CoinMarketCap takes a look at some of the most prominent play-to-earn and NFT events — from an OpenSea bug leading to the loss of prized BAYC, to possible support for Solana NFTs on the site.
![Weekly Roundup: What Happened in Play2Earn Games and NFTs This Week? [Jan. 29, 2022]](https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/f810a04ff41c46fbaae2ec1ed2b6266e.jpg)
OpenSea appears to have dominated the NFT scene over the past week. From news that a front-end vulnerability led to the loss of prized BAYC to rumors of a possible support for Solana NFTs, here’s a rundown of some of the top events that happened in the NFT space last week.
OpenSea Rattles NFT Community by Placing Cap on its Free Minting Tool
Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea has come under intense fire after placing a cap on the number of NFTs that can be minted with its internal collection storefront contract.
On Thursday morning, the company’s Twitter support account announced that they had “updated [their] collection storefront contract limits” to five collections per NFT wallet, with a maximum of 50 collectibles per collection.
“To address feedback we've received about our creator tools, we updated our collection storefront contract limits to only support the creation of up to 5 collections and 50 items per collection.”
As expected, the decision did not go down well with NFT creators. The community replied to the tweet in full force, with many industry proponents criticizing the marketplace for trying to limit the use of OpenSea’s own NFT smart contract.
One Twitter user (@MonikaNFT) explained that she was right in the middle of uploading her collection when the new restriction was implemented. She tweeted:
“I have a collection planned with 100 items. The artwork is ready, I am working on the final touches... how am I supposed to do that now when I can just upload 50 per collection?”
Another creator said: “you should have given a time period for existing artists to complete their collections. I have created 1 by 1 about 1000 NFTs and now you limit me to 250 (5 x 50). This is the worst thing you could do and of course Community will punish you.”
For clarity, creators can still use external NFT smart contracts to bypass the new limits. For instance, Andreesen-backed smart contract startup Manifold allows users to deploy their own customizable NFT minting contracts. There is also the option of minting through OpenSea’s rival NFT marketplaces like Rarible.
At the end of the day, it appears the NFT community won the battle. By Thursday night, OpenSea had reversed its decision to limit the number of mints with smart contracts. They explained that the initial decision was due to increasing “misuse” of the feature, including the minting of plagiarized artwork and fake collections. They tweeted:
“To all the creators in our community impacted by the 50-item limit we added to our free minting tool, we hear you and we're sorry. We have reversed the decision. But we also want to offer an explanation.”
DJ Steve Aoki Is Building His Own World, Debuts NFT Membership Club
DJ Steve Aoki is deepening his presence on the metaverse. The prominent creator and NFT collector has launched A0K1VERSE, an Ethereum NFT-based membership community.
The A0K1 Passport NFT will give holders exclusive access to live and virtual concerts, future metaverse events, and a private Discord server with Aoki himself.
Speaking to media outlets, Aoki revealed that the metaverse project has been in the pipeline for eight months. A0K1VERSE will display various aspects of his creative life, such as music, fashion and NFTs. According to the artist, the goal of the project is to provide long-term utility to fans and collectors.
“When I started my label when I was 19, I was part of my own membership community—but it was punk. It was like we had our own little clique. We did our own little thing […] One thing I learned from all of that is that the more that you contribute, that’s where you get the respect. The kind of contributions that you bring to the community or club is where you get valued the most.”
A0K1VERSE and the Passport NFTs were created in collaboration with Manifold, a smart contract startup that has powered a number of notable Ethereum NFT drops from Fortune and Mad Dog Jones.
Each NFT is upgraded using A0K1 Credits. Holders generate more credit by taking part in community events. The Passport NFTs can also be combined to level up and unlock additional perks.
Reddit Follows Twitter, NFT Profile Picture Is on the Horizon
Days after Twitter released a feature that allowed some users to set their verified NFTs as their profile pictures, social news aggregator Reddit has announced that it is working on a similar feature.
Valued at $10 billion, the popular online discussion platform is testing a feature that will allow its users to link their NFTs to their profile pictures. The new functionality is an addition to Reddit’s already existing Ethereum-based NFT collection called CryptoSnoos.
The upcoming feature was first reported by app researcher Nima Owji, who added a picture of the announcement to a Twitter post.
"Your NFT, now your avatar! You can now use digital collectibles as your Reddit avatar."
The details of Reddit’s latest romance with NFTs are still sketchy. However, the company confirmed the news, revealing that the test is in "very early stages and hasn't been made available to public users on the site." Reddit spokesman Tim Rathschmidt told TechCrunch:
"We're always exploring ways to provide value for users and communities on Reddit. At the moment, we're testing the ability to use NFTs as profile pictures (avatars) and verify ownership."
Rathschmidt goes on to say that "it's a small, internal test and no decisions have been made about expanding or rolling out the capability."
Meanwhile, part of the report disclosed that Reddit has a not-for-sale collection of "wonder" NFTs running on OpenSea in a test mode.
