Kio's weekly newsletter #25
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, I got you. Kio’s newsletter is here with all the highlights from last week
Index
Crypto and NFTs
🟡 The multi-chain wave continues
🟡 The little detail on Porsche NFTs that no one is talking about
🟡 The bear market enters its toughest phase, the 'Bottomless Exhaustion’
Solana
🔵 Hello Moon launches their Developer Portal
🔵 Smart Messages are live in the iOS App Store
🔵 Phantom will support the Metaplex royalty enforcement standard
🔵 Metaplex’s new standard is much more than just a royalty-enforcement tool
Solana NFTs
🟢 2022, in 1 minute
Food for thought
🟠 NFT PFPs are the future of social media marketing
Crypto and NFTs
General information about cryptocurrencies and NFTs
🟡 The multi-chain wave continues
After watching DeGods announce they were bridging to ETH, we didn’t think the next big project going multi-chain would be that close.
However, to the surprise of many, in a recent Twitter release, the Doodles team announced that their second collection, Doodles 2, would be launching on Flow
Let’s start from the beginning. What is Doodles 2?
In a nutshell, Doodles 2 are customizable NFTs. It starts by personalizing your look with attributes like body, hairstyle, and emotion. And from there you will be able to customize even more with wearables (apparel, accessories, gadgets + more). These wearables will be released through marquee drops, and brand collaborations with exciting partners, musicians, and creators.
I’m a big fan of customizable NFTs. I think it’s actually a bug, not a feature, that NFTs are randomized, especially for gaming and PFP NFTs.
Who wouldn’t want to create their forever PFP? What if every holder in a collection could wear a PFP that suits them perfectly? Wouldn’t that be awesome?
And it also opens a new revenue source for projects, which can sell different wearables and collaborate with big brands for special drops.
I think it makes a ton of sense and that we’ll see a trend in the market toward customizable NFTs in every ecosystem.
Enough talk about Doodles 2. Why Flow?
I don’t know about you, but before reading this news, I had never heard of Flow. It currently sits in the 44th rank among cryptocurrencies by market cap and not many people talk about it. What’s so special about it?
A great product needs to be loved and easy to use. You have to be able to build it, and it needs to make business sense. This is hard. That’s why Flow makes it much easier for Doodles 2.
You need to understand that this is not a product designed for crypto-native people. This is for the masses. And what does the mass market want?
Casual, mainstream users want safety, low friction, low fees, and to "get it" right away. Many blockchains are great for experts and early adopters, who want freedom and can handle more risks, costs, and obstacles, but are terrible for casual users. Flow is building for both.
Flow eases the onboarding experience with built-in credit card onramps, email-driven wallets, key cycling for security, and more. But at the same time, it has paths to self-custody wallets and an ecosystem of advanced, permissionless dApps.
Let’s talk about feasibility. In the Ethereum ecosystem, an avatar NFT owning a wearable NFT isn't natively supported. This means more time, risk, and maintenance to building Doodles2. It gets even harder once sharding releases. But with Flow, it's easy to build (and build upon)
Also, while Ethereum's programming language is general purpose and harder to learn, Flow's language is specifically built for NFTs and arguably simpler for web2 devs to learn. This makes it easier to onboard devs and build new experiences for Doodles.
I think this move, although hated by many, could actually turn out to be an inflection point for Doodles in their pursuit of reaching the mass market. Whatever happens, it will be fun and interesting to watch, so I’ll follow closely and tell you about everything
Inspired by:
🟡 The little detail on Porsche NFTs that no one is talking about
A little checkbox on Porsche's NFT mint page has piqued the interest of the crypto community, potentially changing the game for NFTs. The checkbox reads "I agree to the immediate provision of the contractual service (i.e., receiving the NFT) and I have been informed that I hereby lose the right of withdrawal".
However, within the linked "Right to Withdrawal" document, Porsche explains that consumers have the option to return their NFT within 14 days of minting for a full refund. This is in line with the distance selling regulations in the UK, EU, and other countries, which provide a 14-day cancellation period for online purchases of goods and services, including digital goods and downloads.
