Posted on

The Merge as seen by NFT artists, fan art from Beeple to Vanity Blocks

The Merge: NFTs dedicated to Ethereum 2.0

Beeple and other digital artists celebrate The Merge, discover the NFTs created in honour of the Ethereum update!

The Merge has finally been activated and the Web3 world is in full celebration. Digital artwork and NFTs dedicated to Ethereum 2.0 were not late to the party either! The launch of The Merge officially took place on Thursday the 15th of September at 06:42:42 UTC, activated from block number 15537393. The update marked Ethereum’s final transition to the Proof-Of-Stake consensus algorithm. Given the importance of the event, many wondered how to celebrate The Merge on the blockchain in an immutable manner. In short, with its symbols and mascots, The Merge has become the topic of many NFTs!

Ethereum blockchain blocks become NFTs

The last block of Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work blockchain and the first block of Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake blockchain have both become NFTs. Blockchains are immutable records of information grouped into blocks, which usually contain different numbers of transactions. Bitcoin’s blocks for example contain around 2000 transactions, whereas Ethereum’s blocks usually contain fewer, around 300 to 500.

The emerging NFT brand Vanity Blocks created the NFT of Ethereum’s latest blockchain Proof of Work.

The VanityBlocks project was created to allow users to fill a block on the Ethereum blockchain with a single transaction and turn it into an NFT. The NFT block then becomes the property of the person who processed the transaction. How much did it cost to turn the last block on Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work blockchain into an NFT? 30.5 ETH, about $45,000. Now the NFT can be purchased on the OpenSea marketplace. The current offer is 20 ETH, about $27,000. Within this NFT, the Vanity Blocks team decided to write a quote by US writer Terence McKenna: ‘Make a commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not crush you, but lift you up. That is the trick’. Probably a thought to emphasise the commitment and the enormous amount of innovation that went into the creation of The Merge!

Not only did the last block on Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work blockchain become an NFT but the same thing happened to the first block on the Proof-of-Stake blockchain. One user managed to make a transaction on the first Proof-of-Stake blockchain by paying as much as 36.8 Ethereum in gas fees. The latter are the fees each user pays to process transactions on a blockchain. Gas fees are generally not that expensive, on this occasion the figure was high because the blockchain was particularly congested, in other words very active. The NFT in question depicts a black page entitled ‘The Transition’ on which there is some information such as the chain ID, the blockchain number, the timestamp, i.e. all information and data related to the transaction itself, and on the right-hand side of the page a drawing of a panda.

The panda has become the symbol animal of The Merge on social networks. Even the search engine Google, within the widget for the countdown of The Merge, has inserted two teddy bears, one white and one black, running towards each other with the aim of becoming a panda once the update has taken place. The panda became a popular animal to narrate The Merge following the custom of representing ‘fusion’ through gestures in the Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball Z. Rather than Goku and Vegeta, all the memes depicting The Merge were represented by two bears, one white and one black. They would later fuse and give birth to the panda. The peculiarity of the NFT of the first Proof-of-Stake block is definitely the block number, 15537394 the one with which The Merge was activated!

Beeple’s digital artwork in honour of The Merge

All the most influential individuals and projects within the Web3 community paid tribute to The Merge. In addition to the so-called ‘insiders’, developers and founders of major crypto projects, digital artists also spoke out to celebrate this important event. Among the various works of art produced, those by Beeple certainly stand out. He is one of the first and most influential artists in the NFT field. Beeple has been creating at least one work of art a day for more than 10 years now. In 2020, he decided to turn his artwork into NFTs. The collection containing the first 5000 works, called Everydays, was sold in February 2021 for $69.4 million. There are two digital artworks related to The Merge that Beeple created to date. One is entitled ‘THE MERGE’ and depicts a huge reproduction of the Ethereum symbol under construction. The NFT of the Ethereum logo is constructed from a diamond-like material in purple. The symbol is located inside a kind of futuristic laboratory surrounded by two mechanical arms that appear to be in the process of completing it. This artwork probably represents the completion of the ‘merging’ process and the change of consensus algorithm.

The other digital artwork is called ‘PROOF OF STAKE’ and it depicts a large cyborg panda moving menacingly inside a mine populated by stones resembling the symbol of Ethereum. The two works maintain the classic characteristics of Beeple’s NFTs, so they are both set in a dystopian, psychedelic universe and give the viewer mixed emotions.

Posted on

Gala Games’ new platform: after video games, it’s time for decentralised music!

Gala Crypto: music NFTs in a new Web3 platform

Discover the Web3 platform dedicated to music and developed by Gala Games. With music NFTs, create your own playlists and get GALA crypto!

Gala Games is a game development platform created in 2019 by Eric Schiermeyer and Michael McCarthy. It aims to offer a dedicated crypto gaming ecosystem where developers can work with ease and where users can have full control (including economic control) of game resources. On the Gala Games web app, you can download Web3 games and exchange NFT game items. In just a few years, Gala’s crypto has climbed to fourth place in the ranking of the most capitalised tokens in the crypto gaming industry (compiled by the research platform Messari.io). In this ranking, the top three places are occupied by The Sandbox, Axie Infinity and Enjin, respectively.