NFTs Scored “Mainstream Breakthrough” in 2021, Nansen
2021 was undoubtedly the year of NFTs. According to Nansen's State of Crypto Industry Report 2021, the NFT market recorded a staggering $17 billion last year, with OpenSea briefly overtaking decentralized exchange Uniswap in terms of gas fees.
There were two major spikes in 2021, one in May and another in August. While several factors contributed to the rally, the August surge was particularly fueled by the hype around the Bored Ape Yacht Club spin-off Mutant Ape Yacht Club. Speaking to crypto news site Decrypt, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik said:
"It’s hard to point to one individual event that created the NFT wave. Was it Axie Infinity pioneering play-to-earn? Or OpenSea becoming a behemoth marketplace for trading jpegs? Or perhaps Bored Apes making celebrities ape into the trend? This was truly a movement with plenty of projects playing an important role."
As per the report, Ethereum is still the largest smart contract platform in terms of total value locked (TVL) and market cap. However, its dominant reign is actively being challenged by other competitors. For one, Ethereum’s high gas fees, which spiked to new highs last year, “opportunities for Layer 1 and L2 solutions to flourish as the much-needed scalable solution.”
Speaking of competitors, other chains offering cheaper alternatives and EVM compatibility are beginning to eat into the market share of Ethereum. In the second half of 2021, contract deployment of the Ethereum blockchain dropped from 2.7 million in June to 300,000 in October.
On the flip side, smart contracts deployed on chains like Polygon and Binance Smart Chain have gone up. In the case of Polygon, an interoperability and Layer 2 scaling protocol, its deployments surpassed that of Ethereum by up to 26,000%.
OpenSea to Add Support for Solana NFTs and Phantom Wallet
In a bid to retain its dominance as the largest platform for digital collectibles, OpenSea might be expanding into other blockchains. Newly-leaked screenshots suggest that the leading NFT marketplace will soon enable support for the fast-rising Solana NFT ecosystem.
Jane Manchun Wong shared screenshots of her findings. Wong is a well-known blogger and hacker who has become popular for discovering tech features of social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before they are officially announced.
As seen in the image, OpenSea is allegedly working on a feature to support Phantom, a popular Solana wallet.
She goes on to say that she found a reference to Solana while reverse-engineering OpenSea’s website. According to her, there were other references to Solana within the user interface, but the NFT marketplace tried to hide it.
OpenSea has yet to make an official statement about the finding. However, a representative of the company reportedly called the shared image “old speculation.” The representative pointed to a previously leaked screenshot that claimed OpenSea supported Solana.
YouTube to Expand Web3 Offering to Include NFTs
From Meta to Twitter, and Reddit, social media giants are in a race to roll out features to support the NFT space. YouTube is one of the latest to join the bandwagon.
Last week, the CEO of the video streaming platform Susan Wojcicki told creators that it was mulling over the possibility of “expanding” into NFTs.
Wojcicki, in an annual letter to creators, said Web3 was a “source of inspiration” for the company.
"The past year in the world of crypto, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) has highlighted a previously unimaginable opportunity to grow the connection between creators and their fans."
She noted that the company was interested in “expanding the YouTube ecosystem,” with a hint that the expansion could include “things like NFTs.”
It is still unclear how YouTube’s NFT foray will materialize. But in the meantime, the core focus according to Wojcicki would be "to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies," Bloomberg reports.
Julian Lennon Is Selling the Beatles Memorabilia as an NFT
Several items from the Beatles and John Lennon memorabilia are being put up for sale as NFTs by John Lennon’s son, Julian.
After years of collecting the works of the Beatles, Julian decided it was time to let go. But here’s the twist, the physical items are not up for sale.
The Lennon Collection features handwritten notes by Paul McCartney for the Beatles song “Hey Jude,” as well as clothing worn by John Lennon during his time with The Beatles.
Bidding for the “Hey Jude” notes starts at $30,000. Meanwhile, a black cape worn by John Lennon during the filming of the movie “Help!” will start out at $8,000.
The NFT Collection will be tapping on the Polygon blockchain for the launch, a move that Lennon's NFT partner YellowHeart describes as "more environmentally friendly."
Following the sales, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the White Feather Foundation.
Julian’s decision to hold on to the physical items has also raised eyebrows, with many fans likening it to making photocopies of the real items. Andy Elliot tweeted:
“So, you're selling photocopies? There used to be a guy in the market who did that for 50p.”
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Sells for $1,700, Thanks to OpenSea Exploit
The past week was quite messy for some owners of the high-prized Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs. Due to a listing bug on NFT marketplace OpenSea, a couple of Bored Apes that are currently worth around $200,000 sold for $1,700.
The buyer, who goes by the name "jpegdegenlove," was able to grab a BAYC #8924 for $14,700 and #8274 for $50,800. Comparatively, the lowest priced Bored Ape at the time of the incident was just under $200,000.
The buyer also grabbed two Mutant Ape NFTs, a CyberKongz, and a Cool Cats. At the end of the spree, the so-called “OpenSea Opportunistic Buyer” was sitting on a profit of over $730,000.
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