For believers, non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) are an exciting new kind of blockchain tech, building a distributed log of ownership for a Web3 world. For haters, they’re the worst kind of cryptocurrency excess, an environmentally damaging scam that functions mostly to display extreme wealth. Whichever side you take, it’s impossible to ignore the torrent of ambition and money currently pouring into the space. This page is where you can find all The Verge’s NFT coverage — from the brilliant to the ridiculous.
In Ubisoft’s latest strange NFT project, each “Niji Warrior NFT” from Captain Laserhawk: The G.A.M.E. can become “a persona-driven AI agent” that’s capable of “discussing, reasoning, and voting on real community proposals — even when its owner is offline,” according to a blog post.
The project joins the ranks of another NFT game and NFT gear added to a Ghost Recon title.
Nike is moving on from CEO John Donahoe less than a week after Bloomberg published its unflatteringly-titled profile of his four-year tenure.
Under Donahoe, Nike de-emphasized retail stores to chase direct sales, flooded the market with retros like the Panda Dunks, and put the RTFKT NFT shoe brand on the same level as the Swoosh and Jordan Jumpman.
Today’s announcement doesn’t include the RTFKT logo.
Insider accounts of the company reveal a chaotic work environment, ever-shifting priorities, and troubles with the SEC
The fourth collection of digital trading cards shows Trump in typical over-the-top fantasies, like wielding a lightning bolt that apparently represents his role as the “crypto president.” There’s also a physical “collector’s edition” card with a piece of Trump’s debate night suit.
It’s not clear how this ties into Trump’s cryptocurrency platform, which we still don’t fully understand.
The company responsible for Bored Ape Yacht Club is restructuring, and as a result, firing some of its employees. In a memo, its CEO complained that “The creative-first spirit that drove this company from inception has been getting muddied by labyrinthine corporate processes.”
Despite being a .Swoosh-exclusive this BSOD-themed shoe doesn’t have any NFT links or crypto wallet requirements (although you will need to register an account by April 18th).
Nike’s web3 plans for .Swoosh seem mostly dead, with a January blog post saying digital gaming item tie-ins will skip the blockchain and instead just link to Nike accounts.
Two years ago, Starbucks announced a web3 NFT project that was supposed to expand its Rewards loyalty program by using the blockchain... somehow.
One year ago, Starbucks delivered the first paid Odyssey NFTs, selling 2,000 in twenty minutes during the same week Facebook and Instagram quit NFTs.
Now, Starbucks says the Odyssey Beta will shut down on March 31st, and I’m wondering which big brand’s NFT project will last through March 2025.
In 2022, Coachella sold thousands of NFTs, including 10 digital “lifetime passes.” But it partnered with FTX US, Sam Bankman-Fried’s fall took the tokens with it, and owners were left chasing their promised benefits. Now Bitcoin is back, and Coachella’s trying NFTs again.
Each $1,499 NFT in the initial collection comes with a 2024 VIP Festival Pass and access to an exclusive bar.
Of 1,024 NFTs offered, three have been minted so far.
Yuga Labs, the group behind Bored Apes, is purchasing Kevin Rose’s NFT group, Proof. Yuga previously bought CyrptoPunks, too.
As Yuga scoops up more of the NFT world, the question remains: who’s still buying? And is there anything worth doing with them?
The Elon Musk-owned platform quietly removed the option for Premium subscribers to use NFTs as their profile pictures, as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. X also scrubbed all mention of NFT profile pictures from its support page.
This comes a little less than one year after Meta ended tests that let users share NFTs on Instagram and Facebook.
Crypto wallet company Ledger’s Connect Kit software was compromised to insert a wallet drainer. Ledger’s CEO blamed a phishing attack on an ex-employee without explaining how their account still had access.
Even though the Solana Saga crypto phone flopped, selling only 2,500 units, it suddenly sold out in the US on Thursday. The Block reports each phone comes with 30 million “bonk” tokens. Their price has spiked to $0.000028 each, which adds up to more than the phone’s $599 price — assuming you can get the phone and sell them in time.
And Web3 is Going Just Great points out that a blockchain-linked online chess platform, The Immortal Game, has dropped NFT and play-to-earn features after finding out “that by offering large amounts of cash with no limit barrier to entry, we encouraged heavy cheating on the platform and degraded the user experience for our legitimate player base.”
The Bored Ape Yacht Club has concluded its investigation into what caused at least 15 convention attendees to suffer eye pain, vision problems, and sunburnt skin during ApeFest 2023, determining that UV-A emitting lights were likely behind the injuries.
