NFTs In A Nutshell: A Weekly Review

Another week filled to the brim with action as the NFT market continues to boom. This week, OpenSea crossed $1B in trading for the month of August, SuperRare unveiled new features, investment firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm doubled down, and Axie Infinity, Art Blocks, and Parallel Alpha have moved to the top of the charts. Capital investment and emerging projects dominated the chatter around NFTs this week. Meanwhile, legacy projects are still seeing success while in a bit of ‘cruise control.’

All-in-all, business is booming. Let’s take a deeper dive into all this, and more, from the last seven days in the constantly evolving world of NFTs.

This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News

Alibaba’s New Marketplace For NFTs

E-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group is launching a new non-fungible token marketplace, titled “Blockchain Digital Copyright & Asset Trade”. The marketplace is expected to be geared towards game developers, artists, musicians, and writers. What it means in the big picture for Alibaba remains to be seen.

Check out the full story from our team here.

SuperRare 2.0: All You Need To Know

SuperRare unleashed the $RARE token to platform users this week, as part of a move dubbed ‘SuperRare 2.0.’ The platform also is bringing to market curated ‘SuperRare Spaces,’ a governance DAO, and sovereign smart contracts. The move signaled increased decentralization for the platform. Check out the full story from our team here.

OpenSea: $1B In NFTs, With Time To Spare

According to a mid-week tweet from OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer, the marketplace crossed over $1B in trading volume for the month of August – just over two weeks into the month.

With strong volume to close out August, could OpenSea surpass $2B in trading volume for the month? As Finzer states, “it’s still day 0 for NFTs.”

Related Reading | Watch Jack Mallers Send $10 To Nigeria In “Free, Instant, Non-Reversible” Way

Paradigm Goes Parallel

NFTs are becoming investment-grade assets. Crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm has started building a position in NFT card game Parallel Alpha this week, according to reports across Twitter.

Additionally, just over a week ago, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang tweeted that it “seems inevitable that one day a crypto game will get to $1T+ market cap.”

Is Paradigm betting that Parallel will be that golden goose?

A Bored Ape Refreshment: Arizona Tea

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has seen it’s first big brand engagement. Arizona Tea’s have been a refreshing beverage staple, known for their unique can designs and consistent $0.99 retail price over the years. In a tweet this week, the legacy brand announced that they’ve “aped in” on BAYC.

Could we see some bored apes on Arizona cans soon?

A16z & Yield Guild

This week, leading investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led a $4.6M funding round for Yield Guild Games – creators of Axie Infinity. Funding is expected to be leveraged to expand community and further investment in digital assets for play-to-earn games.

Earlier this month, Yield Guild Games signed a partnership deal with crypto exchange FTX to bring scholarship funds to Axie Infinity players in developing countries.

Play-to-earn is on the rise.

Despite Alibaba's news to release a new marketplace for NFTs, the publicly-traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange is still facing tough times - sitting at one-year lows. | Source: NYSE-BABA on TradingView.com

A Six-Figure NFT Care Package

Questioning utility in NFTs? You probably shouldn’t be. Long-time advertising entrepreneur Jack Butcher created NFT series “Care Package”, as reported on by our sister network NewsBTC. Less than 200 of the 1,000 minted individual NFTs remain, and over $100K has been donated to Care.org to charitable efforts addressing humanitarian needs in Afghanistan.

New Leaders In NFTs: Axie Infinity, Art Blocks, & Parallel Alpha

Only Axie Infinity crossed into the six-figure territory over the past week, with north of $200K in sales. Topping the charts this week? Not Bored Ape Yacht Club, not NBA Top Shot, not CryptoPunks. Axies, Art Blocks, and Parallel Alpha ran the top three on the seven-day chart, and each show growing promise to be NFT staples.

We went in-depth on Art Blocks just last weekend in a new Bitcoinist installment, ‘New Kids On The Block.’

Summer Of Cena: Bitski’s Latest NFT

NFT marketplace Bitski went live with their latest collaborative NFT project this week with WWE’s John Cena. The one-of-one token includes an NFT, a VIP experience package for two at one of two WrestleMania events, a personalized title belt and chain, and a personalized message from John Cena himself. Bidding concludes today and is currently set at around $20,000.

Related Reading | Legal Expert: Treasury Department Plans To “Capture DeFi”

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com