Apple will allow NFT purchases on its app store, Christie’s has a new NFT marketplace and a Muhammad Ali-inspired play-to-earn boxing game launches
The first Young Monday of October has good news in store, especially in the world of non-fungible tokens. Apple will enable NFT purchases via its app store. Christie’s, the world’s most famous auction house, launches its own NFT marketplace. On the 1st of October 2022, the occasion of the anniversary of the historic Thrilla fight in Manila, the NFT drop of the boxing-themed play-to-earn game ‘Muhammed Ali – The Next Legends’ took place. The news for this week doesn’t end there though. Mastercard has announced that it will be possible to personalise payment cards with their own NFTs from ‘blue chip’ collections: the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Moonbirds and CryptoPunks. Speaking of CryptoPunks, on the 28th of September 2022, CryptoPunks number 2924 was sold for a record 3,300 ETH, approximately $4.5 million! This is the fourth largest sale ever for CryptoPunks, what a record!
NFTs will soon be available for purchase in the Apple Store
Apple recently announced that it will allow NFTs to be bought and sold through its app store. However, the company has not yet fully explained the details of how this will come to be. Apple’s initiative is aimed at apps and games in the app store, in particular those that intend to sell game components in the form of NFTs. The debate surrounding this news has mainly focused on the commission that Apple plans to charge on the purchase of each NFT. It is expected to be around 30 per cent, the same percentage that is still applied today for components of traditional mobile games that can be purchased through Apple’s app store. Apple has been criticised on social networks, especially in crypto Twitter echo-chambers, for charging such high fees on the sale and purchase of NFTs. However, there have also been positive opinions for this: according to them the Cupertino based tech giant’s initiative would be an important building block for mass adoption.
Christie’s 3.0, the world’s most famous auction house is now a step further to embracing Web3
Christie’s, the world’s most famous auction house, recently launched its NFT marketplace on Ethereum. Christie’s 3.0. Among the works of art that have passed through the London auction house is the highest-price auctioned work ever: the painting ‘Salvator Mundi’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was bought by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism for 450 million dollars. However, Christie’s venture into the world of Web3 had already begun some time ago. They hosted the auction of digital artist Beeple’s artwork ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’, which sold for $69.3 million in March 2021. The recent Christie’s 3.0 initiative represents a further technological step forward for the auction house. But how can you buy NFTs on Christie’s 3.0? It is a real NFT marketplace, but sales will only be possible via auctions. The platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain, and to date it is not yet clear whether a secondary marketplace will be available on this platform in the future or whether those who want to sell digital works of art purchased on Christie’s 3.0 will have to rely on external NFT marketplaces.
Christie’s 3.0 was created in collaboration with two well-known companies in the world of Web3. One is Manifold, a startup that develops smart contracts. The other is Chainalysis, a Web3 company that produces software for the analysis of on-chain data with a particular focus on security. Christie’s 3.0 made its debut on the 28th of September 2022 with the PHASES collection: a collection of photo and video artworks by New York-based digital artist Diana Sinclair who is listed by Forbes as one of the 50 most influential people in the world of NFTs. Auctions for PHASES artworks will be available until the 11th of October 2022, and the starting price for the pieces is 4 ETH (approx. $5,300) for static digital artworks, and 5 ETH (approx. $6,660) for NFT videos.
Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends, the play-to-earn game about boxing
The 1st of October 2022 saw the launch of the Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends Pro Pack, the first NFTs of the blockchain-based game created in honour of Muhammad Ali. The NFTs cost 0.11 ETH, about $150, and are now available for purchase on OpenSea for a minimum price of 0.11 ETH. The 1st of October is no ordinary day: on this exact day in 1975, the bout nicknamed ‘Thrilla in Manila’ took place. This fight was the third and final bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Fraizer, which took place in Quezon City in the metropolitan area of Manila (capital of the Philippines). It is considered one of the most important fights in boxing history.
The upcoming play-to-earn game, Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends will use NFT and artificial intelligence based technologies. The play-to-earn is being produced by the start-up Non-Fungible Labs in collaboration with the leading artificial intelligence company for the Web3, Altered State Machine. To play The Next Legends you have to match two NFTs: an ASM Brain, the ‘boxer’s brain’ which is an NFT equipped with artificial intelligence that allows it to evolve, and a boxer NFT. Then by using ‘Artificial Intelligence Gyms’, users will be able to train their ‘brains’ by acquiring the boxing skills necessary to defeat opponents. Acquirable skills will be agility, stamina, stance, sparring, jabs, hooks and uppercuts. The goal of the game will be to train one’s boxer and win fights against other players to become The Next Legend!
