Doodles ‘no longer an NFT project’, Playboy reveals all about NFT earnings and more

by · March 16, 2023

Identity crisis: Doodles co-founder says it’s not an NFT project

One of the co-founders of the nonfungible token (NFT) project Doodles says it’s going to pivot away from being an “NFT project” to become a “leading media franchise.”

In a March 18 post on the project’s Discord, one of the doodle’s founders, Jordan Castro — who goes by the online pseudonym “poopie” — said it wanted to move away from financial speculators.

“We are trying to go from a startup to a leading media franchise. We are no longer an “NFT project,” Castro said.

Castro’s Discord post explaining doodles becoming a media franchise. Source: Discord

Doodles launched in October 2021 and has grown to reach a valuation of $704 million as of a September 2022 funding round. The collection also features iconic musician Pharrell Williams as its Chief Brand Officer.

Going forward, Castro said doodles will focus on their “most loyal collectors” and will not spend resources on “pleasing those with financial motivations.”

Many on Twitter took issue with the apparent shift in focus and pointed to other perceived problems with the project such as recently lack of communication and March 16 NFT sock drop.

However, some supported the move with the founder of NFT startup, Daniel Tenner tweeting “the sooner we get rid of the term ‘NFT project’ the better,” adding such projects “are all startups/companies.”

Castro later tweeted a response to the criticism, doubling down on its new focus, but said it “will continue to use NFT technology as the connective tissue between everything we do.”

He added the goal was to “evolve beyond vicious speculative cycles” by “bringing in intrinsically motivated users”, solving real problems and releasing products that fit the market.

Playboy’s NFT measures reduce crypto revenues

The parent company of the famous porn magazine Playboy has revealed significant losses on the Ether (ETH) holdings it earned from an NFT pool it launched in late 2021.

In a March 18 filing, PLBY Group said it took a $4.9 million impairment loss in 2022 as crypto prices took a significant downturn during the year from all-time highs seen the year before.

Playboy launched its Rabbitars NFTs in October 2021, just before the crypto market peaked. Since then, Ether’s price has fallen around 60% in line with the broader market decline.

Screenshot of Playboy’s Rabbitar NFT collection. Source: Opensea

As of December 31, 2022, the value of Playboy’s crypto holdings is $327,000.

In the filing, it explained that it considers the impairment losses as irrecoverable, even though the fair value of its holdings of digital assets rises after recording the losses.

“The market price of one Ethereum in our main market ranged from $964 – $3,813 below [2022]”, the firm wrote. “However, the book value of each Ethereum we held at the end of the reporting period reflects the lowest price of an Ethereum listed on the active exchange at any time since it was received.”

“Positive fluctuations in the market price of Ethereum are not reflected in the book value of our digital assets and affect earnings only when Ethereum is sold at a profit,” it explained.

Yuga Labs’ new collection fetches over $10 million

NFT conglomerate Yuga Labs has once again made millions from a new NFT collection it created in the next stage of its “Dookey Dash” online game.

On March 15th, those who created a “Sewer Pass” NFT originally required to play Dookey Dash were invited to “The Summoning” to burn their passes to mint an NFT from a new collection titled HV-MTL, or Heavy Metal.

The new collection contains 30,000 NFTs that resemble robot-like cubes that will later reveal a “Mech” according to the collection’s OpenSea description.

The collection has shot up on the secondary market since it dropped. OpenSea data shows that the current floor price stands at 2.3 ETH, around $4,000 and the total trading volume has reached over 6,050 ETH, equivalent to around $10.3 million.

With Yuga’s creator revenue set at 5%, the project has already earned the firm over $500,000.

Those who marked the gathering reported early problems with the end of the process but Yuga identified and fixed issue within a few hours by updating the collection.

Some early coiners of the new NFTs reported problems with so-called “companion properties” not displayed on their HV-MTL initially, but Yuga Labs identified the problem and updated the assembly.

Coinbase launches a ‘one-stop shop’ for NFT creators

The NFT market arm of crypto exchange Coinbase has rolled out a new “Creator Hub” that provides a variety of tools for NFT creators to launch and market a collection.

Coinbase NFT tweeted the announcement on March 16, touting the hub as a “one-stop shop” and providing an overview of the new toys available to creators.

The capabilities of the tool can apparently launch an NFT collection in three steps, track sales on Discord, and post an NFT collection to a website.

Other features included the ability to create gated experiences just for NFT holders along with tools related to the analysis of holder wallets.

It is apparently the first time in a while that Coinbase NFT has released a significant update to its platform.

“Glad to see you’re still alive,” one user wrote in response to the announcement. “For a moment we thought you were dead.”

Other good news

NFT creation tools are clearly all the rage as software-as-a-service giant Salesforce also announced a platform called Salesforce Web3 to help businesses create, manage and distribute NFTs in a sustainable manner.

Without saying exactly why, Formfunction — a Solana-native NFT marketplace — said it will be closing up shop by the end of March after operating for just over a year. However, its shuttering comes as the price of Solana (SOL) and NFT trading volumes have taken a dive during the same period.