🥩 NFTs leak into meat-world.

We all knew this was coming.

Scope announces NFT partnership

• SCOPE, an international art show most well known for its contemporary program, announced a partnership with digital marketplace YellowHeart.

• YellowHeart provides everything artists need to sell minted event tickets directly to their fans, and will be exclusively partnering with SCOPE to sell collectible VIP tickets to the 20th anniversary of the SCOPE art show.

• Tickets will go on sale September 9th.

Shopify now allowing merchants to sell NFTs

• Shopify announced they will now be allowing merchants to sell digital art directly through their Shopify storefronts. This is huge, because technical knowledge is by far the biggest barrier to newcomers in the space.

• Instead of going via a crypto marketplace, shoppers will now be able to buy crypto-art directly from a merchant using a debit or credit card.

Bored Ape Yacht Club was featured in the New Yorker

• Shortly thereafter, someone swept the Crypto Punks floor, purchasing a total of 104 punks for upwards of 2,683E (or 6.6m USD, for everyone who still thinks in fiat). To everybody reading this, WAGMI.

• Sales volume increased by a factor of 10⁵ (that’s right - 10,000X) between May and June on Rarible and OpenSea, the two major NFT marketplace platforms.

• We don’t have the final numbers for July yet, but floor sweeps of punks, apes, Gutter Cats, and new projects bode well for another jump. (source: NiftyTable)

Speaking of "new projects"...

Really bad drops happened.

The Vogus 🤖⛽️

I’m not the technical guy…

Here’s what happens when you mix A1 marketing with D4 engineering.

After an initial failed drop Monday, big hype crashed Etherscan during the drop Tuesday.

Individuals minting directly from the contract swooped up a large portion of the drop before the team was able to react. The contract had plenty of other issues which caused some people to lose some money, but the team made everybody whole.

It remains to be seen if the Vogus will be able to execute on their long term roadmap. The art is great, but the release did not inspire confidence.

The Stoner Cats Fiasco 😼🔥

We’re calling Ethereum

We really did expect better.

Stoner Cats was a massively hyped project with celebrity backing which gave token holders the ability to co-create, as well as be written into, an adult cartoon.

The team broke with a lot of norms within the NFT community by…

• Setting a mint price about 1 order of magnitude above the norm

• Retaining ownership of the IP

…which may be understandable, in the context of a highly visible project coming out of Hollywood.

Selling IP ownership could expose the project to regulatory issues around treatment of the token as a security, and lower mint prices would only have made gas wars worse.

The real insult: Lack of diligence around contract development initially caused astronomic gas fees, and the subsequent release burned over $700,000USD in gas.

The team bungled communication around this. Lessons in PR…

• Don’t offer people that lost hundreds of dollars a token to remind them of it.

• Don’t tease the question of whether or not people will get reimbursed for your mistakes.

To their credit, they are giving people back the burned ETH.

Compared to the vitriol around launch, the first episode of the cartoon released with little fanfare. It was basically just aight – you can check it out here if you’re into that kind of thing, I guess.

Since it matters...

Check out Steve, who teaches us how to mint from contract directly.Good to remember next time you’re expecting gas wars.

Pretty useful. Thanks Steve!

Feature: World of Women

A great example of how a drop should go!

• The contract is clean and running efficiently.

• Women revealed instantly.

• Gary Vee and artchick gave the project visibility after launch.

Result: Everyone who believed in the project’s success was able to get in before the news popped. Early supporters were able to mint for fair gas prices. Horay!

Plus the art is just stunning.

And since we’re on about utility these days…

The project features three clubs for women with special traits. Here’s a summary, but you can find details in their Discord.

Royalties Club:

• 50% of ALL OpenSea royalties earned from secondary sales to be split monthly between the members!

Investor’s Club:

• 50% of ALL profits generated by the WoW Fund to be split monthly between the members!

Curator’s Club:

• Each member will be able to choose -once a month- an NFT art piece for the WoW Fund to purchase. The curators will basically have the opportunity to support the artists they like most!

Not to mention the artistic value! You get access to your Woman’s 4k x 4k file, allowing you to treat her like the art she is.

Overall the project is well run with a strong vision, the team communicates well, and the art is both inclusive and phenomenal. Superb job to the whole team here. 

Let the Tax Talks Begin!

Big sales in the community have people waking up to how making a fortune selling jpegs may affect them come tax season.

The short story? Talk to your CPA!

The long story:

• NFTs are currently in a grey area per the IRS tax code. They can be potentially treated as property, as well as potentially treated as art, and possibly, treated as inventory if you’re a flipper.

• Short term capital gains are taxed at the same rate as your ordinary income, but long term capital gains is taxed at a more favourable 15%.

• You want this treated as property. Sale of art and collectibles is taxed at a whopping 28%. Over time, this is where 1/1 works may wind up; projects that have primarily utility value have a stronger case for being treated as property.

However you and your CPA are treating this…

• Definitely realize any losses by December.

• Definitely remember to file.

The IRS is looking at this space more seriously, and getting the clock on the statute of limitations for any potential reassessment running is critical.

Also brewing...

• Wicked Craniums x PopWonder collab for holders being released soon. Cranium Stallions being unveiled Tuesday.

• YxngGxng released a preview of the first Eclipse Zxdiac. Holders of Lunar Zxdiacs will get the details on how to claim starting August 1st.

• jenkinsthevalet, aka Bored Ape #1798, is releasing Writer’s Room: a collaborative writing project with special perks. Check it out here

• Blazed Cats, a Stoner Cats parody project, pulled off a smooth drop and nearly $100,000k in charitable donations to Mental Health America. Stay bullish on this group of altruistic anarchists.

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If we have gas money.