Gala Games has recently broadened its horizons: after crypto video games, Gala is ready to make its mark in the field of music and film as well. Its expansion is aimed at the entire entertainment sector. In this regard, Gala Music and Gala Film were born. Read on to find out about these innovative dapps!

Gala Games, the crypto gaming paradise

Gala Games is a platform where creating and playing video games earns rewards in Gala crypto. The way Gala Games works is similar to the well-known web platform for digital content distribution: Steam. However, it is also possible to buy and sell items, skins and objects in the form of NFTs on Gala. These items can then be used within the crypto games available on Gala. The games available on Gala are not (and will not be) entirely developed by the platform, but can and may also be developed by third parties.

The two most anticipated titles still in development are Mirandus and Grit . Mirandus is a fantasy RPG in which players have absolute freedom of choice: they can explore the wilderness on their own, try their luck against forest monsters, or join one of the five monarchs who control the kingdom of Mirandus. Grit, on the other hand, is a battle royale game set in the Wild West and developed in collaboration with gaming giant Epic Games. This video game has been presented as a sort of fusion between Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption. Survivors of gunfights on horseback or chases after speeding trains are the only winners in this game. The partnership with Epic Games has drawn attention to Gala Games, who is meanwhile making waves for their cutting-edge proposals for music and film on blockchain.

How Gala Music works: decentralised streaming

“Web3 is the next evolution of the internet”, is the introduction of a blog post edited by the crypto platform Gala. When talking about the evolution of the internet, one cannot leave out one of the sectors for which the internet is most used: the entertainment sector. And Gala is not backing down! With this in mind, the Gala Games team is working on two more platforms: Gala Music and Gala Film. How do they work? Gala Music is a Web3 platform where music can be rented, shared and listened to. Gala Music is based on what is called a Music Node, which is a real node for creating a network of shared music. A ‘Node’ is a term widely used in the crypto world. It refers to devices that connect to the interface of a blockchain and contain all transactions that have been recorded on that network. More generally, a ‘node’ can mean a participant in a network. In this example, we are talking about devices connected to the Gala Music network, which do not contain transactions but do contain music NFTs. In a nutshell, Gala Music’s Music Nodes contain music recorded on the blockchain. You can think of them as a kind of jukebox that everyone can access.

When you decide to use Gala Music, you open your own Music Node, which you customise by purchasing music NFTs from the store. Users will get Gala crypto in proportion to the plays their node generates. If you do not want to buy your own node, you can purchase NFTs and rent them to Music Node operators in exchange for a portion of the rewards generated.

Rewards in GALA are not only distributed to music NFT owners and node owners, but also to the artist who created the song.

There are two types of music nodes: Player Nodes, the mechanism of which we have just described and Fan Nodes, dedicated to specific artists through which you can obtain a range of benefits such as exclusive NFTs. Among the artists on the platform are some big names, such as the rock group Kings of Leon and the Mount Westmore rap crew consisting of Snoop Dog, Ice Cube,Too Short and E-40. The first drop of 25,000 Player Nodes took place in February 2022, and the cost per node was around $1,200.

Gala Film functions in a similar way to Gala Music, but instead of Music Nodes, you will find Film Nodes. The first Gala Film nodes are still available for purchase, at a price of 106,000 Gala, so approximately 5,000 €.

Gala and Web3: power to the artists and content creators!

The system designed by Gala for both platforms, Gala Music and Gala Film, goes beyond rewarding NFT owners and Node operators. It also distributes most of the rewards directly to the artists. Keyword: creator economy!

The two systems, respectively renamed watch-to-earn and listen-to-earn, aim to overcome the current economic model for content creators and artists. The streaming platforms of Web2 no longer seem suited to rewarding content creators. Web3 is here for that: you can monetise everything you create and produce online! The Internet will be in the hands of those who actually create its value, all thanks to the decentralisation enabled by blockchain.

With Gala Music and Gala Film, new talent will also be involved. Thanks to these platforms, emerging artists will be facilitated to get in touch with new fans in an easier way.

Posted on

Young Monday: Ballon d’or, Starbucks and Norway’s CBDC on Ethereum

Starbucks and Polygon, Ballon d’Or NFTs and Norway’s CBDC

Starbucks unveils its Odyssey platform on Polygon, the Ballon d’Or will also be an NFT and the Norwegian Central Bank launches its CBDC

Cryptocurrency history was written this week thanks to Ethereum’s much-anticipated update, The Merge, which successfully took place on Thursday the 15th of September 2022. It was certainly the news of the week (if not the year) but the world of crypto is always in turmoil and has so much more to offer! Starbucks unveiled its Odyssey NFT platform that will be developed on the Polygon blockchain. The most important award in football, the Ballon d’Or, will also be released as an NFT, and the Norwegian Central Bank has chosen Ethereum for the development of its digital currency.

Starbucks enters the Web3 with its Odyssey platform

Impossible to start Monday morning without a hot cup of coffee! This week’s Young Monday is no exception thanks to the new collaboration between Polygon and Starbucks. The coffee franchise officially unveiled the Starbucks Odyssey initiative on Tuesday the 13th of September 2022, a Web3 platform built on the Polygon network. Starbucks Odyssey will work in a similar manner to the loyalty programme called Starbucks Rewards, which has already been running for some time and grants customers rewards in exchange for the ‘stars’ they earn from their purchases.

