Welcome to the OpenSea Digest, our recap of the biggest NFT and web3 news from the week.
Azuki announces anime series
Chiru Labs, creators of popular PFP projects Azuki and Beanz, is teaming up with renowned Japanese animation director Goro Taniguchi to create an anthology series.
Taniguchi, known for iconic projects Code Geass and One Piece: The Movie: Red, reportedly sees the collaboration as an opportunity to bring anime to new audiences and open doors for Japanese creators.
Azuki has also partnered with advertising giant Dentsu and plans to release three stories under this collaboration, each with a unique director and character artist. The series is part of Azuki’s strategy to provide diversified content that aims to integrate Azuki’s universe with innovative web3-driven storytelling.
The anthology, which is set to be released later this year, represents a dream project for Azuki’s art director Arnold Tsang, who said he hopes the series will push the limits of web3 storytelling.
Moonbirds Talons Market opens January 9
Attention Moonbirds holders! Talons Marketplace, a new component of the PROOF ecosystem, launches on January 9th at 10:30am PST, and get ready for an exciting series of Tuesdays in January, with new stuff and surprises reportedly coming every week.
According to PROOF, the web3 media startup founded by Kevin Rose behind Moonbirds, the Talons program is a community empowerment tool that allows members within Moonbirds PROOF to control their own interests.
The program also enables artists to connect their work with the right collectors, a system designed to recognize and reward long-term community loyalty and support.
Members can redeem their claws for a variety of benefits, including physical goods, art and exhibition tickets, exclusive experiences and experimental opportunities, with claws allocated in two ways: retroactive allocation based on historical holding time of PROOF items, and an ongoing daily accumulation system based on current holdings.
Talons Season 1 is coming soon with a detailed schedule featuring physical, virtual, and experiential real-life (IRL) rewards redemption, and this week, surprises included a virtual chat with PROOF Director of Research Punk#9059and the IRL Paris experience.
Check out the full Season 1 release schedule on X:
Otherside 'Journey 3' trailer debuts
Yuga Labs’ latest move has made some waves. On January 9, the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) released a trailer for Trip 3, the third playtest for the company’s highly anticipated metaverse project Otherside.
Trip 3 is set to launch in February 2024, following initial gameplay tests in July 2022 and March 2023. The 20-second trailer shows off a small alien-like avatar named Koda, as well as a host of unique Bored Ape characters.
The film ends with a shot of a peachy sunset over a forest and a cabin atop a cliff, however, the quality of the video - which critics speculated was caused by a low frame rate - raised concerns about Otherside's follow-up.
Others highlighted the significance of this moment, recognizing Yuga Labs’ investment in the Otherside project.
With Trip 3 just around the corner, the BAYC community is on edge, will Otherside live up to the high expectations? The countdown to February 2024 has begun and all eyes are on Otherside’s next move in its metaverse saga.
Ready Player One is coming to the Metaverse
Get ready to watch your sci-fi fantasies play out on screens of all sizes as Ernest Cline, author of the sci-fi action novel Ready Player One, and Dan Farah, producer of the film adaptation, take a bold leap into the virtual universe.
They partnered with artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual universe company Futureverse to create Readyverse Studios, with the goal of building a digital universe based on "Ready Player One."
Readyverse, described as a connected digital experience platform, will reportedly partner with Warner Bros. Discovery to bring iconic intellectual property (IP) franchises into the virtual world, and according to a press release, Readyverse will have exclusive web3 rights to all of Cline’s future IPs.
Is this exciting new initiative more than just a new digital playground? Some hope it represents a commitment to the principles of an open metaverse — a theme explored in the novel and film through the race between teenage protagonist Wade Watts and corporate villain Nolan Sorrento, who wants to monopolize virtual reality.
In its announcement at X, Futureverse said it will build interoperability, security, and decentralization into its metaverse model, incentivizing community-owned infrastructure.
These values align with the vision of the Open Metaverse Alliance, which is made up of industry heavyweights such as Hong Kong venture capital studio Animoca Brands and blockchain-based metaverse world Decentraland.
X Delete NFT PFP
In line with Elon Musk’s 2024 Vision, X (formerly Twitter) has quietly removed the option for paying subscribers to set NFTs as profile pictures (PFP).
Launched in January 2022, the NFT PFP feature initially allowed Twitter Blue subscribers to display Ethereum-minted NFTs (ERC-721 or ERC-1155 token standards) as hexagonal avatars, link the PFP to the Ethereum token, and verify details about the NFT, including its collection, contract address, TokenID, and the minting application used.
As of January 10, all references to this feature have been removed from X’s premium support page, and without the ability to confirm minting details, there is no way to verify that someone showing an NFT PFP actually owns the artwork.
Those who had previously set the NFT as their profile picture initially appeared to retain their hexagonal avatars, but as of January 11, X appears to have deleted them.
Mercari Enables Bitcoin Payments
Japanese e-commerce leader Mercari has announced that it will begin accepting Bitcoin payments in June this year, following the launch of an in-app Bitcoin trading platform last year.
Mercari, a popular digital marketplace with more than 22 million monthly users, will allow bitcoin trading through its Tokyo-based blockchain subsidiary Mercoin. While prices will still be displayed in yen, users can pay with bitcoin and Mercoin will convert bitcoin into yen for sellers.
The platform maintains standard fees for Bitcoin transactions, following Mercari’s record profit of 2.8 billion yen in the third quarter of 2023, marking a significant shift in e-commerce to embrace cryptocurrencies.
OpenSea launches wallet creation using email
Starting this week, all you need to get started with OpenSea is an email address. With our new onboarding experience and technology from Privy, you can create an OpenSea account with a self-hosted crypto wallet using just your email.
The wallet is fully integrated with OpenSea: you can use it to buy, sell, add, send and receive cryptocurrencies and NFTs, manage your funds, and view transactions on the blockchain, all without the need for a separate wallet extension, and you can use it on all nine EVM-based chains that are compatible with OpenSea.
Read our full blog post on the official website to learn more.
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