NFTs In A Nutshell: A Weekly Review

NFTs have been thoroughly falling in line with the rest of the crypto market and continuing to face plenty of drama and downturn. It’s not the end of the world, but it certainly can feel like it at times. This past week, Mastercard showed some initiative, Limewire and Algorand are off to a rocky start, and an NFT series that was once considered near ‘blue chip’ status may be on it’s downfall. 

This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News

Mastercard Digs In On NFTs

While American Express is offering their first network-support crypto rewards card, Mastercard and Visa are looking to be especially aggressive in the ‘Web3 ecosystem’ lately. This past week, Mastercard announced a new initiative to allow NFT consumers to purchase their favorite pieces directly from the card in their wallet. The company wants a streamlined process to purchase NFTs that if anything, reduces friction in terms of wallet and general crypto usage. Mastercard will take this approach through a bevy of new partnerships, including The Sandbox, Candy Digital, Immutable X, Spring, Nifty Gateway, Mintable, and MoonPay.

Limewire And Algorand’s Rocky Start To NFTs

Plenty of discourse in the Algorand community this week as Limewire elected to have it’s first NFT release on the Ethereum blockchain, just three months after the first announcement of the file-sharing platform’s revival.

Algorand fans felt a wave of disappointment on the news, and there were mixed reports that the Algorand Foundation was even caught off guard. Limewire’s early press announcements cited a multi-chain vision, but it seems that many had higher hopes for Algorand integration in this initial NFT release.

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Algorand is the expected blockchain of choice for the revival of the former file-sharing platform Limewire, but new details this week have left some Algo fans feeling disappointed. | Source: ALGO-USD on TradingView.com

Sartoshi Steps Away

‘MFers’ have been a highly-respected NFT project, led by pseudonymous NFT artist Sartoshi for some time now. Before the intentional lack of roadmap and careless free-for-all attitude of Goblins, there were (and still are) mfers. The distinctive design, look and feel of the profile pic collection gave it a special uniqueness that has still arguably been poorly imitated at best.

This past week, Sartoshi announced his intent to go the way of Satoshi, deleting his Twitter account and departing mfers. Sartoshi’s final Mirror post, titled “mfers next era & end of sartoshi” was posted last week and signaled some of the departing notes from Sartoshi. Despite the head’s up from the artist, the mfers collection has still faced immense selling pressure.

Survey Says: NFT Buyers Are In It For The Money

A new survey led by Finder.com that has been recently published showcased that most of you degens are truly in it for the money. While just 3% of U.S. consumers own an NFT, a majority of those holders are in it to try to turn a profit.

Tough times to endure markets like these, as speculative investments left and right have been hammered; nonetheless, these markets will likely shake out weak hands and those who show resiliency and genuine interest in seeing NFTs grow and develop will see eventual satisfaction.

You’ve Been Served… Via NFTs

A New York court has ruled this week that your court notice can now apparently be served via an NFT airdrop. Crypto exchange LCX was hacked for $8M at the beginning of this year, and now the exchange’s legal representatives have served an anonymous defendant with a restraining order powered via an ERC-721 NFT. The state’s Supreme Court Justice approved the airdrop, a first of it’s kind legal maneuver.

Fractal Launches Wallet For NFTs

Fractal, a new gaming NFT marketplace founded by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, launched their first iteration wallet this past week, called ‘Sign In With Fractal.’

The new product aims to provide players with “a cryptocurrency wallet that makes it seamless to start playing web3 games, both on Fractal and within partner games. Players are able to store and trade in-game assets, buy NFTs, and participate in Fractal tournaments using Sign in with Fractal,” according to the press release.

Yuga Labs Addresses Code Line That Could’ve Allowed For Infinite Apes To Be Minted

Bored Ape Yacht Club ownership group Yuga Labs has removed some coding in the contract that could’ve been exploited to mint an uncapped amount of Apes, following criticism in the code from community members. A Yuga Labs co-founder released this simple tweet:

The contract owner has now been burned. While we’d been meaning to do this for a long time, we hadn't out of an abundance of caution. Felt comfortable doing it now. All done.
In lay terms: The issue flagged in this article is now impossible.

— EmperorTomatoKetchup (@TomatoBAYC) June 7, 2022

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Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com

The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.