Author: Loganl

Community is one of the greatest pillars of the NFT industry, bringing together individuals who maintain a shared love for a group’s project. Community members are able to recognize the shared ideology between them even online thanks to setting an NFT as their profile picture.

While fostering community has been a byproduct of many bluechip projects, numerous artists and musicians from other disciplines are figuring out how to provide utility to their already existing fan bases.

Enter Avenged Sevenfold and their community driven NFT project: The Deathbats Club. The world famous metal band is creating a new way for fans to connect with the band. I sat down with the lead singer to dive into the endeavor. 

M. Shadows has been in the NFT space for years, including minting a BAYC at the very beginning. He is currently looking into wall-mounted digital wallets that can display his collection of Bored Apes, Punks and Fidenzas at home. 

The lightbulb moment for him was watching a community build around the Bored Ape Yacht Club. I can personally attest that in Miami the BAYC was everywhere; they had their individual Apes on their clothing or on special wallets with displays. This rampant BAYC community led Shadows to start planning something for their fans.

He sees this next wave of web3.0 tech being heavily adopted by the next generation. We talked at length about how his generation made gaming cool and enabled the first Twitch streamers. Older fans may not get it now, but their kids will. He tells me a funny story about being at a Lakers game and the kids there wanted to see his Punks when they found out he had some.

One of the biggest carrots he feels for fans to want to learn about this next big tech wave was via adding utility to items. Token holders receive perks like merch discounts, lifetime tickets, exclusive events and more. It gives them the ability to thank fans with special airdrops for attending shows, something that would be incredibly difficult without incorporating the blockchain.

There will be 10,000 Deathbats, each with a unique combination of traits and rarities determined at mint. In addition to the Genesis Deathbats, which are the most common tokens that offer owners access to the Deathbats Club, there are four rare Deathbats with big perks:

• Guests: Free tickets and meet-and-greets for life
• Ghosts: Free tickets for life
• Undead: Meet and greets for life
• Shook: Exclusive “care-packages” sent to token holders

So what can Deathbats owners expect from the club? All token holders will have access to the core Deathbats community, Shadows continues, which is where the band will connect directly with fans — and have some fun:

“We’ll have monthly giveaways, movie nights, poker nights. There will be plenty of surprises. We want to be sure that fans never want to get rid of their tokens. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that these tokens hold their value and that fans get as much enjoyment and entertainment out of them as humanly possible.”

To get started, connect your Metamask at AvengedSevenfold.io and join the A7X Discord for the most up-to-date details on the drop scheduled for December 13th.  Whitelist will “mint” on December 11th and will have 48 hours to redeem their bat.

There are exciting things on the horizon, we finished our convo talking about the Play to earn craze and how they are looking at making more A7X song themed games for the fans. They currently have land on Sandbox metaverse with NPCs from their music videos. The possibilities are literally endless.

Axie Infinity had a great showing in Miami during Art Basel last week. There were meetups and IRL events that brought the community together. Members of the team even met with the “Bitcoin Mayor” himself, Francis Suarez.

Recently, Axie Infinity made a big announcement: the SLP breeding fees are being tripled. And the AXS fee is being halved.

This comes after the SLP has been declining in value. This will take approx. 10 days to be fully implemented.

This and more in this week’s recap of the Axie Infinity market.

The numbers in this recap were sourced from Katana analytics and Axie’s Marketplace Tracker.

As of this writing, over $112 million worth of Axies and land have been traded in the past week, with over 514,000 Axies trading in the past seven days and less than 600 lands changing hands. This is a decrease from last week, of nearly 40 million dollars. The decrease in trading volume can most likely be traced to the dip in the overall crypto space.

The absolute cheapest or lowest price of Axies is what we call the floor.

In the first few iterations of this market recap, I took the cheapest one or two Axies on the market and analyzed that as the floor. After crunching my numbers, I have found that it’s better to focus on the lowest ten (10) Axies on the market instead.

The range this week is between $100 and $102. ETH is trading at a lower range than it had been this time last week. The strong correction the industry had last week is certainly a heavy factor.