Through the Odyssey platform, Starbucks wants to take the relationship between the brand and their customers to the next level by allowing users to obtain a wider range of rewards and creating a real community. Thanks to Odyssey, Starbucks customers (only in the US for the time being) will be able to obtain and purchase digital collectibles and unlock exclusive experiences, all of them coffee-themed. “Leveraging Web 3.0 technology will allow our members to access experiences and ownership that was not possible before. Starbucks Odyssey will transcend the foundational benefits that our Starbucks Rewards members have come to love, and unlock digital, physical and experiential benefits that are uniquely Starbucks.” explained Brady Brewer, CMO of Starbucks.

To develop the project, Starbucks brought in Adam Brotman as a special consultant. He is the mastermind behind the Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app. Brotman recently founded Forum3, a Web3 startup that aims to redefine the relationship between consumers and brands through NFTs and cryptocurrency technologies.

The 2022 Ballon d’Or will also be an NFT

The world of football and NFTs are very much in sync lately. Following last week’s news about World Cup NFTs coming to Algorand, it was revealed that the winners of the 2022 Ballon d’Or will also receive an NFT version of their trophy. The ceremony will take place on the 17th of October 2022 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. For the second year running, the Socios platform on Chiliz was selected as the official Web3 partner. The winner of the 2022 Ballon d’Or will not only be engraved on the famous golden trophy but will also for the first time be registered on the blockchain in the metadata of a smart contract. France Football, the French awarding magazine, has not yet specified which blockchain the NFT will be created on.

In addition to the men’s and women’s Ballon d’Or NFTs, which award the best player and the best female player on the planet, three other prizes will also be handed out. The Kopa Trophy (best young talent), the Yachine Trophy (best goalkeeper) and the Müller Trophy (best striker). The highest-ranked winner for the Ballon d’Or 2022 seems to be French striker Karim Benzema, who is already familiar with the world of NFTs, having previously launched his own NFT collection called KB Metaclub.

The Central Bank of Norway chose Ethereum for its CBDC

Last week saw a successful completion of Ethereum’s update, The Merge! However, the news concerning Ethereum does not end there! The Norwegian Central Bank has reached an important turning point with regard to the development of its CBDC, i.e. its digital currency. What is a CBDC? Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are digital currencies issued by a central bank. Just like cryptocurrencies, CBDCs are digital currencies, but they are issued by a government and are therefore centralised. The Norwegian CBDC will be an ERC-20 token, around which various financial services will be built. The Norwegian Central Bank’s project is supported by Nahmii, a scalability solution for Ethereum.

Posted on

Puma’s NFTs and the metaverse show at the New York Fashion Week 2022

NFTs and the Puma metaverse at the New York Fashion Week

Puma: between the metaverse and NFTs at the New York Fashion Week. Discover the initiatives of the German brand in the world of Web3!

The New York Fashion Week started on Friday the 9th of September 2022, and it is almost drawing to a close. Among the fashion collections that have just taken to the catwalks of the Big Apple, one stands out from the rest. We’re talking about the German brand Puma, that has been absent from the catwalks since 2017. They were ready to return in style through such a highly anticipated event. So, why was Puma’s event on Wednesday the 14th of September 2022 so eagerly awaited? It was the first fashion show to take place in both the real world and the metaverse!

The event called Futrograde was held both on the New York catwalks and in Puma’s Metaverse called Puma Black Station. The news doesn’t end there though! In August 2022, the famous German brand launched its NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain called Puma Nitropass. Find out how to interact with the Puma Metaverse and their NFTs!

Futrograde, the parade in the Metaverse Puma Black Station!

On the occasion of one of the most eagerly awaited fashion events of the year, Puma has developed a true Web3 ecosystem in which the industry’s leading technologies interact. One of the objectives is certainly to cross geographical boundaries and enable everyone to experience the thrill of attending a Fashion Week event.

But let’s go in order, where did the Futrograde event take place? The event took place in Puma’s metaverse called Puma Black Station, at 2am on Wednesday the 14th of September (UK time). The Black Station platform is a 3D environment designed with the Unreal 5 graphics engine. According to the brand, all of Puma’s Web3 initiatives will be made available there. As of today, users can access two portals by moving around like in a video game: one is called NFERNO and one is called FASTROID. Once you access the portal, you can move to the centre of the virtual room where two 3D models of the sneakers that Puma is about to launch are positioned, illuminated by a particular play of light.

The 3D models in question depict two Puma sneakers that NFT Nitropass owners can physically obtain. How? By burning the digital artwork currently in their possession or by destroying it forever. Puma Nitropass NFTs, built on the Ethereum blockchain, are available on the OpenSea marketplace. The collection consists of 4000 units and the minimum price at which they can be purchased is 0.23 Ether, approximately 370€.

At the back of the room of the Metaverse Puma Black Station, there is also a portal called ‘Futrograde Entry’, which was the route to the Puma show during New York Fashion Week 2022.

