Crypto Dip, Scams, Shot2TheMoon, WoW, Book Games

GM!

And we’re back!  Wow, as usual, a week feels like a month in NFT land, so there’s a lot to cover, and a lot I’ve been paying attention to.  Let’s get right to it!  Before we do, I must remind you that nothing in this post is financial advice.  Always do your own research!

Buy The Dip?/Vitalik
I’m not heavily invested in crypto as a whole right now, I primarily own Eth, which dipped in price big time this past week, along with Bitcoin and the overall market.  I first bought Eth in August 2021 for the purpose of buying a World of Women NFT; Eth was well-under $3,000 USD when I first purchased it, rising to well-over $4,000 USD in recent months.  Then, this past week, it dipped to just under $3,000, hitting the most noticeable lows since I’ve owned it.  At the time of this writing, we’ve seen it begin to rise again, currently sitting at $3,228.83.  So, is Eth still in a dip, and should you buy the dip?  I’m no crypto market expert, nor do I have a crystal ball, but here are the facts: at the time of this writing, Eth is up 3.53% in the past 24 hours; Eth is down 14.69% in the past week, down 21.08% in the past month, while being up 229.47% in the past year.  Take from that what you will and decide if it’s time for you to buy!

Also, if you have it in you, and are interested in educating yourself about Ethereum, I’ve recently found Lex Fridman’s interviews with Vitalik Buterin, the co-creator of Ethereum, to be very valuable in understanding the Ethereum blockchain, Eth, and related topics.  It’s certainly not entry-level material, but if you’ve started dabbling in NFTs or crypto and want to hear from one of the revolutionary players in the space, I’d recommend starting with the first interview from March 2020, then watching the interview from this past June, which discusses Ethereum 2.0.  Vitalik sounds a bit like someone who has the robot filter over their voice, and if news broke that he is indeed a cyborg sent from the future to help build Web 3.0, let’s just say that might not feel like a stretch.

If you’re really curious and seasoned, you can read this tweet from Vitalik in which he gives his opinion about the nature of how blockchains will best co-exist in the future.

Scams/DYOR
Before I get into the fun stuff surrounding project updates, I think it’s important to touch on the topic of scams.  It’s an ironic subject in terms of mainstream adoption, because many people cite NFTs as a whole as being a “scam” of some sort, money-laundering schemes, or ponzi schemes; there are many misinformed critiques.  Nevertheless, acceptance is rising with bigger brands like Adidas and Nike getting into the space, as well as the never-ending appearance of NFTs in people’s news feeds.  There are many amazing projects, and then again, there are the people and projects out there who just want to take your money and run, and not all of the critiques are off-base.

The fact is, you should always Do Your Own Research.  In my case, my initial “research” was two years of following GaryVee on social media simply as a fan of his entrepreneurial and motivational content, long before NFTs were known by anyone other than a small handful of developers.  I knew it was worth listening to his suggestions about NFTs when he started promoting them last year, because I trust him and his brand.  That’s proven to be a good decision.  Now, DYOR tends to refer to more micro-scale research in hours, not years, on specific projects that you might be interested in, but the point remains the same: learn who to trust and support with your crypto funds, and even then, remember this is a volatile space that changes constantly and quickly.

Before moving on, I have to mention the fact that we saw people getting scammed over and over in Discord this past week.  For anyone who doesn’t know, Discord is a chat server that started in the gaming world.  It’s still used by the gaming community, but it’s also used by NFT projects to grow communities around their projects.  Discord scams often happen in the form of malicious links being sent to users in their DMs.  It’s not that hard to imitate a real NFT project and send someone a message telling them they’ve won something, and just to click a link to receive it.  Legitimate projects won’t DM you in this way; as a matter of fact, the conventional wisdom across the space is increasingly not to respond to DMs in Discord, or to turn DMs off altogether.  You can always turn them back on temporarily if you need to solve a captcha puzzle to enter a server or something like that.  Before I turned mine off, I got DMs from scammers every day.  In my opinion, it’s just like the real world, certain people will try to take advantage of you; you have to educate yourself on the technology to keep yourself and your funds safe.

Ok, on to the fun stuff!

Shot2TheMoon NFT Podcast, Space Pass NFT
I want to give a shout-out to Sean and Von, and the rest of the team at Shot2TheMoon NFT Podcast, along with their S2TM Space Pass NFT.  If you’re looking for approachable conversations about NFTs that at the same time dig deep enough to provide a ton of value, then S2TM is your podcast.