To breed your Axies, you need to spend the in-game currency SLP, which can be earned in-game or bought/sold on crypto markets like Binance.

I wrote last week that an increase to the SLP breeding fee could create enough buying pressure for a rally.

And boy did Axie Infinity deliver. They announced a tripling of the SLP fee. For every new Axie created, it’ll cost no less than 1800 SLP being burned or permanently removed from the ecosystem. Cost increases the more times either of the Axie parents has been bred.

The announcement created a large spike that brought SLP back to 5 cents. But the longer trend is a gradual decline from the AXS staking excitement that bled into the SLP price. It’ll take a few weeks before we see how much the increased breeding costs affects the SLP supply. The price is currently at $0.045.

Another barometer of the Axie economy is their governance token AXS. Users who hold these tokens can vote to shape the direction of the game. They can also now stake this token to vote and earn more AXS.

AXS has felt the splash damage from the large dip that hit the crypto sphere. It is currently trading around $109, declining heavily from the $140 range it enjoyed before the big industry dip.

Something excited that happened was the AXS breeding fee was halved again. Now the AXS cost is 0.5 AXS.

Out of roughly 65.8 million AXS circulating, we have over 20.6 million AXS staked. The dashboard has an estimated APR of 114%. While the amount circulating has minimally decreased, we have seen no major difference to the APR or the amount staked.

While we haven’t seen any drastic changes, that could change after the AXS breeding fee is halved.

This has been this week’s Axie Infinity Market recap. If you have any questions or requests for future editions, be sure to follow us on our NFT centered Twitter @NFT137 for your NFT fix!

And be sure to check out our 25 days of POAP.

As we recover from eating too much turkey, we can look to see the aftermath from people learning about Axie Infinity. At my Thanksgiving, I was surprised to meet someone who was familiar with the game. Our friend’s wife is from the Philippines, and she recognized it. She told me how the national news channels cover the game and people are buying homes thanks to SLP. They went on to talk about their personal friends streaming the game on Facebook. I was one of the first 10,000 players and had purchased 3 of the first 200 Axies ever made. That was the first time in 3 years someone in my personal circle knew about the game before I brought it up.

With land gameplay integration on the horizon, I have been keeping an eye on land prices, but I haven’t been updating them on a weekly basis. I was waiting for integration, because the numbers will be skewed. On that note, we had a massive land sale recently. A genesis land plot sold for 550 ETH or $2.5 million. It was the largest ever sale for an Axie land.

Times are a changing!

This and more in this week’s recap of the Axie Infinity market.

The numbers in this recap were sourced from Katana analytics and Axie’s Marketplace Tracker.

As of this writing, over $154 million worth of Axies and land have been traded in the past week, with over 550,000 Axies trading in the past seven days and less than 700 lands changing hands. This is a slight decrease from last week, where we saw a surge in volume. It could be as we get closer to the holiday season we have less active players and traders. It will be interesting to see if that big land sale jumpstarts more market activity.

The absolute cheapest or lowest price of Axies is what we call the floor.

In the first few iterations of this market recap, I took the cheapest one or two Axies on the market and analyzed that as the floor. After crunching my numbers, I have found that it’s better to focus on the lowest ten (10) Axies on the market instead.

The range this week is between $110 and $112. ETH is trading at a higher range than it had been this time last week. Looking at the ETH chart, it’s possible it may go on another run over the next day.

To breed your Axies, you need to spend the in-game currency SLP, which can be earned in-game or bought/sold on crypto markets like Binance.

SLP is continuing its decline from the run up to 12 cents we saw a month ago. It is currently trading at just under 6 cents. The token has been trading sideways the past few days. An increase in the breeding fee or other SLP usecase (such as buying Axies) could easily create a rally.

Another barometer of the Axie economy is their governance token AXS. Users who hold these tokens can vote to shape the direction of the game. They can also now stake this token to vote and earn more AXS.

AXS has started to climb back up. It previously had dipped to the $120 range before getting back to the $140s. That big land sale may have led to more users buying AXS to participate in the governance of this economy.

