2024 Summer Olympics kicked off in Paris last week, but there were no Mario & Sonic games available in time for the event to begin – the first time this has happened since the original release in 2007 to coincide with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
Over the past two decades, there have been four Mario and Sonic adaptations for the Summer Olympics, as well as two for the Winter Olympics.
This year, instead of a Nintendo/Sega title, the IOC released Olympics Go! Paris 2024, a free-to-play mobile and PC title developed by nWay, which has worked on several Power Rangers games.
Olympics Go! allows players to compete in 12 sports and unlock NFTs from the Paris 2024 digital pin collection.
The original Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was announced in March 2007 and marked the first time the two mascots – once archrivals in the console wars of the 1990s – appeared together in a game.
NFTs
DraftKings abruptly shuts down NFT operation, leaving collectors panicking over vast holdings of digital tokens
![DraftKings abruptly shuts down NFT operation, leaving collectors panicking over vast holdings of digital tokens](https://tokentalk.top/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/1722519910_DraftKings-abruptly-shuts-down-NFT-operation-leaving-collectors-panicking-over.png)
DraftKings, the daily fantasy sports and sports betting company, abruptly shut down a program called Reignmakers on Tuesday, posting a notice on its website and associated app and sending a mass email to some subset of its user base. Reignmakers, which the company launched in 2021, offered pay-to-play competitions in NFL football, PGA Tour golf and UFC mixed martial arts. The decision to eliminate the entire program, DraftKings says, was not made lightly but was forced “due to recent legal developments.”
DraftKings has yet to specify what “recent legal developments” are troubling its now-dead Reignmakers product. The company was sued in U.S. District Court in 2023 by a Reignmakers player named Justin Dufoe, who accuses the company of dealing in unregistered securities, taking advantage of relatively unsophisticated “retail investors,” and failing to market and support Reignmakers to the degree necessary to return to its users the financial benefits expected. DraftKings filed a motion in September to dismiss Dufoe’s complaint, but that motion was denied on July 2. A scheduling conference was held by the parties on July 29; Reignmakers was permanently shut down on July 30. A DraftKings spokesperson reached by Defector on Wednesday declined to confirm whether Dufoe’s complaint is the “recent legal development” that forced the company’s hand.
Users of the Reignmakers NFL product, who in recent days began murmuring on social channels about a notable lack of DraftKings activity so close to the start of the NFL preseason schedule, were caught off guard and, in some cases, devastated by the news. Members of the DraftKings Discord server, where all Reignmakers-related channels were abruptly shut down and locked following the announcement, flooded a general channel in various states of panic, sharing news, theorizing, lamenting, and, in some cases, openly worrying about whether it would be possible to recoup any decent fraction of the genuinely impressive sums of money they had invested in this DraftKings product.
Reignmakers is nominally a daily fantasy contest—users build lineups of players and then pit those lineups against other users’ lineups for cash prizes—but it’s actually a distributor of nonfungible digital tokens (NFTs), originated and sold by DraftKings, and then frequently resold on a dedicated secondary marketplace also hosted by DraftKings. At the lineup-building level, Reignmakers functions like a card-collecting game, with artificial scarcity driving the prices of the most coveted cards to insane, eye-popping heights. Reignmakers NFTs are tiered and offered in timed drops designed to heighten the sense of scarcity. A user can enter a lower-tier contest using a collection of NFTs that may have cost a few hundred dollars in total (or that were earned by purchasing random packs of NFTs that offer generally low odds of scoring top assets) and throw their lot in with hundreds of casual users competing for relatively unimpressive rewards. Random packs at the lowest tier would have prices as low as a few dollars; mid-tier cards—Star and Elite tiers, I’d guess—could cost a player upwards of $1,000.
But players interested in hunting down the biggest payouts, not just from games but from leaderboard prizes and other assorted prizes, would need to enter higher-tier games, and to enter the higher-tier games, a user’s collection needed to include higher-tier NFTs. DraftKings ensured that these cards were extremely scarce and could only be purchased directly on the marketplace at prices that any reasonable person would consider utterly insane.