While starting solely as a podcast, S2TM launched their Space Pass NFT a few months back as well, offering potential to follow along on a journey and story chock-full of perks for Space Pass holders.  I bought one, and it’s been fun to follow along so far.  S2TM has been unique in their utility for holders; not only have they done a lot of giveaways (I won $100 just for answering a question on Twitter) on Twitter and in Discord, they provide a particularly unique form of utility in the form of networking and exposure in the NFT space.  These guys get some of the biggest names in NFTs on their podcast and in the Space Pass holder Discord channel for interviews.  The Discord interviews are opened up at the end to the listeners, so if you’re interested in engaging, asking your own questions, and getting your name out there while hearing from some NFT experts, you have regular opportunities as a Space Pass holder.  That’s nothing to sneeze at!  

All of that said, S2TM announced on Friday that they are bringing some exciting updates to the project.  To be honest, I missed the first part of the talk, but here’s what I gathered: there is a new burn option with either the S2TM poster NFTs that have been airdropped to Space Pass holders, new ones that are coming, or maybe both.  Burning (deleting) that NFT will give you some perks that may or may not be related to “choosing your own adventure” in the story (as it is a story of space travel to different planets).  I might be combining a couple things there, so don’t quote me.  The writer’s room is going to be opening up again to the community to help continue writing the story, and there is some very dope looking new artwork on the way for Space Pass holders!  I’m not sure if it’s a mint or an airdrop, but either way, I’m excited to see this project and story continue to develop.

World of Women
World of Women!!  My OG favorite project.  Developments this past week included partnering with Ethereal Collective, an NFT project aimed at bridging the physical and digital worlds.  If you’re a real WoW fan, you know creating a connection between these worlds has been part of their mission from the beginning.  WoW’s part in EC will include having their artwork displayed at EC exhibitions all over the world.  Minting EC’s NFT gives you the potential as an artist to have your work displayed at their exhibitions, gives you free access to these events whether you have work as an artist in them or not, and access to other rewards and giveaways.  So, go see WoWs IRL in London, LA, Dubai, NYC or Amsterdam!

The other big news is the rising floor and increasing traction around the project.  I saw so many people on Twitter in the past month tweeting about WoW being one of the most underrated projects that is on the cusp of an inevitable floor rise, and we’re finally starting to see it.  Last Wed. we noticed the floor rising to the upper 2s, and then Thibault Launay swept the floor on Saturday.  Sunday the floor peaked at 4 ETH around noon!  At the time of this writing, the floor has dipped back to 3.69, but all of this is a very positive sign.  This has felt like a long-time coming, and coincides with Shonda Rhimes joining the WoW community on Friday, Eva Longoria joining yesterday, as well as Napheesa Collier!  Look out world, here comes World of Women!

Holy Vaynerchuk
Welp, we finally saw the launch of VeeFriends Book Games yesterday evening, and what a night it was.  I myself purchased 8 book tokens back in August as a part of GaryVee’s Twelve and a Half book release, and I have to say it was well, well worth my while to do so.

First things first, if you’re interested in purchasing book tokens on the secondary market and playing, all the steps to do so are well-documented here.  It’ll include familiarizing yourself with Immutable X, and Token Trove, which I mentioned in greater detail in my previous post.

If you want, you can flip book tokens for profit in the short-term, or you can hold on to them for their other perks, which are major (arguably much more so than the quick flip): each book token gives a twelve and a half day advantage to minting VeeFriends Series 2 later this spring, is burnable for other assets on the Book Games Exchange, and will be burnable for access to the 15 new VeeFriends characters being released as a part of Series 2.  These are remarkable perks, in addition to whatever else Gary wants to add in value as time goes by, having stated that “Book Games are played forever.”  I’m stoked to see how things develop in both the short and long term, and I’m very excited to officially be in the VeeFriends family as a token holder.

Brief notes
*Decentraland announced they are adding royalties to a greater extent for NFT creators.
*Nas is going to sell streaming rights as NFTs.
*I didn’t have time to research it before this post, but keep your eyes on the new Looks Rare Marketplace and their $Looks token - could be big.

Fun things
*Serena Williams says GM, with what appears to be a Cryptopunk as her pfp.
*The other day I looked down at my WIGWAM socks and thought they said WAGMI in what felt like a Matrix-esque moment of the physical and the digital becoming one.  I’m going to pretend it was real.

Okay that’s everything this week, see you next time, and…

GN!