Puma’s Web3 and NFT journey

The fact that Puma is a brand in tune with Web3 technologies is nothing new. The German brand approached the Web3 world (and in particular the NFT space), ahead of most competitors by signing partnerships with famous digital art collections. Puma’s Web3 adventure officially started on the 21st of February 2022 with the purchase of the ENS domain puma.eth. Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is a protocol for registering domains on the Ethereum blockchain. Each ENS domain can be used as a web address, a wallet, an email or a social media account. Puma has for now chosen to use its ENS domain as the handle of its Twitter page.

Between February and June 2022, Puma launched a large series of partnerships with important NFT projects. In just a few days, it formed partnerships with four collections created on the Ethereum blockchain: CoolCats NFT, Lazy Lions, CatBlox and the Gutter Cat Gang. Each project covered different initiatives. For example, the collaboration with Lazy Lions, which took place in conjunction with NFT Week 2022 in New York, allowed Lazy Lions holders to get a Puma T-shirt with their NFT Lion printed on it. Is it a coincidence that all these NFTs depict felines?

The next step in Puma’s Web3 journey? In May 2022, the brand decided to jump in and develop its first NFT collection together with English football club Manchester City. The collection celebrates the 10th anniversary of the club’s first title in the Premier League (England’s top football league). The particular name of the collection called 93:20 refers to the time elapsed from kick-off to the decisive goal scored by Sergio Aguero during the last game of the 2011-2012 season.

The collection consists of NFTs depicting Aguero’s Puma football boot in a cartoonish, decomposed version, with a series of vignettes inside representing the city of Manchester and the Citizens team. There are only three NFTs in the collection and they differed from each other in terms of the colour of the shoe’s background and the experiences they offered to buyers. The crypto artworks created by digital artist Musketon were sold on the NFT marketplace called Makersplace at three quite different prices, precisely because they offered different benefits. The one with the blue background sold for $1,100, the one with the yellow background for about $2,000, and the one with the green background, which included four tickets to watch a match from the Etihad Stadium suite, for about $6200.

Posted on

NFTs in honour of Queen Elizabeth II

Here are the NFTs created in honour of Queen Elizabeth II

The Web3 celebrates Her Majesty’s life: discover QueenE DAO and all the NFT collections created in honour of Queen Elizabeth II

The news of Queen Elizabeth II‘s passing on Thursday the 8th of September 2022 is the focus of all newspapers and social networks. A short time ago, the British monarch had spoken out on the world of digital markets. She communicated through the words of the then Prince Charles that she would take steps to strengthen the UK’s digital financial plan. After the news of the sovereign’s death, a number of series of digital artwork were created to pay a sincere tribute to the Queen, who was also loved by the people of the Web3. Discover the main NFT collections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II!

NFT collections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II

A few hundred NFT collections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II were created on various blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon and the Binance Smart Chain. Beyond non-fungible tokens, meme coins such as Queen Elizabeth Inu, QueenDoge and Rip Queen Elizabeth have also popped up.

So, why are all these NFT collections about Queen Elizabeth appearing? For some it may have just been a way to exploit the media buzz of one of the biggest news stories of 2022. However, for most digital artists it was a real tribute to the most famous and beloved monarch ever. Digital artists have indulged in depicting the Queen in different styles and ways, but these celebratory tokens are not necessarily so recent. Some had chosen to depict the Queen and transpose her art onto blockchain before. These collections are of course now back in the limelight. Among the latter is QueenE DAO which is inspired by the DAO NFT Nouns.

QueenE DAO, become a member of the ‘British Parliament’

The QueenE DAO collection is an NFT project that was released in July 2022. It follows in the footsteps of the famous NFT Nouns DAO project. A DAO, or Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, is a type of organisation that is managed by smart contracts and that has a decentralised structure. Nouns is a Web3 platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, with the goal of building a project that is fully managed by all users who own the project’s native NFTs. This is made possible by periodic voting in which only those who own at least one NFT can participate. At this point, Nouns is pretty much an exclusive club, where everyone can get to know and interact directly with all the users who are part of the project. Very few people own Nouns NFTs .Few of them are minted, at the rhythm of one per day for just over a year. Let’s see how it works! On Nouns.wtf, the platform where Nouns’ digital artwork can be purchased, an NFT is generated every day consisting of a few traits that are randomly combined. Users who want to obtain the NFT can ‘challenge’ each other to bid in Ether until the auction ends exactly twenty-four hours after the digital artwork has been created. All Ether collected by the DAO is stored in a ‘common’ wallet whose contents are constantly visible to all users.

The QueenE project mirrors the features and ideas of Nouns. Instead of avatars depicting sharks or unicorns, QueenE’s NFT digital artworks are portraits of Queen Elizabeth that retain the pixelated style. QueenE’s NFTs are composed of six features including the background, face, clothing, head accessory, jewellery and portrait frame. These traits, as is often the case in NFT collections, are classified by rarity. 85% of the traits are common, 10% are rare and 5% are super rare. The rarity of NFTs will be linked to the voting power within the DAO. Voting power will be exercised within the QueenE parliament divided, as in reality, into two chambers. The House of Commons, composed of those who own at least one common QueenE NFT, and the House of Lords whose seats are reserved for owners of rare, super rare or legendary QueenE NFTs. Commons NFTs secure one vote for each NFT owned, while rare, super rare or legendary NFTs secure two votes.