For example, the highest-tier Reignmaker contests (called the Reignmakers tier, of course) have in the past been limited to listings with at least two of the highest-tier, rarest NFTs (also the Reignmaker tier) plus three NFTs from the second-highest tier (Legendary). NFTs at these tiers are expensive. Not just expensive in the way that, like, a steak dinner is expensive, but expensive in the way that buying even one of them should trigger a mandatory visit to a gambling addiction counselor, if not sirens and a straitjacket. Back in 2022a Reignmaker-level Ja’Marr Chase NFT from something called the Field Pass Promo Set could be purchased directly from the DraftKings Reignmaker Marketplace for a whopping $32,100.
Reignmakers users purchased NFTs at various levels with the expectation that owning them would convey better odds of winning contests hosted on DraftKings. This was the gamification element of Reignmakers, which emerged several months after DraftKings began trading and minting its NFTs. But as with all NFTs, a very large part of the real appeal for its buyers was the expectation, however insane, that these worthless, virtually worthless, infinitely duplicable digital images would increase in value over time. Now that both the Reignmakers game and the Reignmakers marketplace have been shut down, Reignmakers NFT holders are worried that their investments may have suddenly lost all monetary value. One Discord user described Tuesday as “a bad day to wake up and realize you have $2,000 worth of unopened NFL Rookie Packs”; Another user asked the group if they should expect “a refund” on the $10,000 they’ve already spent on Reignmakers NFTs this year. A pessimistic Reddit user posted tuesday that they would sue DraftKings if they were forced to take a total loss on a Reignmakers NFT collection worth approximately $100,000.
The game (scam?) was built to make numbers like these not only possible, but somewhat easily achievable. A user who intended to compete from a position of strength in multiple overlapping high-profile contests at the same time, and who had been in the blockchain madhouse for a period of years, could easily have spent six figures on Reignmakers NFTs. DraftKings used non-gaming incentives to entice players to spend more and more money, much like casinos give away free suites to players who over-bet on blackjack. Another Reddit user lamented the loss of the additional prizes and ranking bonuses he had hoped to earn in the upcoming NFL season by having a portfolio of NFTs that had reached the highest levels of value and prestige. “I was already loaded up on 2024 creation tokens and rookie debut cards,” said this Reignmakers userwho claimed his portfolio was finally “close to the top 250 overall.”
Dufoe’s complaint says the NFTs minted by DraftKings for Reignmakers qualify as securities, function like securities, and should be regulated as securities. In its motion to dismiss, DraftKings attempted to position its NFTs as game pieces — eye-wateringly expensive, yes, but essentially the same thing as Magic: The Gathering cards or Monopoly hotels. The court, in resolving these arguments, applied what’s known as “the Howey test,” referencing a case from 1946 in which the U.S. Supreme Court established a standard for determining whether a specific instrument qualifies as an investment contract. Judge Dennis J. Casper, in ruling against DraftKings’ motion, concluded that Dufoe could plausibly argue that Reignmakers’ NFT transactions represent “the pooling of assets from multiple investors in such a manner that all share in the profits and risks of the enterprise,” arguing that DraftKings’ absolute control over the game and marketplace effectively binds the financial interests of the company and the buyers, the latter of whom depend on the viability of both for their NFTs to retain any value.
Reignmakers users are different from Monopoly players in at least one crucial way: A person who buys a Monopoly board has no expectation from Hasbro that those little red and green pieces will appreciate in value. It’s a game! No matter what any hysterically conflicted party may say to the contrary, that’s not what NFT collecting is. DraftKings had been selling Reignmakers NFTs for months before they were gamified, and Dufoe, in his complaint, cites public comments made by DraftKings spokespeople that seem to explicitly position Reignmakers NFTs as assets with independent monetary value beyond their utility in Reignmakers contests. Judge Casper, in his ruling on the motion to dismiss, cites a Twitter account associated with a podcast run by DraftKings CEO Matthew Kalish, who in a tweet described NFTs as “the opportunity to invest in startups, artists, operations, and entrepreneurs all at once.” This is probably the kind of thing that NFT peddlers should stop saying. This advice assumes, of course, that NFTs will continue to exist as instruments on the other side of this and other lawsuits.