Out of roughly 65.8 million AXS circulating, we have over 20.7 million AXS staked. The dashboard has an estimated APR of 113%. While the amount circulating has minimally increased, we have seen no major difference to the APR or the amount staked.

While we haven’t seen any drastic changes, that could change if AXS price continues to climb.

This has been this week’s Axie Infinity Market recap. If you have any questions or requests for future editions, be sure to follow us on our NFT centered Twitter @NFT137 for your NFT fix!

And be sure to check out our 25 days of POAP.

Video gaming is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Triple-A games have budgets the size of Hollywood blockbusters. Professional gamers can earn as much in a year as A-list celebrities. More than half of all US households now own a games console. An activity that was once the preserve of nerds and computer geeks has long been as mainstream as watching television and listening to music. 

So play-to-earn should have spread like wildfire. Not only does it promise players that they can continue to enjoy their games. It also promises to pay them for their fun. As players build their metaverses or pitch their NFTs into battle, they can load up on tokens that they can use to purchase more in-game products or convert into other cryptocurrencies, and even into fiat.

And yet play-to-earn hasn’t quite taken off yet. The practice is still limited to gaming corners of the blockchain world or the blockchain corners of the gaming world. It’s likely that that situation will change soon. Companies as large as both EA and Ubisoft have talked about the future of gaming on the blockchain and hinted that it will involve NFTs. As they churn out top-end games with play-to-earn features, we can expect those games to find an audience.

For now though, the blockchain world is still waiting for that breakthrough game that will pitch even casual gamers into the world of blockchain gaming. 

That breakthrough might just come in the form of one of the oldest and most traditional of games: quizzes. Mimir is a new game that describes itself as the world’s first quiz powered by blockchain technology. Players can take part in livestreamed tournaments broadcast from Sweden or they can challenge their friends and strangers in one-on-one competitions. Questions cover topics from sports to popular culture, and the game is completely free to play. 

Pitched as a traditional quiz game in an App Store, it’s easy to see Mimir generating downloads and winning an audience among even the most casual of gamers. But Mimir goes further. The game also lets players stake and earn Mimir tokens. Those tokens can be used for in-game purchases such as buying entry fees to big live shows, staking to compete for a prize pool, and even to take part in the game’s decentralized governance with voting rights.

For quiz game players, the token’s play-to-earn feature adds a whole new layer of excitement to competitions and tournaments. Not only can they enjoy the buzz that comes from guessing a question right or showing off their knowledge—or beating a friend with their expertise in European soccer history—they can also earn real money by doing so.

Quizzes make no demands of players. They’re not like first person shooters that demand a stomach for blood splatter and a quick trigger finger. Nor are they like metaverses that require construction skills and strategic planning. If you can answer a question—or try to—you can enjoy a quiz. When playing is that simple and comes with earning, we might well find that simple quiz games become the breakthrough play-to-earn platform.

With millions of players and numerous milestones in the rearview mirror, this has been the year of the Axie. Players have enthusiastically competed, staked and experimented within the Axie Infinity ecosystem. Soon one of the coolest milestones will appear: the 10 millionth Axie will be bred.

This and more in this week’s recap of the Axie Infinity market.

The numbers in this recap were sourced from Katana analytics and Axie’s Marketplace Tracker.

As of this writing, over $172 million worth of Axies and land have been traded in the past week, with over 606,500 Axies trading in the past seven days and less than 300 lands changing hands. One cool stat I saw is that over the last 30 days, over 2.5 million Axies have been traded. Since the DEX has been integrated, we are noticing some micro trends of volume increasing. It’s unclear right now if this is due to new players joining or older players feeling more confident about trading.

The absolute cheapest or lowest price of Axies is what we call the floor.

In the first few iterations of this market recap, I took the cheapest one or two Axies on the market and analyzed that as the floor. After crunching my numbers, I have found that it’s better to focus on the lowest ten (10) Axies on the market instead.

The range this week is between $103 and $123. ETH is at a similar range as last week. On that note, the floor feels more active. Several floor Axies sold as I was looking at them. I am curious to study this after the holiday season as people tell their family and close friends more over turkey dinners.