QueenE’s revamped ‘treasury’ is the UnCommonwealth Treasury. Just like Nouns DAO it is also managing the project’s funds in a transparent manner. The QueenE DAO, which had been ‘dormant’ until a few days ago, saw an increase in sales volumes on the occasion of the passing of the iconic monarch. Will the love of the people of Web3 for the late Queen Elizabeth II triumph? Surely the NFT collections created to celebrate the monarch will remain as indelible memories engraved on blockchain.

Posted on

LG and Hedera design an NFT marketplace compatible with smart TVs

Buy NFTs with Smart TVs thanks to LG and HBAR

In collaboration with the Hedera blockchain, LG launches the LG Art Lab. Display your digital artwork and buy NFTs with HBAR on your smart TV !

Would you like to display your favourite NFTs and show them to your friends in your living room? Thanks to a new initiative of the tech company LG, in collaboration with the Hedera blockchain, you can now display your digital artwork and buy new ones through your LG smart TV. All from the comfort of your sofa! LG Art Lab is the name of the collaboration project with Hedera. It is a real NFT marketplace, where you can buy NFTs with the HBAR token, which will be accessible directly from your TV. Find out how to buy NFTs with the HBAR crypto, and how to turn your home into a digital art gallery!

Exhibiting NFTs? LG and the digital art gallery!

LG Art Lab is an NFT platform announced on the 5th of September 2022, which will be launched by the end of 2022 on the Hedera blockchain. This is not the first time the two companies have come into contact. In fact, LG has been part of Hedera’s board of directors since 2020. The marketplace and its application should be available by the end of the year in the United States. It will allow users to buy, sell and display digital artwork. The special feature of this marketplace is that it will be easily accessible and compatible with LG smart TVs. It is the perfect medium to display your NFT collection, thanks to the exceptional resolution quality of the images. LG Art Lab will function like a classic NFT marketplace, such as OpenSea, with the difference that purchases will be made with the HBAR token. The section dedicated to buying NFTs is called Drops, where artist profiles and previews of new works coming soon will be available with a countdown so you won’t miss anything new.

To enable users to purchase NFTs with the HBAR token directly from their smart TV, LG is also launching the Wallypto crypto wallet. By connecting to the LG Art Lab platform, the wallet will allow users to view all NFTs they own, as well as their available HBAR token balance. The platform will initially only be available for the US market. As can easily be guessed from the platform’s name, art will be the major focus of the application. The first partnership has already been unveiled, the featured artist will be Barry X Ball!

The first collection on LG Art Lab by Barry X Ball

Barry X Ball is a contemporary sculptor and artist famous for his interpretations of classical sculpture and modernist art created with cutting-edge techniques such as 3D printing and scanning.

Barry X Ball will make his debut in the digital art world with his first NFTs in a collection entitled “Metal” right on the LG Art Lab platform. Thanks to the resolution of LG smart TVs, users will be able to view all the textures, details and materials (including precious metals and stones) used in the artist’s sculptures.

LG chooses Hedera’s green blockchain

Why did LG choose Hedera for its NFT marketplace? The Hedera blockchain, which is a product of the HBAR Foundation, describes itself as an enterprise blockchain that can process transactions very cheaply and quickly. But how are Hedera and its HBAR token so efficient and cheap? The answer to this question lies in the way transactions are recorded on the network. A new structure called Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) was designed by software engineer Leamon Baird, who founded the project in 2015. Thanks to this, Hedera is able to process up to 10 thousand transactions per second.

Hedera’s blockchain works via a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, called hashgraph. In addition to providing speed and scalability to the network, it is geared towards environmental sustainability. The latter is a value that the HBAR Foundation and its Hedera blockchain have adopted since their inception in 2017. The development team has been and is still committed to ensuring the network’s carbon neutral status by purchasing quarterly carbon credits (carbon offsets). The amount of these credits has been determined by TerraPass, an independent emissions assessment company.

Posted on

Young Monday: Muse’s NFT album, Cardano’s Vasil update, Sorare and the NBA

Muse’s NFT album, Cardano’s Vasil update, Sorare and the NBA

Muse’s NFT album ‘Will Of The People’, Cardano’s Vasil update and how Sorare’s NBA cards work

Music and sport take the spotlight again in this edition of Young Monday! Muse smashes the competition with their NFT album ‘Will Of The People’. Cardano confirms that the Vasil update will take place on the 22nd of September 2022, and Sorare becomes the platform for fantasy basketball by announcing a partnership with the NBA. Find out how to play Sorare NBA in this article!

Muse’s NFT album Will of the people tops the world charts!

