Rolling Stone: The Real Value Of NFTs

FTX Festival Tickets Gone? + SolChicks Funds

Von Doom & Gannon Breslin
November 17, 2022

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Here is the breakdown of today's newsletter:

🎶 Rolling Stone breaks down NFT value
🎟 FTX Coachella NFT tickets likely gone
😵 SolChicks lost $20M in treasury funds

NBA hall of famer Scottie Pippen joins Web 3 with a custom Smolverse NFT. (@ScottiePippen)
Wolf Game releases the trailer for their game (coming in Dec.) and it has everyone buzzing (@wolfdotgame)
Solulab is developing a family friendly NFT marketplace. (@solulab)
DMs of SBF have leaked and they are shocking to say the least (@DavidSacks)
Former Facebook executives are gearing up to launch a Web3 startup called Virtualness. Here is their Twitter thread sharing their recent fundraising success. (@Cirtualnessio)
Justin Bieber's Ape which he once paid $1.3M for is now worth $69K (in unrealized loss). We're sure he's not too worried though. (Y!)
3PartArt has developed an incredibly inventive blend of poetry and 3D AI art. Check out their stunning trailer here. (YT)
Dumbass Donkey presents Donkey Swap: degens can now do 1:1 Donkey Swaps at a 5% fee of whatever the current floor price is at that given time. (@dumbass_donkeys)
TrippinApeNFT jumps to 6th place on Magic Eden's most popular collections after Rifters reveals the plan of a 2k SOL floor sweep after the apes won a Halloween major PVP event. (@Degeneratenews)

Rolling Stone: The Real Value Of NFTs

NFT value creation is an area of the market that gets talked about on a daily basis. People are looking for every nook and cranny to squeeze out value from any NFT they can find. That’s the effect of a bear market. But value is a construct: it comes in many shapes and sizes. An article released by Rolling Stone synthesizes the exact notion of “value” when it comes to NFTs. Here are just a few points that it mentions:

NFTs open doors to be able to prove loyalty, whether that’s to a brand or an individual. RS takes the approach to describe how musicians can reward fans that can “prove” their loyalty via the blockchain.
Artists have the ability to be independent of any labels or managing groups. They can put out their own work, which can come in many forms, while still creating and garnering communities in their own “created” ecosystem. We’ve seen artists even use the idea of pooling ownership, where the artist, themself, gives their group of NFT owners a portion of the ownership of a piece of work.
Talking about sole ownership, you have to mention the idea that NFTs can then open the doors up to revenue sharing, which is clearly in the future roadmap for the industry. The P2E model being used in crypto gaming can also be used for streaming. There is still some time for this to come together, but it’s on the horizon.

THE DROP 💡
Value comes in many forms. These forms of value, while not instantly gratifying, are being shaped to create an ecosystem where everyone has the ability to create a brand and an ecosystem. Recognizing that value is what we must do during times like these. WAGMI.

FTX Festival NFTs Gone? 🎟

Once upon a time when … people believed in FTX and its charismatic leader SBF, a couple of iconic music festivals collaborated with FTX to issue NFTs. By iconic we mean Coachella and Tomorrowland. And they’re not ecstatic at the moment because so much of the audience that they sold NFTs to used FTX to store those assets.

Coachella staff are getting involved… imagine paying a pretty hefty sum for one of ten lifetime passes to Coachella and not being able to get your hands on it. Staff from Coachella are currently assuaging the fears of worried NFT owners and attempting to get in touch with anybody that may be able to help at FTX.
The irony is that… the people who bought lifetime passes to Tomorrowland and Coachella thought that they were purchasing a product that was going to stick with them forever. This is the novel concept of NFTs and they of course took this for granted. This example of course shows us that where you store your NFTs matters a lot.
$1.5 million dollars… is the value of NFTs that were transacted through FTX and that a majority of is stuck in their system.

Does this mean my $1,000,000 @FTX_Official-sponsored @coachella NFT Key—granting me lifetime passes, backstage access, plus a fully stocked trailer for me and my friends to recharge in-between sets—is voided?
— Erik Lowe (@Erik_M_Lowe)
Nov 11, 2022

THE DROP 💡
Now that the Fyre Festival of crypto has taken place we need to come back to the center and remember the fundamentals. First and foremost, have custody of your own stuff. Second, while a lot of newcomers’ experience in the space will be tainted because of SBF’s fraudulent behavior this doesn’t mean the space as a whole is full of fraudsters at all. Now is the time to take count of the trustworthy and valuable folks and form meaningful networks and communities with those people

SolChicks NFT Project Loses $20M 😵

Newly leaked messages surfaced in the earlier hours of Tuesday revealing a discussion between the CEO, William Wu and the COO, Lewis Grafton of SolChicksNFT (migrated from Catheon Gaming). According to the post made by 2D detective ZachXBT, the leaked messages between the project's CEO and COO shows the project lost up to $20M of treasury funds due to Terra's UST stable coin implosion back in May and decided not to inform their community.

Newly leaked messages between the @SolChicksNFT@CatheonGaming CEO and COO show the project lost up to $20m of treasury funds due to the UST implosion in May 2022 and decided not to inform the community.
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt)
Nov 15, 2022

ZachXBT did his homework and reached out to the COO for comments about the leaked messages but the reply he got from the COO raised concerns for retail investors. Grafton explained that they discussed and disclosed with their largest private holders “but decided that it was in the project's best interest not to make a public announcement and risk unnecessary concern given that we still have more than 5 years of runway and we have zero leverage.”

An update regarding treasury and circulating supply
tldr:
1⃣ Catheon Gaming did not have any FTX exposure
2⃣ Variances in the reported circulating supply of $CATHEON are due to differences in measurement methodology
#Crypto#Changegaming
— Catheon Gaming (SolChicks + 25 others) (@CatheonGaming)
Nov 13, 2022

According to Zach, this response also contradicts an internal email sent out about major layoffs. Coupled with the fact that they (SolChicks) don’t appear to be keeping funds in a multisig, he (Zachxbt) made reference to the thread he made about the project last year for deceptive marketing and poor management. In their latest update, Catheon gaming centre released a tweet condemning bad actors leaking confidential company information to generate publicity and scheduled an AMA which was hosted yesterday.

When your friend who has spent 0 minutes in web3 says he wants to start a NFT project
— The Drop (@thedropnft)
Nov 17, 2022

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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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