DraftKings has posted a worryingly sparse FAQ at the bottom of the your ad Tuesday, anticipating but largely failing to address questions from players who see this as yet another in a long line of brutal blockchain rug pulls. In a hilarious reversal of existing Reignmakers policy, Reignmakers users are now allowed by DraftKings to withdraw their Reignmakers NFTs from their DraftKings portfolios and into their personal NFT wallets, where those NFTs will have precisely zero value, to anyone, for the rest of all time. There’s also vague language about Reignmakers users having the option to “relinquish” their NFTs back to DraftKings in exchange for “cash payments,” subject to “certain conditions” and according to an as-yet-unspecified formula that will take into account, among other things, the “size and quality” of a player’s collection.
Reignmakers users are not optimistic. Those who claim to have been victims of other blockchain market crashes are warning their peers on Discord and Reddit to expect payouts that amount to pennies on the dollar; in the absence of any clarifying information, users are unsure whether cashing out their NFTs from Reignmakers to their personal NFT wallets, for reasons that completely pass any and all understanding, would effectively preclude the possibility of delivering these silly digital tokens back to DraftKings. It remains to be seen what exactly DraftKings has in mind with the “certain conditions” attached to the delivery process. There is much that has yet to be resolved. A DraftKings spokesperson contacted by Defector indicated that more time would be needed to answer a list of specific questions and issued a statement noting that it is “in DraftKings’ DNA to innovate and disrupt to provide the best possible gaming experiences for our customers.” The original complaint is embedded below.
Do you know anything about the demise of Reignmakers, either from the consumer side or from the DraftKings side? We’d love to hear from you. Get it in touch!
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NFTs
There Will Be No More ‘Mario & Sonic’ Olympics Because of NFTs
![There Will Be No More 'Mario & Sonic' Olympics Because of NFTs](https://tokentalk.top/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/There-Will-Be-No-More-Mario-Sonic-Olympics-Because.jpg)
Nintendo and SEGA have been teaming up with the Olympics for several years now in the popular Mario & sonic in the Olympic Games series, but a new report claims the International Olympic Committee has abandoned the series in favor of new deals in eSports and NFTs.
According to Eurogamer“A veteran behind the series,” Lee Cocker, told the outlet that the IOC chose not to renew its license with SEGA and Nintendo, letting it expire in 2020. “They wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and eSports,” Cocker told Eurogamer. “Basically, the IOC wanted to bring [it] turn inward and look for other partners so they could get more money.”
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is a series that has been running since 2008, with six main games covering the regular and Winter Olympics. In the games, players could control various characters from the Mario and Sonic franchises and compete in Olympic sporting events.
It’s no secret that NFTs are a big part of this year’s Paris 2024 Olympics. Olympics Go! Paris 2024 is a mobile and mobile-connected game your site states that players can “join the excitement of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with nWay’s officially licensed, commemorative NFT Digital Pins collection honoring Paris 2024!”
As for eSports, Saudi Arabia will host the ESports Olympic Games in 2025. This is part of a partnership with the Saudi National Olympic Committee (NOC) that is expected to last for the next 12 years and is expected to feature regular events.
IOC President Thomas Bach said: “By partnering with the Saudi NOC, we also ensure that Olympic values are respected, in particular with regard to the game titles on the programme, the promotion of gender equality and the engagement with young audiences who are embracing esports.”
In other news, Someone claimed they’re suing Bandai Namco because Elden Ring is too difficult.
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