While there has been no legal precedent set for NFTs, many experts believe that NFTs are covered under these consumer protection laws. Porsche's legal team saw this as a risk, which is why they required consumers to opt out of their right of withdrawal before minting.
As a result, other NFT mints could also be subject to these regulations, including a potential right to refund for NFT purchases if the 14-day period has not passed or if the seller did not inform the buyer of their right to cancel, which would automatically extend the period to 12 months.
This news brings up a lot of questions and potential consequences for NFT sellers, who could face fines or even prison sentences if they do not follow the rules. The first successful refund of an NFT will be a landmark moment for the industry and a reminder for NFT founders to consult their legal teams and include a similar checkbox on their mint pages.
After noticing this detail, the writer of the thread reached out to Yuga Labs for a refund on their Otherdeed NFT, which is still within the 12 months period. For the moment, Yuga replied that their legal team would go over his request. Stay tuned for updates as the story develops.
Source:
🟡 The bear market enters its toughest phase, the 'Bottomless Exhaustion’
The cryptocurrency market has entered the toughest stage of the bear market, referred to as "Bottomless Exhaustion," according to industry experts. The bear market, which has seen a significant decline in prices and investor confidence, is divided into three stages: "The Unwind," "Forced Capitulation," and now "Bottomless Exhaustion."
In the current stage, there will be no exciting narratives, and prices are expected to consolidate sideways, resulting in a feeling of boredom and apathy among investors. Many crypto enthusiasts and businesses in the industry may face long days and decreased key metrics, leading to a feeling of burnout and exhaustion.
Despite the current market conditions, industry experts believe that this bear market will test the perseverance of investors rather than their talent. Those who survive the tough times and continue to build value will be rewarded in the next bull market. The next bull market, expected to be a few years away, could bring massive returns for those who persist and stay in the game.
Crypto enthusiast and industry expert, @QwQiao, stated that simply being aware of the exhaustion and the phase the market is in can give investors a significant edge. He encourages those feeling dejected to take a break, close their computer, and go for a walk, but not to give up.
The bear market is just a part of the journey towards building an open, permissionless world, which will take decades, not years. Those who stick it out and continue to invest in the crypto industry will be part of shaping the future of finance and technology.
In conclusion, the bear market may be tough, but it's a test of perseverance for those in the crypto industry. Investors and businesses who remain committed and continue to build value will be rewarded in the long run.
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Solana
Everything about the Solana ecosystem
🔵 Hello Moon launches their Developer Portal
In a move that has excited the blockchain community, the Hello Moon team has announced the launch of its developer platform. The platform provides developers with direct access to real-time on-chain Solana data, enabling them to build new decentralized applications (dApps), analytics platforms, and more.
The Hello Moon Developer Platform offers ultra-low latency webhooks, web sockets, and APIs, allowing developers to engage directly with Solana data at Solana speeds. The platform’s real-time data feeds cover the entire blockchain, including all DeFi and NFT events, as well as every other base operation on the chain.
The APIs and webhooks are structured into two categories: building blocks, which include all base operations on Solana, and summary statistics, which are aggregations derived from building blocks. The building blocks data includes information about all on-chain swaps, NFT events, liquidity pool balances, and metadata structures, among others. The summary tables include data such as token owners for all tokens, NFT wash trading indexes, and ownership overlaps across NFT collections.
In addition, the Hello Moon Developer Portal also offers TradingView-ready data in candlestick form for NFTs and DeFi, making it easier for developers to establish workflows in a no-code environment. The platform’s documentation provides more detail on its data stream capabilities, including how to set alerts and create workflows.
The launch of the Hello Moon Developer Platform is a significant milestone for the Solana community and a testament to the project’s commitment to empowering developers. The platform’s features and capabilities are sure to attract a new wave of developers to the Solana ecosystem, and the team is excited to see what innovative projects will be built using the platform.
