Newsletter

The Nifty #10: Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Happy Tuesday!

I would have emailed sooner but I became wildly sick yesterday morning. Feeling optimistic that I’ll survive whatever sickness I succumbed to!

Speaking of survival: over the past week Crypto Twitter went crazy after a number of articles declaring “The Collapse of the NFT Market” were published. NFTs are most definitely not dead though and never will be as far as I’m concerned.

For just a little proof of how the market is not dead, look no further than Bored Ape Yacht Club which I discussed in last week’s newsletter (and am a proud holder of). Had you bought last week, despite the continued surge, you’d be up nearly 300% as of today. I’m not selling though as I believe the project is just getting started.

I also actually believe there are some interesting opportunities to monetize the apes that you own. I’ll discuss some of that in future letters…

Gary Vaynerchuk Inks MLB Deal

Gary Vaynerchuk, who I previously interviewed and published a podcast with yesterday, last week announced a major deal through Fanatics to partner with the MLB. It sounds as though they are aiming to become comparable to TopShot which has become one of the largest NFT projects, now worth over $8 billion.

This isn’t MLB’s first forray into NFTs however as they previously partnered with WAX Blockchain through Topps. It’s not clear what this new partnership means for WAX though.

Ultimately, intellectual property partnerships are the name of the game for anybody startup with their eyes on the digital collectible space. I’d expect a slew of partnership announcements in the coming months as the world’s largest IP holders dive in.

Other NFT News

NFTs are coming to AAVE

For those of you who are unaware, AAVE is one of the leading DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols at the moment. While I’ve touched on the merger of DeFi and NFTs in the future and have highlighted a few projects in the space, it’s notable when a mainstay of DeFi announces their entry into the market. In this case, the founder of AAVE announced that NFTs would soon be available to use as collateral for loans on their platform.

While much of what I’ve covered is collectible NFTs, there are other implementations. For example, if you become a liquidity provider on Uniswap, you can receive an NFT in exchange demonstrating that you have invested a minimum amount for a given currency pair. Without diving into the details, this demonstrates that you have money invested elsewhere that theoretically you could access if you needed to urgently pay off a loan.

Hence, AAVE will accept this form of NFT as collateral. This concept is absolutely game changing as not intermediary was required to validate your collateral. Instead, you just deposit an NFT and get a loan!

Sotheby’s auction ends Thursday

One of the biggest events in the NFT world is the Digital Native auction at Sotheby’s which ends this week. Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have been competing to be at the forefront of the NFT space. This particular auction which was curated by Silly Tuna, a former podcast guest, includes a number of pieces from other artists that have been on the show.

The event will end with a live auction of CryptoPunk 7523, which has been SillyTuna’s primary punk up until now. It’s expected to fetch millions of dollars during the auction with a starting bid of $480,000.

Sotheby’s has also created a virtual gallery within Decentraland (one of four primary “metaverses”). Matt Kane, one of the artsits having a piece auctioned off, also created a virtual gallery for his piece in CryptoVoxels (you can view it here).

Upcoming Podcast Episodes

Unfortunately I had to reschedule two of my recordings this week due to my sickness but I still have a ton scheduled this week!

  • Jacob Martin - Today I’m interviewing the “NFT Attorney” to discuss his take on the recent Top Shot lawsuit as well as the DAO legislation in Wyoming.
  • Ben Mayor White - Ben working on leading up the NFT strategy at Adidas. He has some really interesting perspectives on NFTs and big brands.
  • Andy of Fractional Art -.The founder of Fractional Art which is at the forefront of the emerging trend toward NFT fractionalization.
  • Matty of DCL Blogger- Matty has been tracking the rise of the metaverse since the beginning and called the NFT boom last year.
  • Top Shot Fund - One of the most prominent Top Shot and NFT personalities on Twitter, we’ll be discussing the rise and recent fall of the Top Shot market.

I have a number of episodes being published this week as well but be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast apps!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week!