🍏 Abstract Apple

Hey frens! 

It’s Thursday, and that’s always good news. Today we’re talking about Abstract, Sui, Arbitrum, Zora and more.

Hope you’re ready for some fun.

— Kate Irwin

P.S. Let me know how you’re liking The Drop! Send me an email at [email protected].

Drink-to-earn?

There’s now sparkling water that comes with an Abstract NFT and points attached.

Rekt Brands — a crypto startup from the traders known on X as OSF (Ovie Faruq) and RektMando on social media — has launched a new drink. It’s a sparkling water dubbed Abstract Apple.

Like its name suggests, Abstract Apple offers rewards for the Ethereum L2 chain Abstract. Each case of 24 cans grants the buyer Abstract XP and 25,000 DRANK points (Rekt’s rewards points), plus an Abstract NFT. Next week, case buyers can collect their Abstract NFTs. 

Each case costs $69.69 plus shipping and applicable tax, of course, but it could be bought using crypto or fiat currencies.

Buyers could purchase up to 250 cases per order, but could place multiple orders. 

That’s a LOT of cans.

While the launch sold out on Wednesday, with over 220,000 cans of sparkling water purchased, the Rekt team said extra DRANK points were being given out by mistake.

“Devs are on it, will get it fixed,” the brand said in a post.

A member of the Abstract team confirmed to me that they aren’t involved in this project, but they said that future collabs between Rekt and Abstract are being explored.

Rekt Brands’ first drink, a lime-flavored sparkling water, was announced in November and similarly sold over 220,000 cans within 48 hours.

Rekt Brands previously raised $1.5 million in seeding funding late last year. Their brand was created following the 2022 NFT collection OSF launched called Rektguy.

Others have tried to bring crypto to the food and drink industry before, though the efforts thus far have primarily come from holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. There’s Ape Water, for instance, which is canned water with a Bored Ape emblazoned across it. In 2023, Snoop Dogg released ice cream inspired by his Bored Ape.

There was also a short-lived Bored Ape-themed burger joint, Bored & Hungry, which I visited back in 2022 (food was good, but most of the people there had zero clue what the Apes were, and didn’t care).

In the case of Rekt Brands, its limited-edition runs of sparkling water that you only hear about on Crypto Twitter don’t seem to be targeting the masses — but broader distribution may be coming soon.

Rekt is planning to release new flavors and bring back older ones, too, in future drops. It may also expand beyond just sparkling water.

“Our goal is to have mainstream distribution and we have been actively working on it over the past few months. There will be a point where people can get their hands on Rekt in their local store,” OSF told me in a DM, adding: “Maybe for some that's sooner than they think.”

Mysten Labs finally talks Pokémon on Sui

Remember last week when we mentioned that Mysten Labs wasn’t ready to comment on those Pokémon Sui NFT rumors?

Well, now their cofounder has shared his vision for tokenizing real-world cards.

“Amazing games like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, you name it, being possible directly onchain with Sui — Parasol’s working with a number of partners to bring that to the home in the hands of users,” Mysten Labs CPO and cofounder Adeniyi Abiodun said in a video and X thread yesterday.

Abiodun also said that Mysten Labs subsidiary Parasol has been “working with some of the top IP producers in the gaming industry.”

“Your physical gaming cards are about to become digital assets you can instantly verify, freely trade, and fully,” the exec added.

This sounds like you’ll be able to tokenize your Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, at minimum, on Sui. 

This also sounds a lot like Courtyard, which lets you buy real-world, tokenized Pokémon cards and also open packs digitally, too. Courtyard, which uses Polygon, has seen nearly $67 million in sales in the past month, making it the top NFT “collection” by sales volume over 522,000 transactions. 

For context, that’s more than DMarket, and about 269% more sales volume than the CryptoPunks saw in the past month.

I have a couple Vulpix cards just sitting around — I might just give this upcoming tool a try when it comes out.

• Stablecoin support continues: Trust Wallet just enabled stablecoin yields, so users can earn interest off their idle USDT, USDC, USDA, and DAI.
  

• The Arbitrum Gaming Catalyst — which came under scrutiny in March over its large amount of funding and a perceived lack of transparency — has rebranded to Arbitrum Gaming Ventures.

  • They’re now giving out over $10 million across the following games and startups to make up their first “Investment Cohort”: Wildcard, Hyve Labs, T-Rex (blockchain), Xai and Proof of Play.
    

• Zora cofounder Jacob Horne shared plans to refine the crypto social app yesterday, including but not limited to:

  • Preventing token “sniping,” which is when automated bots buy large amounts of a token as soon as it launches (and typically quickly sell for a large profit). 

  • Adding tags to NSFW content.

From BoldLeonidas on X: