The NFT market wars continue 💥

Metaversal is one Bankless newsletter for weekly levels on NFTs, virtual worlds and collectibles

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Dear Bankless Nation,

NFT marketplace Blur has gained significant ground on OpenSea in recent days.

Now OpenSea has responded with its own tactics accordingly. The reigning NFT marketplace juggernaut just announced its 0% testing fees, optional royalties and the removal of Blur from the blocklist.

Sheesh! The entire NFT space is caught in the crossfire between Blur and OpenSea now, that much is clear, and today’s events show that the dust here is far from settled.

What happens next remains to be seen, but definitely expect more fireworks and intrigue as the top NFT marketplaces continue to try to improve their positions in the ecosystem. In the meantime, let’s keep you updated on the last week in the NFTs – thanks for reading everyone ✌️

-WMP

👉 Add MetaMask Learn to your community onboarding guides ✨

For the fifth time in as many weeks, the cumulative market cap for the NFT space has risen, this time climbing to 9.36 million ETH for a gain of 2.75% since the last Friday recap. While the number of addresses interacting with NFTs has remained steady recently, the level of activity surrounding NFTs has been rising for over a month now.

The Otherdeeds plots were by far the most traded NFT collection this week, both in terms of volume (Ξ22,604) and number of sales (10,555). In a distant second place were the Moonbirds, which saw their own trading frenzy in recent days, followed by the MAYC, BAYC and Azuki rallies.

The highly anticipated $BLUR airdrop arrived this week, along with the announcement of Season 2 $BLUR rewards. The buzz around this development put Blur decisively in the lead over OpenSea in this week’s de facto trading volume competition, so the big question for now is whether Blur can maintain this big lead for the foreseeable future.

After seeing several giant collectible sales over Ξ800 last week, the top NFT sales this week were much more down to earth in comparison. However, and as usual, ‘Punks and Bored Apes’ have remained the collections with the biggest recent transactions.

This is not a specific coin per se, but rather a new coin discovery system. Zora has just launched the new home page user interface centered around aggregating NFT issues and releases from across the ecosystem. If you enjoy browsing through new projects as they arrive, this new homepage experience is definitely something to put on your radar.

• TreasureTags — Treasure, the decentralized gaming ecosystem on Arbitrum, just launched the TreasureTag “gamertag” domain this week; If you’re trying to hit the Arbitrum NFT scene hard, this is an interesting option

• CryptoCoaster — A 100% onchain, randomly generated roller coaster series? Very cool! This upcoming experimental coin comes via xtremetom, a Cool Cats founder

• Gachamon — An upcoming NFT game where you collect and battle mons in a passive arena format. The memorial for this project will arrive on 22 February 2023

1. MoonCat2878 on the basics of AI art platform BrainDrops:

2. Rafa on Web3 media and publishing:

3. Luke Cannon on how to optimize your reward strategy for $BLUR Season 2:

With Manifold’s Burn Redeem app, you can create NFTs for your fans and then let them “burn” those NFTs to redeem new, scarcer NFTs. This approach offers new gamification avenues for collections, and thankfully Manifold has just released an optimized version of the app!

RabbitHole, which allows people to earn tokens for participating in crypto projects, has just rolled out its V2 system. In particular, the protocol has been rebuilt from the ground up for improved learning, mission and gameplay experiences. As crypto projects look for more ways to engage their on-chain communities, RabbitHole is poised to shine.

With all the unidentified objects in the sky lately, is there an alien invasion? Who knows, but just in case let’s hope the Galactic Federation has a favorable NFT policy:

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal– a bankless newsletter focused on the rise of NFTs in the crypto-economy. He has also recently contributed content to Bankless, JPG and more!

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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or make financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Mediation. From time to time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. In addition, the Bankless authors have crypto assets. See our investment information here.