A similar situation was reported in 2017 after specialist lights used for disinfection were incorrectly installed during a Hypebeast event.
CEO Devin Finzer says OpenSea is “shifting to a smaller team with a direct connection to users.” Decrypt reports about 50 percent of employees are impacted. When it laid off 20 percent of its employees last year, around 230 people remained.
This chart shows OpenSea activity peaked with over 50,000 active wallets (around the time it was valued at $13 billion) and $140 million in daily volume, which has dropped to fewer than 8,000 active wallets and $2.3 million in volume.
Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs has been awarded over $1.5 million in damages, plus lawyer’s fees, for the trademark infringement lawsuit it won in April against Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, who had launched a copycat version of the NFT collection.
Defendants intentionally infringed Yuga’s BAYC Marks with a bad faith intent to profit from their use of those Marks. Indeed, even after Yuga filed this action and after the Court issued its April 21, 2023 Order, Defendants continued to market and promote their infringing RR/BAYC NFT collection and their Ape Market.
The majority of FBI agent Richard Busik’s testimony seemed geared toward establishing jurisdiction — he was explaining cell phone pings that occurred in New York City — so I left it out of my recap.
But in order to tie Sam Bankman-Fried to the cell phone number, CoinDesk reports how the prosecution picked perhaps the funniest possible email: the Bahamian Prime Minister asking for a favor.
Yuga Labs, the $4 billion outfit behind the Bored Apes and other NFT projects, announced recently “that a number of roles have been eliminated across the company,” with restructuring cutting jobs in the US and leaving international roles under evaluation.
Now Yuga’s going “all-in on our Otherside strategy,” referring to its metaverse gaming land grab.
Meanwhile, someone continues to trade the tokens at prices of more than $40,000, and despite the NFT market’s ongoing slide, projects like Starbucks Odyssey and Nike’s .SWOOSH keep trying to make it catch on.
[Yuga Labs News]
This Rolling Stone article sourcing some kind of report claiming 95 percent of NFTs are worthless almost feels like the sunshine of reality peeking into the world of crypto mania.
The only problem? Even people who sell NFTs have long said almost all of them will be worthless (usually, the person who says this implies their own NFTs are in the special 5 percent), and the article still includes NFT promoters’ claims the tokens might be useful for concert tickets or games.
It also doesn’t mention Rolling Stone hyping BAYC with a limited edition issue in 2021, followed by a second collaboration just last year.
It’s removing the GameStop Wallet from the App Store and Chrome Web Store on November 1st, according to a notice posted on its NFT website. GameStop is blaming the “regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space.”
When the company laid off staff in December, Axios reported that the crypto wallet team was “heavily impacted.”
The company announced its fourth series of Collectible Avatars on Wednesday. Reddit is putting some limits on who can buy them for the first day of launch as part of an “initial access” period.
Reddit first released Collectible Avatars last year, and they could be a way for Reddit to bring in some money as it tries to make a profit.
This Threads post about the NFT for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet isn’t quite right. There is a $3~ bid, but another one is nearly $2,000, and the owner, Sina Estavi, has claimed he might never sell anyway.
On the other hand... that was after Estavi was imprisoned for a bit under crypto scam allegations, he’s currently shilling a new crypto x AI token scheme, and he said he’d never sell the Dorsey NFT after attempting to do so and drawing a high bid of only $280.
According to our survey results, as much as people are sure AI technology is going to have a significant impact on society, most of them don’t feel that way about non-fungible tokens.
The Block cites a source who claims to know the people behind recent phishing attacks with “NFT drainers” targeting high-value accounts. According to OpenSea employee “Plum,” it’s high school kids who “all play Roblox for the most part. So they’ll buy the coolest gear for their Roblox avatar, video games, skins and things like that.”
And they’re not even old enough to check out everything Roblox has to offer!
Now the volume for its crypto on-ramp business has fallen by about 70 percent, its chief operating officer has left, and the chief technology officer left, too. The bagholders include Tiger Global Management and Coatue. Unclear what this all means for the celebs who bought in because of the NFT concierge service!
The US government’s criminal case against the former product leader of OpenSea, Nate Chastain, kicks off this week. Chastain is accused of buying up NFTs that he knew would be featured on OpenSea’s homepage, then selling them shortly thereafter as their value spiked.
The question isn’t so much whether Chastain did this, it’s whether doing this is illegal. As a former SEC enforcement lawyer told Reuters, “Is it insider trading of anything?”
Fans don’t seem interested, but that isn’t stopping some notable brands.
