Blockstars weekly newsletter #23
What happened last week in the world of crypto, Solana and NFTs?
Ever felt overwhelmed by the number of things happening in the world of crypto, Solana, and NFTs? Don't have enough time to spend on Twitter to keep up with everything? Don't worry, we got you. The Blockstars newsletter is here with all the highlights from last week. Now, new year’s themed!
Index
Crypto and NFTs
🟡 43 out of 100 top global brands have already tippy-toed into web3
🟡 Why are NFTs pumping again?
Solana
🔵 The state of Solana
🔵 Updates on the Metaplex royalty-enforcement solution
🔵 $BONK, the data
🔵 Magic Eden suffered a hack
🔵 Jupiter now has priority fees
🔵 Solana plays Pokemon
Solana NFTs
🟢Frank disclosed they received a $3M non-equity grant from Polygon
Blockstars Universe
🟣 It’s our origin token anniversary!
Food for thought
🟠 5 reasons why Web3 will take over gaming
The trader’s corner
🔴 Everything you need to know before trading shitcoins
Upcoming events
💠 The .GG: What is content creation in 2023?
Crypto and NFTs
General information about cryptocurrencies and NFTs
🟡 CZ, CEO of Binance, reminds us that 43 out of 100 top global brands have already tippy-toed into web3
🟡 Why are NFTs pumping again?
Let’s start with the fundamentals. If we look at Opensea’s monthly volume we can see that it has been on a downtrend since February. However, December was the first time volume increased instead of decreased. It might not seem much, but it could be the start of a larger trend.
This has been reflected in every major collection, which has seen peaks in volume.
The vibes on CT have also improved significantly, which is always good
But why is volume increasing?
There are a few reasons that could be the cause of this. The first is that we are seeing a bunch of announcements across top collections and they are lining up in the calendar.
The second reason is the recent popularity of blur, the 0% royalties marketplace on ETH, which has incentivized trading and putting offers on their platform by giving out their governance tokens.
However, if we look at the number of new wallets buying NFTs we can see that it’s not increasing. This means that the liquidity is coming from existing traders and not new ones. We need new buyers for volume to keep increasing.
The number of searches for the term NFT has been decreasing as well.
All of this tells us that this liquidity is coming from money that was sitting on the sidelines and waiting for the bottom of the NFT market to start making big purchases.
How long can this last? It could be another of the mini-bull runs we have seen that last for a few weeks, or it could be the start of a new trend, but only time will tell
Solana
Everything about the Solana ecosystem
🔵 The state of Solana
After the recent rise in price to $17.2, Solana has jumped to 11th place, with a market cap of $6.3B, just behind Polygon with $7.5B. This is a big difference from what we had a couple of weeks ago when it was the 16th and people were writing off Solana as a dead chain.
The recent success of Solana’s first meme coin, $BONK, also brought a massive increase in daily active wallets
We even saw how Solana became the blockchain with the most daily addresses on the 5th of January
🔵 Updates on the Metaplex royalty-enforcement solution
As we discussed in last week’s newsletter, Metaplex developed a new kind of asset, Programmable NFTs, that could be implemented backward to enforce royalties on existing collections. The 90-day period to migrate to the new standard began last Saturday.
They also shared some relevant information about the tool.
On the first release, there was only an allowlist configurable by the creator. Now there’s a denylist as well.
For a program to be included on the allowlist you need to first integrate with Programmable NFTs and then publicly tweet the program address, tagging Metaplex and provide sample transactions with comments on how your integration works
If a project decides to migrate, there is a 14-day minimum notice period for holders
If you have NFTs in immutable escrow-based programs, they may not be recoverable post-migration
One of the first collections to adopt this new protocol is Claynosaurs, which talked about the importance of royalties to incentivize projects to innovate, strengthen the appeal of their digital items, and give back to holders
Magic Eden also announced that they would fully support Metaplex. Users will be able to see a “royalties enforced” badge on the collection page and existing collections using the Open Creator Protocol will be able to migrate to Metaplex’s standard.
🔵 $BONK, the data
At this point, I think it’s fair to assume most people on Solana have heard about $BONK. If you haven’t you can read the section about it in last week’s newsletter. With a current FDMC of $150M, more than 100 000 holders, and the countless number of integrations, we can’t deny the impact $BONK has had on the Solana ecosystem.
It has displayed Jupiter Exchange’s product fit as a well-tuned DEX aggregator, handling the majority of the volume, while the majority of the on-chain LPs come from Orca.
