IHOP bamboozles crypto users with ‘NFT,’ Logan Paul’s NFT falls to $10 and more

by · October 20, 2022

American restaurant chain International House of Pancakes (IHOP) piqued the curiosity of Twitter users last week when it announced that it would be “jumping on the bandwagon” and dropping its own “NFT.” As it turns out, the new “NFT” is neither unworkable nor a token.

The pancake chain’s initial announcement on October 6, which sounded like it was entering Web3 with an NFT (nonfungible token) drop, was met with a mixed response.

One Web3 supporter so“kudos to IHOP for having the courage to be ahead and innovate for the future,” while others threatened to unfollow the restaurant’s Twitter account.

But when the grocery chain finally revealed its “NFT” on Oct. 10, it turned out to actually be the chain’s “New French Toast” menu item, adding that it’s “Thick, Fluffy and extremely fungible.”

Twitter users shared a laugh at the chain’s devious ploy to sell more toast, though one Crypto Twitter commented that “they’re missing an opportunity to be part of history” and getting “iHop.eth early.”

Logan Paul’s $600K NFT falls to $10

An NFT purchased for 188 Ether (ETH) at a price of $623,000 in 2021 by American YouTuber Logan Paul saw a dramatic drop in value to just $10 at the end of September, but has since seen a small price increase after it trended on social media.

Paul’s on-paper loss of over $600,000 on his 0N1 Force K4M-1 #03 NFT has been public knowledge for months, but after the YouTuber shared a post on his Snapchat on September 27 talking about it, several Twitter users caught on the story. resulting in more attention for NFT.

Now the token has a bid of 1.5 ETH on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, around $1,900 at the time of writing.

Paul isn’t the only one feeling pinched after the crypto market plummeted in May.

NFT trading volume has plunged 98% from $6.2 billion observed around the end of January to $114.4 million today.

Crypto trademark applications are on the rise

Data shared by trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis on Twitter shows that so far this year, 4,618 US trademark applications have been filed with the US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) related to Metaverse and virtual goods or services, with 367 of those occurring in September.

Crypto-related trademark applications by month. Source: Mike Kondoudis

Notable filings for the month include car brand Ford filing 19 trademarks for all its major models of trucks, cars and vans to be represented in an NFT as virtual vehicles.

Whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s filed a new trademark application on September 19 for NFT-authenticated media, virtual drinks, barware, apparel and digital collectibles.

Media brand Viacom International filed two trademarks for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on September 12 to extend the brand to NFT-backed media, crypto collectibles and crypto collectibles transfer software, while Paramount Pictures filed two trademarks for its Mean Girls brand in September. 12 for similar applications.

Binance set the Guinness World Record for the largest crypto exchange

Crypto exchange Binance teamed up with Mexico-based agency Talent Network to break a Guinness World Record for the largest cryptocurrency lesson in the world during an October 7 class in Blockchain Land, Nuevo León, Mexico.

While only 289 people attended the 50-minute class held by Binance, it was enough to break the record.

Carolina Carnelli, head of marketing at Binance in Latin America, instructed the participants about crypto and Web3, how they can contribute to the freedom of money and financial inclusion around the world and the benefits of blockchain.

The lesson also featured an external presentation from Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and CEO.

The hybrid event combined in-person and online participants, but online participants did not count toward the total for the record.

The talent network already holds two previous records, for the world’s largest robotics class in 2018 and the world’s largest software class in 2019.

More good news:

Ethereum blockchain-based metaverse projects Decentraland and Sandbox are hitting back at reports suggesting low daily user activity on their platforms, claiming the data used was based on a “misinformed” metric.

The anonymous creator of decentralized finance (DeFi) project aggregator DefiLlama, 0xngmi, announced on Twitter that their smart contract code for a new NFT borrowing and lending protocol called LlamaLend is near completion. The protocol aims to solve the problem of NFT holders needing to raise liquidity when holding their digital collectibles, and primarily targets small collections.