To breed your Axies, you need to spend the in-game currency SLP, which can be earned in-game or bought/sold on crypto markets like Binance.

After enjoying a nice spike three weeks ago to 10 cents, SLP has started a slow decline trending toward 5 cents. The DEX has not removed the strong selling pressure that was prevalent before hand.

However, I recently saw an interesting mechanic for SLP burn proposed by a Twitter user Khaled Alroumi. Alroumi’s idea is you can burn axies, AXS and SLP and re-roll body parts. This could drastically affect the meta and overall volume in the economy.

Another barometer of the Axie economy is their governance token AXS. Users who hold these tokens can vote to shape the direction of the game. They can also now stake this token to vote and earn more AXS.

As I am writing this, AXS has been enjoying the metaverse token boom celebrated by other coins like ENJ and SAND which both hit all time highs this week. The price at the time of writing is $141.

While AXS has been enjoying a nice rally, it may need more buying pressure to get back near the ATH it hit earlier this year.

Out of roughly 65.8 million AXS circulating, we have over 20.6 million AXS staked. The dashboard has an estimated APR of 114%. While the amount circulating has increased, we have seen no major difference to the APR or the amount staked.

This has been this week’s Axie Infinity Market recap. If you have any questions or requests for future editions, be sure to follow us on our NFT centered Twitter @NFT137 for your NFT fix!

Avatars and identity are set to be revolutionized with the emergence of the metaverse. Users will be immersed within augmented virtual reality, allowing them to express themselves in captivating and interactive ways, hosted by platforms such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Cryptovoxels. As these platforms have demonstrated that they will integrate NFTs and therefore enable users to flex their NFTs and other wearables.

The metaverse is fast becoming more and more of a reality. As Mark Zuckerberg alluded to in his recent keynote video, Meta (formerly Facebook) will utilize VR to push the boundaries of technology with project Cambria. Here your avatar will make natural eye contact and make facial expressions that reflect your own in real-time, highlighting the development of social presence. This is just a glimpse into how the metaverse will extend the importance of our digital identity. Importantly, no one single vision is going to create the metaverse; a combination of all of our visions and ideas will make the metaverse a reality.

For digital fashion and clothing, the NFT space is a natural evolution. Exclusivity and rarity are factors that contributed to success in the physical world for high-end fashion. Similarly, the NFT space is a fresh new avenue to explore for those fashion brands who understand and appreciate the zeitgeist. As we become more conscious of our digital identity, and once the technology facilitates it, there is no doubt that NFTs will be the springboard to creating a new boom. It will open an opportunity for us to tailor and determine our identity with what we collect and choose to wear.

Of course, it is still very early. The concept of the metaverse is in its infancy and won’t be fully developed for several years. Concerns for privacy, security, and interoperability will have to be addressed too. However, progress is quick in such a fast-moving new space and we see exciting developments every day.

Take, for instance, RTFKT studios. They are a creator-led company within the NFT scene creating next-generation sneakers and collectibles ready for the metaverse—merging the worlds of fashion and gaming. They are exploring the meaning of digital fashion, accelerating its adoption, and catching the attention of some of the most renowned, traditional fashion brands. How? They use the latest technology and manufacturing expertise to craft some of the most cutting-edge and exclusive sneakers that the NFT world has seen. As their name denotes, ‘artifacts’ are the legacy that they are leaving behind in the metaverse.

RTFKT has launched a number of NFT projects since they began in 2020, with each collection garnering significant attention from the NFT community. There are no limits to their expansion. With an $8 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, they are set to shape the future of fashion and e-commerce in the metaverse.

At this juncture, the studio may still be most well known for their collaboration with Fewocious, an 18-year-old NFT artist. The drop sold out within 7 minutes and generated over $3 million in revenue, demonstrating just how sought-after digital fashion collectibles are becoming. Today this collection of NFTs has a floor price of 12.9 ETH on OpenSea. By comparison, renowned (and controversial) artist Damien Hirst’s NFT collection ‘The Currency’ has a current floor price of 5.4 ETH. Additionally, as of October, the first-ever physical Fewocious RTKFT, the fewo legendary sneaker was sold for $7,500 via StockX, proving that the physical is just as important as the digital.