Muse are breaking records with their new NFT album: Will of the people. One week after its release date at the end of August, Muse sold 51,500 copies of the album. This is more than the sum of all sales of other albums in the UK top 10. Of these 50,000 copies, 1,000 were sold as NFTs. The sales of NFT albums took place on Serenade, an application for the sale of non-fungible tokens that relies on Ethereum’s Layer 2 blockchain, Polygon. The available NFT copies sold out within 25 minutes. What happened is a real record as far as the world of Web3 music is concerned. But what is meant exactly by musical NFTs?

NFTs are a technology that is now beginning to express their full potential in the world of music, which is why musical NFTs are spreading. This type of non-fungible token can take different forms. They can be associated with songs, concert tickets or much more. In the case of ‘Will Of The People’, the British artists decided to sell an NFT package including all tracks of the new album in a high-quality audio format called FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). This audio format was chosen because the files undergo less compression, only about 50 percent, and consequently provide the listener with higher sound quality.

The NFTs of Muse’s album, however, are not only audio files but also pictures. They are also limited edition covers autographed by the band. But how can you buy Muse’s album NFTs? Although the NFTs sold out in a very short time, it is still possible to buy them on secondary markets! The collection is in fact available on OpenSea. However, the price is much higher than it was at the time of release. The first 1,000 purchasers only paid $20. Now, the current price is about 0.17 ETH or almost 300$. Has the time come to say goodbye to the idea of music collecting to which we are accustomed? Instead of huge libraries full of vinyls and CDs, a crypto wallet might be enough in the future!

Time for Cardano to upgrade: 22 September hard fork!

Following the example of Ethereum, with which it shares one of its founders Charles Hoskinson, the Cardano blockchain is ready to make the long-awaited Vasil update! The release date has been set for the 22nd of September 2022. The update is the cornerstone of the fourth phase of Cardano’s life cycle called Basho, dedicated to scalability. For now, there are five phases in the roadmap, all named after artists, writers and intellectuals. Byron, Shelley, Goguen have all been successfully executed. Now only Basho and Voltaire are missing.

The Vasil update aims to increase the speed and cost-effectiveness of transactions on the network so as to increase the number of users interacting with the blockchain and the number of developers ready to create new ecosystems. It is precisely because of the latter goal that Vasil will also update the Plutus programming language. The Cardano team expects a network increasingly populated by NFT collections, metaverses and play-to-earn games.

Playing with NBA champions on Sorare

September marks the start of a new season for fantasy football. Have you already prepared your squad? What better time to talk about the unique and inimitable crypto fantasy football platform Sorare. The game that is based on player’s cards will no longer just be a crypto fantasy football, but will soon also become a fantasy basketball platform too!

On Wednesday, the 7th of September 2022, the Ethereum platform announced on Twitter a partnership with the world’s most famous basketball league: the NBA. Basketball fans, it’s your time to shine! Challenge your friends by creating an unbeatable team. But how does Sorare NBA work? For now, information is still scarce. However, according to rumours, the Sorare variant will be the equivalent of the football version. Sorare is a play-to-earn NFT game on the Ethereum blockchain in which users must create a football team through NFT cards and compete against each other for prizes. Soon you will be able to become the general manager of an NBA franchise, field the cards of your champions and win your first NBA ring. If you don’t want to arrive unprepared, check out this guide to learn how to play Sorare and secure an advantage over your opponents!

Posted on

Cardano: Vasil hard fork coming on the 22nd of September

Cardano: Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September

The Cardano Foundation developers have announced the date for the hard fork: the Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022!

For major crypto projects, this September 2022 is the month to look to the future and get up to speed. The event on everyone’s mind is definitely Ethereum’s The Merge. However, Cardano and its crypto ADA (developed by one of Ethereum’s own founders, Charles Hoskinson) are ready to begin the Vasil update. The main goal of the update, or hard fork, is to increase the speed and scalability of Cardano‘s blockchain and make it generally more powerful and cheaper. These improvements are aimed at facilitating the development of decentralised applications (DApps), especially in the area of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), and increasing the possibilities of use cases for ADA. Let’s discover what is new with the Vasil update, coming at the end of September!

Cardano’s Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022

After some problems on the testnet that were solved efficiently and quickly by the Cardano team, the date for the hard fork of the ADA crypto blockchain has finally been announced. The Vasil update will take place on the 22nd of September 2022. Cardano is a blockchain created in 2015 and based on the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. This allows it to be highly scalable, meaning it can handle a large number of transactions per second. On the other hand, a hard fork is an update of a protocol in which very radical changes are implemented to the point of making it incompatible with previous versions.

But where does the Vasil update coming on the 22nd of September 2022 fit on Cardano’s roadmap? The Cardano roadmap is divided into five macro-phases, each of which has a main objective. At the moment, we are in the phase called Basho which wants to improve the scalability of the network as its primary objective. In other words, increasing the number of users who use it every day without worsening performance or making it more expensive. The Vasil hard fork will happen automatically: users with ADA crypto or using DeFi DApps on Cardano’s blockchain should not even notice it. Vasil will in fact be implemented using Cardano’s hard-fork combinator (HFC), an innovative technology that enables protocol transitions and updates without interrupting the smooth operation of the network.