There has been an explosion of Solana developer interest in creating a budding ecosystem supporting $BONK. In terms of volume, we had Famous Fox Federation tools and Dual Finance leading the way.
In terms of the number of unique wallets, Sol Incinerator (the famous tool to burn rugged and scam NFTs built by Solana Slugs) has dominated.
The Metaplex team has also enabled $BONK mints and we’ve already seen 1.5k wallets participating
We have also seen Dandies minting in $BONK, Degen Coin Flip making a $BONK gambling game, Jungle Cats implementing $BONK rewards for stakers, Danger Valley adding $BONK on their app, Quackpot, and even Aurory offering $BONK rewards for playing Aurory Tactics.
You can have fun burning $BONK with your friends as well with “The Bonk Fire”
We now have a pretty clear picture of the supply distribution to the 40 NFT collections
And with all of this, even Forbes had to write an article about it
🔵 Magic Eden suffered a hack
When you read Magic Eden and hack in the same sentence, you tend to check your wallet to see if everything is still there. But this time the hack was a bit different. Instead of losing funds, if you used ME last week, you could see some… let’s say weird images.
What happened is that the 3rd party service they use to cache images was compromised
But that wasn’t the only problem ME had last week. Just a day after they solved the unsavory images, unverified NFTs were being shown as part of verified collections due to a loophole in how ME verified NFTs. The issue is now solved and the people affected were refunded
🔵 Jupiter now has priority fees
You can now buy and sell your shitcoins before no one else if you pay a bit more
🔵 Solana plays Pokemon
Apart from trading meme coins, Solana degens have a new entertainment, playing on-chain Pokemon
On the first day of playing, we already captured Kakuna, died, and had to restart the game
We even defeated the first gymnasium leader, Brock, only to have someone release Squirtle hours after and leave us with only a Kakuna. Will we be able to make it through the game?
Solana NFTs
What’s going on with your favorite Solana projects?
🟢Frank disclosed they received a $3M non-equity grant from Polygon
After we learned about the DeGods and y00ts move from Solana to ETH and Polygon in the last newsletter of the year, we were left wondering how much Polygon granted the DeGods team to take y00ts there.
In a recent communication on Discord, Frank disclosed the figure was $3M, in a non-equity grant, with the purpose of kickstarting and helping scale the incubator they are building. This incubator will allow holders to spend y00tpoints and DePoints in minting new and exciting NFT collections
Blockstars Universe
Everything you need to know about your favorite Web3 game
🟣 It’s our origin token anniversary!
If you are lucky enough to hold one of the coveted origin tokens, there’s Blockstars swag for you. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity!
Food for thought
The most thought-provoking content
🟠 5 reasons why Web3 will take over gaming
Micro-transactions/loot boxes are malicious and provide no upside to gamers
Gamers don't have true ownership over their skins
Gamers will eventually value their time
Gamers have no representation in game development
Traditional gaming business models are dying
The trader’s corner
Learn all the tips and tricks to generate generational wealth
🔴 Everything you need to know before trading shitcoins
Don't put more money than you can't afford to lose
Check the following:
Fair distribution of tokens
The more holders the better
Low FDMC (Full Diluted Market Cap). No more than 7 figures
A good amount of TVL (Total Value Locked) as a % compared to FDMC, preferably between 5-15%
Check for red flags
High FDMC at launch (tens of Millions)
Low TVL compared to FDMC (less than 1%)
Teams keep a big chunk of the supply
Are their Discord and Twitter new or are they recycled from other rugs?
Don't bag hold. It's important to take profits, but also to cut losses. Just follow your gut, if you feel it's a rug, it most likely is so don't put your money on it. Crypto is the wild west. Be prepared to lose it all
All of the info can be found on-chain with @birdeye_so and @solscanofficial using the token ID
Thanks to DS for all the tricks. You can find his thread here:
Upcoming events
Where can you get more of Blockstars?
💠 Tuesday, 10th of January at 6 pm UTC. The .GG: What is content creation in 2023?
💠 Wednesday, 11th of January at 3 pm UTC. Informe Semanal (NFT talk in Spanish)
💠 Thursday, 12th of January at 1 pm UTC. Weekly Deep Dive: FPS Games
💠 Thursday, 12th of January at 10 pm UTC: Weekly town hall + AMA
💠 Friday, 13th of January from 9:30 am UTC. The .GG Doing it Scary Good! 👻 16+hour Space 😈
💠 Monday, 16th of January at 9:30 am UTC. 🕹️Weekly Gaming Updates: What’s 🆙 with ur game?