Welcome to another edition of the Weekend Degen Report.
What to expect: 1511 words a 6-minute read.
TLDR: Are we back?
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GM GM.
BlockMon got pushed due to some people cutting the fiber cables to my internet. It will happen today (when this newsletter goes out). Looking forward to hanging out with those that attend for the giveaways.
Got a new premium article dropping this week for readers. It will autosend to those on the free sub sometime next week. Dropping a new youtube video later this week so stay tuned.
I love Mario but did you know there is a level in Super Mario that less than 15 people have completed ever?
Are we back? It's uncertain. NFT trading volume is up 50% this past week. This spike is based on the idea of the ETF for Bitcoin being approved. There's definitely more volume and activity. More people are switching their PFPs back to NFT. Shoutout hildobby.
However, there is some sad news. Async Art is going to be shutting down. They will be winding down operations over the next few months. Aync was a dynamic nft project marketplace. Example of projects that launched on Async Art are Grifters by xcopy and Emotes by Heart You. Fortunately, Alvar is pinned to IPFS, so you will still have access to your NFTs. They're not going to disappear.
Tiffatron had a limited (15/15) edition titled SkyDrop, which sold out in the first few hours for 1.eth each. Congrats to Tiffatron and those that collected this gorgeous piece.
Jack Kaido also minted a 10/10 mint called Montauk. Nine were in allow list and sold before it was even minted. One was kept back for a raffle. Jack had over 150 people sign up for this raffle with a 1 ETH entry cost. His work's been getting more desired and wanted (based on the amount of entries). It's the second piece in the Point Light contract. I really enjoyed the color palette on this one and am bummed I missed out on this.
We also got to see the final product of the Avant Arte x Luis Ponse Drop. It's a very beautiful textured print with mixed ultraviolet pigment and nine layers. It comes with NFT, of course. There are only 25 pieces total for about $2,500 USD, and it closes November 10th. Avant Arte has been on a tear recently.
The biggest news would be that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF got a ticker, IBTC. It made it all the way to the Depository Trust and Clearing. A lot of people are really hyped about this, and the price of Bitcoin has shot up. All cryptos as a whole have gone up, including Ethereum.
Even word of the next pump. Are we in the next bull? I don't personally think we are, but hey, who knows at this stage. It's good to see the market coming back in.
RTFKT, the CloneX project, released their Air Force One drop. Limited to 40 pairs, it was a digital plus a physical, of course. Really crazy shoes. Let me know what you think about these shoes.
It's definitely not for the faint of heart with the color combos and the palette, but I can definitely see myself rocking one or two of them for sure.
Pol Maire from the Converse app team launched a really nice update. I enjoy decentralized protocols. I have been really deep in that rabbit hole for the last couple of weeks on decentralized protocols. Even has joined me as well on some of these other apps that I've been experimenting with, like Paragraph.
The Converse app, you can reach out to me below on the link, but one thing they did is they included a request message feature, so that should stop a lot of spam messages. They did multi-select. You can select and delete messages. They also did unread notifications. You can search for messages or people within your message app, so it's trying to become more like a really good messaging app, getting the basics down. The basics are obviously very critical if you want to use them, so feel free to reach out to me on that app if you ever want to play around with it.
It's secure. It uses the XMTP protocol, and they've been using XMTP protocol to get notifications for newsletters through Paragraph and a couple other things like that, so yeah, it's good stuff. Always love to see developers and passionate people continue building in Web 3.
Lucrece also dropped his recent addition to Life of Mon series with Ghosts which stays in theme with our Halloween theme. One of my more favorite from the series. It sold out instantly at .1eth for 100 of them.
Some other big news is Amazon Gaming is entering into the Web3 space/entering in through a blockchain called WAX. WAX, to me, was a new ecosystem that I haven't heard of, but from my understanding from my resident WAX expert here, which is Mac – shout-out Mac – he's been using WAX to get in on the Hot Wheels and a couple other projects that are using WAX. I've never heard of it, but they're releasing a game called Brawlerverse.
Amazon obviously is a huge, huge company, so we'll see how it goes for them in Web3. Gaming as a whole is pretty hard, and then throwing a Web3 component definitely makes it a little harder. WAX has partnered up with Funko Pops to have a physical Funko Pop plus an NFT version of that, so it appears Amazon went with a blockchain/ecosystem that has worked for other brands.
Lastly, although deleted now, Cath Simard expressed her frustrations with the National Geographic drop and how it hasn't been a great experience for the artists involved. It's been eight months, lack of communication, so as you see big news of Amazon getting into the space, National Geographic is also a very big well-respected company/entity when it comes to photography, Cath is definitely one of the bigger Web3 artists. It's positive and reassuring to see big companies come in, but they have to do it properly. Ghosting people is definitely not the way to go.
What do you think? Are we back in the bull, or do you think we're still kind of there in the bear? Thanks.
The Zealy.io word for this weeks read is, “ghosts”. Make sure to get in on the fun and giveaways.
Xcopy continues being a safe bet in web3. Sixteen Segment Death sold for 30eth.
Another 30eth sale/trade went down behind the scenes. As The Doomed was traded for 19eth + a Squiggle.
Over on the BTC Ordinals side (yeah they are definitely still a thing). Ripcache sold four sub 30k Bitcoin Ordinals for 1.25 BTC each (~24 ETH or $42,250).
Lastly, ACK Last Orders #6 sold for 9.5eth over the counter.
We got a little bit of a sneak peek over from the Lucrece side of the world on the Monster Shop, so Lucrece showed us a factory prototype of a plushie Mon. I do have a bit more details on this, but it does seem like we are going to get another plushie Mon delivered to us. The last one, I think it was about $250, and it was pretty big. This one will be a little bit smaller. There's speculation around it being definitely child-size, not too big, and definitely less expensive than the $250 one before, so this one will be more for the masses. Looking forward to getting a couple plushies myself. Maybe we'll give one away when the time comes.
Also looks like Lucrece is the next 6529 meme drop. Looking forward to the chaos that will ensue haha.
Whatever Ripcache is cooking with these new silkscreens, I want one.
Lastly, looking forward to grabbing one of these new packs from Courtyard and see what Pokemon I get.
Have a great rest of your week!
CIAHOAD-Rick James
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