Why is the update named as such? The name Vasil was chosen to pay homage to Vasil St. Dabov a Bulgarian developer who was the Chief Blockchain Advisor of a software research and development company named Quanterall before his passing in December 2021. Vasil St. Dabov was a very active member of the crypto community and an ambassador for Cardano. The date of the update is also symbolic, as the 22nd September coincides with the day on which Bulgaria, St. Dabov’s birthplace, celebrates its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

What changes will be implemented for Cardano users and developers?

Vasil will provide some key functionalities to enable the launch of further projects on Cardano. At the same time, it will offer an upgrade path (with increased speed, transactional capability and more powerful scripts) to existing DApps. Specifically, Vasil will modify the transaction validation and transmission system with a mechanism called Diffusion Pipelineing. With this mechanism, blocks will be added to the network when they are created and not only when they are complete. This optimises the timing of block validation and enables Cardano’s blockchain to not only guarantee faster transactions, but also to increase its security by making possible attacks much more complex.

However, the update was also designed with the developers in mind, i.e. those involved in creating decentralised applications on the network.

With Vasil, the programming language with which smart contracts are written on Cardano’s blockchain called Plutus will also be updated. The hard fork will give rise to Plutus V2, which will enable developers to develop more efficient and cost-effective DApps (from a transaction perspective).

To date, Cardano ranks 29th among all the blockchains in terms of volumes traded on its platforms, of which there are currently only twelve. The current total blockchain value (TVL) is around $80 million. We will see if the Vasil update, due on 22 September 2022 will help Cardano’s network make its way into the big world of DeFi and increase the use cases of crypto ADA.

Posted on

Roblox: what is it and how does its metaverse work?

What is the Roblox metaverse and how does it work?

Find out what Roblox, the metaverse with the most active users in the world, is and how it really works!

Do you know what Roblox is and how it works? It is a centralised Metaverse that, unlike The Sandbox or Decentraland, is not based on blockchain. Roblox is a platform that contains over 40 million free games but also a virtual world in which to interact with other gamers. On Roblox, users have a lot of expressive space and can create their own games and experiences. But let’s see what Roblox is and how it works.

What is Roblox? Birth of the metaverse and relation to gaming

To best clarify what Roblox is and how this metaverse works, we must start at the beginning of its history. This virtual world was created by David Baszucki and Eric Cassel, two Californian guys with a passion for computers. The two computer wizards started their entrepreneurial career by creating a small company called Knowledge Revolution. Knowledge Revolution’s embryonic product was called Interactive Physics, a platform that used two-dimensional models to study virtual physics. In 2004, after Knowledge Revolution was sold to MSC Software Corporation for $20 million, Roblox was born. 

Over time, the company has expanded and evolved to become an institution in the gaming world, especially for younger people, as there is no minimum age to join the platform. In 2020, the Roblox metaverse achieved an incredible popularity that allowed it to go public. To date, its market capitalisation is around $25 million. But how many people are there in this virtual world? Active users during 2022 were more than 50 million, and earlier this year, the Roblox metaverse managed to break the record for the number of simultaneously connected gamers on one platform, 9.3 million on 4 February 2023.

Now, however, we need to point out that its metaverse is different from decentralised metaverses such as The Sandbox or Decentraland. It is in fact a completely centralised and managed platform, similar to a classic video game. Roblox also does not use blockchain technology and does not guarantee digital ownership of virtual worlds and objects through NFTs or tokens. Although this platform is not related to the Web3 universe, it is nevertheless one of the realities that is contributing to the development and spread of the Metaverse in popular culture. 

Join the Roblox metaverse and create your own virtual world!

In the Roblox metaverse you can really play anything! Among the 40 million games available, there is plenty of choice. You can become a professional puppy breeder by playing the popular game Adopt Me! You can fight against your friends in a DragonBall-inspired fighting game called DBZ Final Stand and you can sculpt your avatar’s physique in the gyms of the virtual world of Training Simulator. The first Roblox game was Rocket Arena, which was released on the platform in January 2006 and is still available in its first version, which is now called ‘Classic Rocket Arena’. 

As anticipated, this is not only a platform on which to play different video games for free, but also an ecosystem that allows users to create their own 3D worlds. Thanks to Roblox Studio, a programme that uses the company’s proprietary graphics engine and the Lua Script programming language, users can express their creativity and share their creations with the other inhabitants of the Metaverse.

Having understood what Roblox is, the only question remains: how does it really work? Using the platform and playing the games on it is totally free. The only paid items within the Roblox metaverse are the skins and the infinite number of virtual objects with which to customise avatars and environments. These ‘digital goods’ can be created and sold by anyone; the exchange takes place thanks to the game’s currency called Robux. The in-game currency works like the more classic coins of traditional video games, so it has no real value outside the game and can be purchased from the store through fiat currency payments.

The most exciting concerts on Roblox

Roblox is one of the virtual worlds with the most concerts, so much so that it was chosen by MTV as the location for its award ceremony dedicated to the Metaverse. The TV channel included the “Best Metaverse Performance” award in the “Video Music Awards 2022” (VMA) in August 2022. The VMAs were also broadcast, on Monday 29 August 2022, in Roblox’s MTV world ‘The VMA Experience’. 

