Paper 50 - The NFT Market Is Back
Cute animal NFTs surge higher in valuations
GM - this is the BCheque Papers, edition #50.
I write about NFTs/crypto, and trying to make it independently in web3.
This edition is brought to you by NFT Paris, for which you can get 2 free tickets if you like and retweet this tweet (and if you are a subscriber to this newsletter). Winner announced next week!
This is what we’ve got this week:
This Week In Crypto - Loaning company assets to…yourself!
This Week In NFT World - The NFT Market Is Back!
Sponsored Post - NFT Paris
Creator Corner - New Years Resolutions
Trades Of The Week - Arbitrum NFTs
For sponsorship enquires, please DM me on Twitter.
Have a great day,
B
This Week In Crypto - Loaning company assets to…yourself!
SBF loaned himself almost $500m from Alameda to buy Robinhood - SBF explained in court that he borrowed the sum of $491,743,563.39 which went towards a stake in Robinhood, a trading platform. Brb going to loan myself all my assets…
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, says sorry - Caroline confirmed that Alameda withdrew money from FTX and that she was part of a plan to produce "materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders." But she said sorry. All is forgiven!
Alameda wallets become active - After multiple weeks of inactivity, Alameda wallets started sending over $1.7M to crypto mixers, which obfuscate the destination of funds. Brilliant. Look forward to finding out who is syphoning of money to whom soon.
2. This Week in NFT World - The NFT Market Is Back!
Pudgy Penguins reach all time high prices of more than a 7 ETH floor - The “cute NFTs” went parabolic this week, led by the penguins. High sales included 40ETH, 33ETH, 27ETH, 25ETH. Yes, you read that right.
XCOPY edition sells for 200ETH ($240,000) - The Last Selfie, one of XCOPY’s most iconic pieces, a 1/10 edition, sold for $240,000. This is probably the most coveted edition by XCOPY. Prominent collector VonMises reported this, but says his edition is not for sale!
OSF announced he has bought back 260 rektguy NFTs - OSF has bought back 260 rektguys in part because he sees it as a hedge against zero royalties. Very interesting to see founders buy back supply like traditional companies may do of their stocks. OSF now owns almost 3% of rektguy supply…
Chinese National NFT Marketplace Set To Launch On New Years Day - China will launch its first regulated NFT trading platform on January 1st.
Even though cryptocurrency exchanges have been banned in China since 2021, the possession of crypto is recognized as virtual property protected by the law. If this now applies to NFTs too, that can only be a positive sign for NFTs more broadly.
y00ts and DeGods to bridge away from Solana - The two premier Solana projects founded by Frank will be moving away from Solana: DeGods will bridge to Ethereum; y00ts will bridge to Polygon. This should take place by end of Q1 2023.
Sponsored Post - NFT Paris
NFT Paris 2023 will be held in the Grand Palais Ephémère (close to the Eiffel Tower) on the 24th and 25th of February in Paris.
The event will cover all things NFTs from Fashion, Art, Finance, Gaming , Music and Media, and more.
NFT Paris 2023 will act as a discussion platform between NFT pure-players and the top executives of major pioneering brands that are committed to building the web3, such as LVMH, L’Oréal, Shopify, Warner Bros and Volkswagen.
During the event, participants will be able to attend conferences with major NFT players and experts such as Greg Solano (founder of Yuga Labs, Bored Apes Yacht Club), Farokh (founder of RugRadio), Nicolas Julia (founder of Sorare), Yat Siu (founder of Animoca Brands), Sébastien Borget (founder of The Sandbox), Matt Medved (founder of NFT Now), or Punk6529 (founder of OM).
You can get a 15% discount on tickets on this link : https://guts.events/m3wx82/tknlbz
And try your luck by entering this giveaway exclusive for subscribers of this newsletter:
Creator Corner - New Years Resolutions
As the new year approaches many people are making the new years resolutions which they will break in short order.
Because people know this, they either do not bother with the resolutions or think “well I can do this any other time of the year, so why now?”
This does not work because having no process of reflecting and resetting goals does not allow you to properly assess your success and failures and change your trajectory onwards and upwards. And as for those who think they can start whenever: well, why haven’t you then?
I really enjoy the end of the year as a moment in time to reflect and reset goals.
This year I am focusing on key questions:
How do I grow the newsletter?
How can I narrow my focus so that I become an expert on a more niche domain within the NFT ecosystem?
What skills do I need to learn to become truly autonomous in web3?
What product will I build with this knowledge and skill?
I have answers for many of those now, and look forward to sharing with you as we progress through 2023.
I hope sharing these can help you consider which key questions you want to give some attention over the next days, weeks and months. Bring on 2023!
Trades Of The Week - Arbitrum NFTs
I bought 30 of these Arbitrum NFTs a while back for approx. $12 each.
The last couple of days I have been selling out of them for approx. $19 each.
That’s almost a 60% gain in a couple of months (a couple of hundred dollars in practice).
I bought them because I saw the volume on them was absolutely insane - even though the supply is crazy high only a very small proportion are listed.
I think people are speculating these NFTs will be linked to the Arbitrum airdrop. (Arbitrum is an L2 made to help scale Ethereum. It has significant volume and adoption and makes transacting on Ethereum much cheaper. It is rumoured that early participants will be airdropped a token which will have a real $ value.)
Since I didn’t believe the Arbitrum airdrop was coming any time soon, I decided to jump in and hold for a while. (I hold my own Arbitrum NFT which I minted myself and I will continue to hold that.)
The NFT Market is back ladies and gentlemen! (But be careful!)
Have a great day,
B
Please do leave me any questions or thoughts here - I respond to every one!
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Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the NFTs mentioned in these newsletters.