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🔵 Smart Messages are live in the iOS App Store
Dialect, the Web3 messaging dApp, announced that it's now live in the iOS App Store. You can now send smart messages to your degens friends
🔵 Phantom will support the Metaplex royalty enforcement standard
🔵 Metaplex’s new standard is much more than just a royalty-enforcement tool
The world of NFTs is about to get a whole lot more exciting with the introduction of Metaplex's new Programmable NFT (pNFT) standards. These standards have the potential to revolutionize the way we think about NFTs and their potential for real-world interactions. The new pNFT framework is far more capable than just being used for royalty enforcement and offers creators a new canvas to explore creative possibilities.
It comes in two parts. The first part is a flexible rule set for creators to enforce royalties in the way they see best for their community and collection. This rule set was designed with a lot of community feedback, taking into account the most pressing concerns the community had about the consequences of hard enforcement. The second part is a generic framework for adding arbitrary rule sets to NFTs. This framework is what makes the new pNFTs so exciting and opens up a world of possibilities for creators.
The flexible rule set used for royalty enforcement allows wallet-to-wallet transfers between personal wallets without restrictions. This means that OTC trading is not restricted by default, and collections are able to manage specific protocol and marketplace interactions through allow or deny list options. The allow lists allow creators to explicitly pick which protocols and contracts are approved for their collections. This option can be useful for collections that want to explicitly restrict market exposure, such as 1-of-1 art or games that want their own in-game marketplace. The deny lists are characterized by a default set of "bad actors" as so defined by the creator, their community, and their intentions for the project. These lists are more suitable for existing NFT royalty issues and help enforce the social contract between creators and the community.
The part that makes the new pNFTs so exciting is the generic framework for adding arbitrary rule sets to NFTs. This framework allows creators to get even more creative and implement any rule set they desire for their collections' assets. For example, a creator could implement a Soul Bound Token (SBT) that only unlocks under certain conditions. Think of a concert ticket that can be traded as a collectible after being scanned at the venue. Or an NFT version of a geocache where you can cache NFTs at specific locations that can only be transferred to other physical caches. This framework opens up the possibility for NFTs to become tools for real-world interactions and create new types of human behavior.
The new pNFT standard is fully backwards compatible and supports interactions with traditional NFTs and the new pNFTs through the new contract interfaces. Solana is known for its fast-paced innovation and creative solutions. The new pNFT standards represent the next evolution in utilizing decentralized technologies to facilitate human coordination in new and creative ways.
In conclusion, the new pNFT standards from Metaplex represent a huge leap forward for the NFT world. The flexibility and creativity they offer to creators opens up a world of possibilities for NFTs to become tools for real-world interactions and catalysts for new types of human behavior.
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Solana NFTs
What’s going on with your favorite Solana projects?
🟢 2022, in 1 minute
Food for thought
The most thought-provoking content
🟠 NFT PFPs are the future of social media marketing
Social media has become an integral part of modern marketing. Corporations around the world are spending billions of dollars on digital marketing every year, but despite their efforts, they are still struggling to reach their target audience. The top 10 most followed accounts on Twitter are all individuals, with globally recognized brands failing to make it into the top 100. So, what's the solution to this problem? Enter NFT PFPs.
NFT PFPs allow individuals to tap into the brand and culture of an NFT collection, creating powerful network effects.
Unlike traditional marketing, NFT PFPs are not just a meaningless #followforfollow train, leading to an inflated and unengaged audience. They are a symbol of shared stories, cultures, and values that unites a community and tells people what you stand for, who your friends are, and why you're here.
Every NFT collection yields a different form of influence and identity, so choosing the right one is crucial. Whether you're looking to join the Solana dev community, become a shoey-chugging degen, or create change and spread love, there's an NFT collection for everyone. The beauty of NFT PFPs is that it only takes an instant for a reader to see it, and in today's fast-paced attention economy, a split second is the difference between your tweet being read or being lost in the void.
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