As well as the NFT and physical item, RTKFT is bridging the digital with reality in the metaverse, making the sneakers usable across a host of metaverse platforms including The Sandbox, and Decentraland. Furthermore, they are testing both AR and VR applications, uniquely enabling holders to try their sneakers on using social media platforms such as Snapchat.

The exclusivity of RTKFT as a brand is growing quickly too. In May, the brand dropped Metapigeons, a collaboration with Jeff Staple. Fast forward 5 months later and one of the sneakers sold for $100,000.

More recently they launched Punk Project, a collection that they hope will pave the way for the fashion industry. The collection consists of 10,000 unique sneakers, and they are exclusively available to Punk owners. RTFKT is reaching a next-generation scale of personalized creation with the mad genius scientist MGXS, to create a website unique for each punk. Of course, there is more to the ownership of the sneaker, whereby owners will receive the 1/1 sneaker NFT, a physical version, a VXL portrait, and access to metaverse wearables.

RTKFT

Although digital fashion has underpinned the growth of RTFKT studios, they have similarly branched out into other NFT avenues, most notably their upcoming Clone X launch, a metaverse ready PFP avatar project that has been in the works for over 6 months. Clone X doesn’t end there though.

Clone X is a generative art project created by RTFKT—a collection of 20,000 unique avatars, humans who have had their consciousness transferred into advanced clone forms, ready for the metaverse. To take the art to the next level, the team collaborated with their idol, Takashi Murakami, a renowned fashion designer who has worked on the creation of the Clone X traits, capturing the cartoony aesthetic that he is well known for. Furthermore, the avatars are fully 3D rigged, meaning they will be compatible in the metaverse or in AR.

RTKFT has already teased the space pods that every Clone X avatar will hold, making it one of the first NFT projects to integrate their collectibles into the metaverse. Despite the corporate visions of the metaverse, RTFKT are proving that they are similarly capable of introducing novel technology and taking the metaverse to the next level.

I asked the RTKFT team a few questions to find out more about their focus on digital fashion, and their plans to push the boundaries of NFTs in the metaverse.

We’ve started with sneakers, and have our first generation of avatars, Clone X, coming up soon. That’s the beginning of a new ecosystem and extension of our brand in the Metaverse. As we continue to build up, daily, we aim to continue to create wearables, characters, experiences, architecture, and worlds on the Metaverse. Our goal is to lead the way and continue to expend what a Brand born on the metaverse can be, while inspiring and involving our community and our favorite artists.

We believe the Metaverse is the opportunity for many more creative visions and creators to stand out. While IRL fashion has been controlled by the same tastemakers for decades, the Metaverse will empower many new subcultures and aesthetics, unconstrained by laws of physics and a legacy business model and codes IRL fashion brands have to follow. Dynamic, evolutive, unique 1/1 for your avatars and unlimited diversity are some of the examples the Metaverse enables for ‘fashion’.

Clone X is the start of a full ecosystem for RTFKT, an evolution of our Brand that we think will redefine how you think of fashion brands, going beyond ‘clothes.’ The fact we’ve been developing all in 3D, and are giving access to 3D files to the future Clone owners, is a game-changer in the sense that, not only will people be able to express themselves with their avatars, but we envision a new kind of relationship forming between owners and 3D creators who will create bespoke content for the avatars, replicating what we’ve seen with fortnite 3D models ripped by blender creators, creating content for twitch streamers and you tubers. It’s a full ecosystem, being built live, and the avatars are just the tip of the iceberg.

We’re always going hard on utilities and plan to continue evolving our forging events mechanics, allowing people to forge physicals of their Clones fits, bringing some of their Avatar Identity to their IRL live, as people start to cosplay their characters IRL more and more.

With RTFKT, there’s always something you don’t know about…

The biggest name in NFT gaming has had a crazy month, from NFT.NYC to their decentralized exchange going live. We are now in week two of the Katana DEX and new reward pools.