Among the most exciting events in this Metaverse, Justin Bieber, Twenty One Pilots and Charli XCX in 2021, all three nominated for the MTV ‘Best Metaverse Performance’ award. The most important concert of 2023 was, so far, the one organised to celebrate the Super Bowl, the final of the world’s most important American football championship, the NFL. Instead of Rihanna, who performed at half-time of the game that was played, real world, in Glendale, Arizona; taking the virtual stage at Roblox was Saweetie, a rapper who is very famous in the States. The event took place from 10 to 12 February, inside ‘Warner Music Group’s Rhythm City’, the virtual world owned by the record label, and was also an opportunity to promote the official NFL (National Football League) game, Super NFL Tycoon available to users of the metaverse from 4 February. 

Some famous brands that have chosen Roblox

Attentive brands that tend to ride new trends are becoming more and more inclined to use new technologies in order to promote their products to new generations. Gucci and Nike, for example, know what Roblox is and how its metaverse works! Gucci debuted there in October 2021 with its dedicated world called Gucci Town. It is a lush and colourful mansion that offers those who visit it the opportunity to earn GG gems, create collectible clothes and accessories, and purchase limited edition virtual items. A virtual Gucci handbag sold for around $4,000 in the Roblox metaverse. 

Another example of brands that have chosen this virtual world? Nike, with the virtual city Nikeland! Nike‘s objective is to test new prototypes of shoes and clothing, to capture the tastes and preferences of young users in order to develop increasingly popular products. Kellog’s, Tommy Hilfiger, Givenchy and many other iconic brands have also found a home on Roblox!
Now that you know what Roblox is and how its metaverse works, find out how to get into it! You’ll be able to play more than 40 million games, interact with many famous users and brands, and attend concerts like never before!

Posted on

FIFA and Algorand, the NFTs of the World Cup

Algorand and FIFA: NFTs for the World Cup

FIFA launches an NFT collection on Algorand dedicated to the World Cup with the FIFA+ Collect platform!

The world of football is one of the environments in which Web3 technologies are becoming more established, both in terms of investment and public response. It started with Socios’ fan tokens, then Sorare‘s NFT fantasy football. Now, we are presented with a platform that will be birthed from a collaboration between FIFA and Algorand: FIFA+. The collaboration was already announced in May 2022. Silvio Micali’s blockchain is becoming to all intents and purposes a technical partner of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Algorand will not only appear with its logo but will also actively contribute to the expansion of the largest global football federation into Web3. Let’s find out how the FIFA+ platform will work and what will the NFTs of the World Cup look like?

FIFA+ Collect, the most iconic moments of the World Cup in NFT

The memorable moments of the World Cup will soon become NFTs. The last penalty kicked by Fabio Grosso at the 2006 World Cup? Kylian Mbappe’s stunning goal from outside the box that sealed France’s 2018 victory? A clip from the notorious Brazil – Germany match in 2014? FIFA is planning to record iconic footage from World Cup history and keep it forever on the blockchain via a dedicated NFT platform in collaboration with Algorand. The NFT platform is called FIFA+ Collect and is part of the broader FIFA+ project. Fans around the world will be able to buy their favourite goal, assist or chant from the men’s and women’s World Cups of the past! And perhaps also of the near future: the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will be held in November this year. The ownership and uniqueness of the World Cup NFTs will be guaranteed by Algorand’s blockchain. The FIFA+ Collect initiative closely resembles the one undertaken by the NBA, the American basketball league, with the NBA Top Shot project on the Ethereum blockchain

Details on the FIFA and Algorand World Cup NFTs have not yet been released. Teasers of the collections are expected to be released during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. FIFA+, however, will not only be an NFT platform, but a space where a huge amount of different content can be displayed. Including live football matches, news, games and NFTs. Algorand continues to develop very interesting projects, especially in the world of content. Silvio Micali‘s blockchain also acquired the digital music sharing service Napster earlier this year, and has partnered with LimeWire, launching an NFT marketplace focused on music.

Changing the way of experiencing sport

The launch of the FIFA+ platform opens a broader discourse on the role of fans within the entertainment world of the future. Statements from the person who conceived the collection of official FIFA World Cup NFTs relate to this very topic: “Fandom is changing and football fans around the world are approaching the game in new and exciting ways,” said Romy Gai, FIFA’s Chief Business Officer. “FIFA collectibles will be available to all football fans, everyone will be able to own a part of the FIFA World Cup,” Gai stressed. The slogan of Socios, the platform on the Chiliz blockchain to buy fan tokens of sports teams or clubs that is also a sponsor of UEFA is ‘Be more than a fan‘. This sums up well the idea that Web3 platforms are developing for the enjoyment of sports events. Fans will no longer play the role of a passive spectator, but will be a protagonist in the choices of the teams and to a small extent also the owner of the club. Thanks to the concept of digital ownership, not only fandom, but also the world of sports collecting is changing, especially thanks to tokens and NFTs. In the future, you will be able to be the rightful owner of Maradona’s goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals, from which the nickname ‘The hand of god’ originated (unless perhaps you are an England fan). Also, thanks to fan tokens, you can play your part in defining the destiny of your favourite team by actively participating in transfer market decisions!