Proof of Conference Goes "Poof"

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We hope everyone had a great weekend and we can't be more excited to share the onslaught of news that occurred in the web3 space in the past couple of days.

Here is the breakdown of today's newsletter:

🌐 Proof of Conference Cancelled⚓️ OpenSea royalties and fees changed, AGAIN

• Ethereum broke $1,700 yesterday and NFT sales surge 43% last week. (BTC)

• Yuga Labs in some hot water after their Bored Ape Kennel Club logo was found to be completely ripped off from an "Easy Drawing Book". You couldn't make these things up if you tried. (CT)

• VeeCon 2023 announced to be in Indianapolis Indiana from 5/18-5/20. VeeFriend Series 1 holders have a free ticket. No snapshot has been taken yet for holders.

• Amazon funds web3 friendly studio SuperPlastic in $20 million round. (DT)

• Lebron James recently set a new scoring record, and news of the event sent his NFTs on NBA Topshot through the roof. (@NBATopShot)

• Linkin Park just dropped a new animated music video directed by NFT artist pplpleasr. (YT)

• Word is out about an upcoming game on the Polygon Network created by Square Enix. The company is known for franchises such as Final Fantasy, and has faced backlash on its Web 3 pursuits before. (DC)

• That was quick! Bitcoin Ordinals already have a wallet, Xverse. See how it works here.

Proof of Conference Goes Poof 🦉

For quite some time, many in the space have felt the PROOF ecosystem has been on a downtrend. From what many believe are broken promises to weak utility, it feels the only “stans” of Moonbirds are actually Moonbirds holders. Very few other people have anything nice to say, because there really hasn’t been anything executed by the team, despite millions at their disposal in their treasure chest. One of the things that people were actually optimistic about was the PROOF of Conference, which has also been canceled as of yesterday.

PROOF of Conference was planned to be held in Downtown Los Angeles from May 11th to May 13th at Skylight Row. This 3-day event was supposed to bring together the PROOF Collective and all their contributors/holders. NFT celebrities like Beeple and Gary Vee were also supposed to attend and speak at the event. And with only 4,000 tickets available, everyone thought that this would be a success. That didn’t turn out to be the case.

(you ain't got time to read that so we'll summarize)

PROOF announced yesterday that the Conference has been canceled. Thankfully all of the tickets have been refunded, and if you booked a hotel through their discounts, you can also claim a refund. The team also said that this decision was made in order to “concentrate on delivering products, art, and connection that benefit all of the Moonbirds and PROOF Collective communities.”

💡 So what's going on

• Price… Moonbirds and Oddities holders could buy a ticket for 0.75 ETH, while PROOF Collective holders were able to claim free tickets. Despite this, they had bleak ticket sales, according to some on Twitter. This is due to the high-ticket cost and pending economic turmoil. It’s an investment that people don’t see the value in.

• Utility… Holders have been waiting for utility mechanisms for quite some time. Holding a conference during that phase seems to be counterintuitive. But given PROOF’s treasure chest of capital and VC interest, it’s surprising that they haven’t delivered much since the project’s inception. They even turned Moonbirds into a CC0 project, despite stating before that holders would retain the IP of their asset.

💡The DropTime and time again, we are seeing teams under-execute and over-promise. While this has been the case for a very long-time, Blue Chip collections like the ones under PROOF don’t have any excuses. They have the funds. They have the knowledge. What’s stopping them from providing value. This Conference will be back in due time, and PROOF will continue to hold smaller events throughout the year. But the collapse of PROOF seems to be underway. Will they survive the FUD? WAGMI.

OpenSea Feeling the $BLUR 👀

There's no question that OpenSea is feeling the heat from Blur marketplace, especially after their $BLUR airdrop gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the NFT community.

if you need to get up to speed here is a quick rundown:

• OpenSea after much back and forth states it won't allow optional royalty fees (in other words they need to make money)

• Blur marketplace explodes on the scene as it touts itself as the true marketplace for the community (they have no marketplace fee and optional creator royalties)

• After Blur already caught some momentum with exceptional features for NFT traders they then dropped the $BLUR token that sent everyone into a frenzy

Naturally, OpenSea had to respond, and so they did. (a thread worth reading below)

💡 The DropOpenSea is "throwing us a bone" once again by giving the community what they want for, you guessed it, a limited time. After feeling the heat from Blur marketplace they caved into the community demands and now the NFT marketplaces are in all-out warfare. Blur's volume has been incredibly high in the past month and even crossed OpenSea's at one point - something that would be unimaginable a year ago. The real question: Will OpenSea users who flocked to Blur return with these new changes? How will the creator landscape change when 0% royalties become the norm?

Sponsored Content: There is no sponsored content in this newsletter.

• $BLUR Airdrop Frenzy

• Hadeswap Buys Solana Monkey Business

• Should You Buy A Bitcoin Punk?

Disclaimer: The Drop DOES NOT provide financial advice. All content is for informational purposes only. The Drop is not a registered investment, legal, or tax advisor or a broker/dealer. Trading any crypto-related asset is extremely risky and could result in significant capital losses.

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Gannon Breslin, CryptoVonDoom, Naveed Lalani, Alex Reed, Naman Patel, Big Tuna

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