After amassing billions in liquidity there have been a few hiccups, with some transactions falling through due to an increase in volume but let’s see how that has trickled down to the rest of the game economy.

The numbers in this recap were sourced from Katana analytics and Axie’s Marketplace Tracker.

As of this writing, over $169 million worth of Axies and land have been traded in the past week, with over 578,000 Axies trading in the past seven days and less than 300 lands changing hands. Compared to last week, we’re seeing a decrease in volume. This is a natural cool off to the explosion we had last week as Katana excitement hit its peak. Over the next few weeks, it’ll be interesting to see if volume decreases as people wait for the Ron currency to go live.

The absolute cheapest or lowest price of Axies is what we call the floor.

In the first few iterations of this market recap, I took the cheapest one or two Axies on the market and analyzed that as the floor. After crunching my numbers, I have found that it’s better to focus on the lowest ten (10) Axies on the market instead.

The range this week is $140 to $145. ETH is at a lower point than it was last week. With ETH cooling off, it’s notable that the price in USD per floor axie is not dropping. Another metric that I was asked to track is the total Axies listed. Currently, there are 429,285 listed for sale; this number can be used to figure out volumes, market volatility, and optimism from breeders.

To breed your Axies, you need to spend the in-game currency SLP, which can be earned in-game or bought/sold on crypto markets like Binance.

SLP has dipped back down to 6 cents after enjoying some nice spikes, thanks to Katana. Selling pressure has decreased since the 800 MMR.

My current theory for the SLP dip is that people are selling SLP because of failed transactions. If people can’t swap their SLP to AXS or ETH, then they’re going to sell it. After Ron gets implemented, we should see a change in SLP trading.

Another barometer of the Axie economy is their governance token AXS. Users who hold these tokens can vote to shape the direction of the game. They can also now stake this token to vote and earn more AXS.

AXS also enjoyed a nice bounce thanks to the Katana announcement—but since then is at the lowest point in nearly two weeks. The governance token dipped to $123 before returning to where it sits now, around $137. This is the most significant gradual decline for AXS since staking went live in early October. But for this and any other cryptocurrency, you need to zoom out. Looking at the 90-day chart, it’s apparent that after the AXS staking price spike, we are trading sideways in this range.

Out of roughly 65.5 million AXS circulating, we have over 20.6 million AXS staked. The dashboard has an estimated APR is 114%. There has been a slight change in the numbers from this time last week. But the overall macro trend remains the same.

This has been this week’s Axie Infinity Market recap. If you have any questions or requests for future editions, be sure to follow us on our NFT centered Twitter @NFT137 for your NFT fix!

Since the tech and social media boom over the last decade, our desire to present our best virtual selves at all times has grown increasingly important. During the pandemic, this reliance grew more integral than ever when virtual connections became the norm and physical interactions took a back seat. Subsequently, our digital identity merged with our physical one. Arguably, this was always going to happen, but the pandemic certainly accelerated this shift towards web 3.0 innovation. It forced us to cross paths with it, whether we liked it or not. As a result of the NFT boom earlier this year, digital identity has become more prevalent and important to those of us who interact daily in the NFT community. But why?

Appearance is paramount, especially in a materialistic world where companies and industries market everything on this basis. With every move we make, we consider how we will be perceived. As the world goes digital, the need to present ourselves as our best version takes precedence. Whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Linkedin, we take meticulous care to tailor our character and our personality; we shift our formality and the interactions that we have change.

Unbeknownst to many, digital identity has been a significant part of our lives for many years, even prior to web 3.0. Making sure we look good has become a social norm, with more people attaching status to NFTs. In some cases, this is why NFTs are selling for hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars. More importantly, NFTs allow us to change our identity; belonging to communities and owning collectibles help to shape this.

Online anonymity is a complex subject with many problems—a legacy of web 2.0; however, NFTs have a case to solve this. Blockchain-based platforms and services provide complete transparency. You can view transactions and trace assets. And most importantly, it is decentralized. Effectively, NFTs have the potential to give the power back to the community. They provide people with true ownership of their identity, something that web 2.0 failed to do. In a digitally native world, NFTs can help to solve the determining of provenance for good.

So how does this all come together? PFPs are intrinsically tied to value and identity. Your pfp represents who you are and your community. NFTs have enabled these communities to be forged in the thousands, and collectors have come together forming tight-knit relationships as they join these digital tribes. Just like individuals who chase the latest phone, or the latest fashion brand, NFTs have the same underlying motive, to build and attach an identity that others can resonate with.

On top of our avatars, we are building brands and making connections through identity as the driving factor. Our avatars are our faces in the digital world and it is how we recognize and respect one another. By owning a pfp NFT, you are given exclusive access to the community, and by simply being a part of the community, you may receive airdrops, invites to exclusive whitelists, tokens, and more. However, perhaps the most important benefit is the value of reputation.

Take Richerd, who holds an OG CryptoPunk, a collection of 10,000 digital NFTs that emerged in 2017. Since then, the collectibles have skyrocketed in value with bids ranging in the hundreds of thousands. They have even gone as far as to be sold at historical auction houses such as Chrisite’s and Sotheby’s with staggering final values in the millions.

Richerd is widely known for his 3D glasses, one of the rarest Cryptopunk traits. He often says that ‘I am my JPEG, my JPEG is me’. He has taken the 3D trait into his stride; it is everything that encapsulates Richerd. From an intern to a Richerd DAO, he has inspired many to take the trait seriously, with many other collections incorporating the idea. Even in the real world, Richerd represents himself through his CryptoPunk avatar, highlighting the personal value of his NFT.

They cannot be separated; not only is the NFT his avatar, but it is also his brand, status, and identity. He made this statement clear when he revealed to Twitter that “My punk is not for sale. Don’t care what anyone offers me.” However, this was soon tested when POAP made the offer of 2,500 ETH, the equivalent of $9.5 million.

Richerd was faced with one of the biggest decisions of his life, and for many, this would be an easy decision. If he accepted, this would have been the largest on-chain CryptoPunk sale in USD. Instead, Richerd made his own history, he stunned the world when he announced that he had refused the offer, detailing his thoughts in a thread on Twitter. Deep down, he knew that his NFT would be more valuable in the long term.

The news broke NFT Twitter. It left many confused, annoyed, but it also inspired. With this decline, he made a strong statement. It signaled to the wider world that NFTs are important; they are the future, and therefore there was no good reason to let it go. From here, he became widely known as diamond hands Richerd.

Above all else, the move demonstrated the extent to which NFT owners value their assets, and identity is taking on a whole new meaning. Simply, in web 3.0, status and reputation are invaluable.

To get a deeper insight into the meaning of identity to Richerd, I asked him a few questions about his journey thus far.

What does digital identity mean for you?

Digital identity is our representation of ourselves online. It comes down to our appearance, persona, and reputation. We have come to adopt our NFT avatars, usernames, and profiles as representations of ourselves online, and these have become just as recognizable as our IRL counterparts. You could make the case that our online identities are just as strong—if not more powerful—than our real-life personas. Online you can be anyone you want if you chose, the metaverse does not discriminate against age, gender, or race. So for a lot of people, you can actually be more free with your thoughts and ideas.

9.5 million is life-changing, why did you decide to decline the offer?

The only reason why I got the offer in the first place was that I said I wouldn’t sell. To accept the offer would have been going against what I had previously said. My integrity means a lot to me, and you can’t put a price on that. Also, I’ve put a lot of effort into building my identity around Punk 6046 and 3D glasses, and to me that has value more than money. I have a very strong conviction in Punks and NFTs, so it was quite easy for me to think long term and what the bigger picture is for the NFT space.

What do you think the future of NFTs means for digital identity?

The concepts of digital identity are just going to get strong as we move more of our work and lives online. We are already seeing this with the games we play. NFTs are just the next logical progression in digital goods and ownership. For the first time in history, the ideas behind digital ownership and digital identity are now front and center and theses ideals will just become more common place.

How big will the 3D movement get?

3D is a way of life. NFTs brought back the most underrated trait there is.

Our real-life identity is very much intertwined with our digital one. Factors such as status and community are both contributing to our personas and our representations in the NFT space. Web 3.0 is allowing us to be open; platforms are trusted and ownership is in the hands of the people. Subsequently, that leaves NFTs as the next evolutionary stage of digital identity.

Richerd sent shockwaves through the NFT community when he declined the monumental offer. Moves like this will continue to change the perceptions of digital identity for many inside—and outside—the NFT space.

During this past week, I had the pleasure of meeting up with people in the Axie Infinity community in NYC to talk shop. I loved getting the opportunity to have conversations with people whose entire lives have changed because of the game and got to meet people I’ve interacted with on Axie Twitter longer than I’ve been writing this recap. Listening to stories and picking the brains of streamers and content creators like @brycent_ in person was such a cool culmination of so much digital interaction surrounding the game.

Swolesome

But sprinkled in the excitement of NFT.NYC, Axie Infinity decided to detonate an absolute bomb of an announcement.

The largest game in the NFT space dropped one of their biggest updates yet in the form of their own decentralized exchange (DEX), Katana.

Katana allows Axie Infinity players to swap tokens and get rewarded for adding liquidity into the ecosystem. This is huge for the underlying ecosystem and market; instead of cashing out, SLP players will be able to swap for AXS and be able to stake and have a say via governance. As of this writing, over $1.26B of liquidity has been added to the DEX.

The numbers in this recap were sourced from Katana analytics and Axie’s Marketplace Tracker.

As of this writing, in the past week, over $236 million worth of Axies and land have been traded—with over 738,000 Axies trading in the past seven days and less than 300 lands changing hands. Compared to last week, we’re seeing a hell of a volume increase. NFT.NYC fervor along with the Katana implementation has reignited the market of trading. I can not recall the last time we saw this large of a spike in both $ volume and Axies trading. Let’s see what’s going on in the other metrics.

The absolute cheapest or lowest price of Axies is what we call the floor.

In the first few iterations of this market recap, I took the cheapest one or two Axies on the market and analyzed that as the floor. After crunching my numbers, I have found that it’s better to focus on the lowest ten (10) Axies on the market instead.

This week, the floor range is from $135-$167. This reflects a new interest in players wanting to get as many tokens as possible to flip to their desired currency. Maybe breeders are listing so they can swap ETH to AXS or players want more/better Axies to earn SLP. It’s a win-win for all right now.

To breed your Axies, you need to spend the in-game currency SLP, which can be earned in-game or bought/sold on crypto markets like Binance. 

SLP enjoyed a large spike up to nearly 12 cents last week thanks to Katana going live. The coin cooled off, but the overall macro trend is trading sideways in the 7 cent range. As more users stop selling their SLP and instead swap straight into other currencies, we will see if this reduces the sideways trading.

Another barometer of the Axie economy is their governance token AXS. Users who hold these tokens can vote to shape the direction of the game. They can also now stake this token to vote and earn more AXS. 

AXS also enjoyed a nice bounce thanks to the Katana announcement—actually breaking its ATH on Saturday around $160. The price has since cooled off a bit to roughly $150 at the time of this writing, but the governance token has continued its 30 day upward trend. As more people start to add AXS to liquidity pools, it’ll be interesting how this affects the price and volume.

Out of roughly 65.4 million AXS circulating, we have over 20.18 million AXS staked. The dashboard has estimated APR being 116%. It’s the first time in weeks that it has been below 120%. This becomes one of the most interesting categories to watch, because previously if large amounts became un-staked, it was presumed that they’d be sold on market. But now it could be un-staked and STILL stay in the economy via liquidity pools. Absolutely wild.

We’re going to suspend tracking land sales until lands are integrated in game so we can spend more time studying/tracking the liquidity pools going forward in the short term.

This has been this week’s Axie Infinity Market recap. If you have any questions or requests for future editions, be sure to follow us on our NFT centered Twitter @NFT137 for your NFT fix!