Masao Akimoto – “The NFT Guru”

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September 16, 2021

Experimenting in the crypto space is one of its biggest lures. Gone are the days when people were consigned to a particular role and could not experiment with other aspects of a project. In the crypto space, everyone can become anyone.

For example, Masao Akimoto, the Co-founder of Inside Crypto Mag, a popular blockchain magazine, and the CMO of Picnab, an NFT stock image marketplace for photographers, is also an NFT creator and HODLer. With such accomplishment to his name, Masao chose to remain hidden and have created a digital avatar through which he makes all crypto shenanigans.

Masao has been experimenting with NFT space for a while now and is a proud collector of various NFTs from different popular collections such as 80s APE Club, CyberPunks’ Loot, CryptoKitties, etc. He also has created his own NFTs on Rarible, which are also listed on OpenSea among his other collections.

NFTs or Non-fungible Tokens are digital assets registered on the blockchain and assigned to real-world or digital assets. NFTs have become increasingly popular because of their fun approach and ability to introduce various industries such as art to the blockchain world. These NFTs can range from a few hundred bucks to a massive million dollar price depending upon the rarity and uniqueness of the collection.

Masao Akimoto’s NFTs

Masao has collected over 44 unique NFT pieces from different collections and has listed them on OpenSea along with his nine unique pieces. These NFTs start from the low of 0.0003 ETH to the high of 55.55 ETH.

The star of the NFT collection is an NFT from Loot (for Cyberpunks) collection that includes several rare collectible in-game assets. Apart from that, Masao has NFTs from the 80s APE Club, Citadel Citizens Club, MutantPunks, Psychedelic Mutant Ape, etc.

He is also a proud owner of nine rare NFTs created on Rarible that includes creative and unique pieces designed by Masao himself, such as “Winter is Here,” “The Eyes that See,” etc.

Masao Akimoto, the co-founder of Inside Crypto Mag and the CMO of Picnab, has been dabbling with cryptocurrencies since 2017. Since then, he has been experimenting with Defi and considers himself to be a master of NFTs.

Masao Akimoto loves to work from the background and is not willing to come to the limelight. However, his expert marketing and technical skills give him the recognition he deserves.

Immutable has Raised $60 million for NFT Games

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Bon Coiney

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September 15, 2021

Sydney, Australia-based Blockchain gaming outfit Immutable has announced that it has raised $60 million for its NFT platform –Immutable X. The Series B funding involved various companies and was co-led by investment platform Bitkraft Ventures and King River Capital.

Organisations like Fabric Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Apex Capital, Psosus Ventures, and Alameda Research participated in the recent fundraising.

The raised funds will be used to expand Immutable and help it achieve its goals. Part of the funds will be used to build its engineering and sales department and foster multiple partnerships that would scale its NFT ambitions. Also, funds will be channelled to strengthen its in-house games –Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians.

Scaling NFT Projects

The most significant part of this cash injection for Immutable is to get more projects to build and deploy on Immutable X, its Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution that allows for faster and affordable transactions and is backed by Ethereum’s security model.

Immutable has been working to grow the Ethereum-based NFT ecosystem by allowing businesses to create and trade collectibles on the network since its inception. Due to the multiple launches of projects on the Ethereum platform, the platform has experienced a series of issues caused by congestion, such as a slow rate of transactions and high cost.

Immutable was launched to tackle some of these problems on the Ethereum blockchain and offer better scalable solutions for NFTs on the network.

NFT developers can take advantage of the Immutable X platform’s immediate transaction processing power, which can process up to an eye-opening 9,000 transactions per second. Also, the platform has been made easy to use as Immutable will not charge gas fees to NFT creators and traders.

The present NFT market is inefficient, according to Robbie Ferguson, a co-founder of Immutable X, because trading the tokens has grown pricey and illiquid. Ferguson added that existing scaling solutions designed to address these issues ended up jeopardising the Ethereum network’s security and user base.

The goal of Immutable X is for businesses and other projects to build games, NFT applications, or marketplace within a few hours through APIs that would not require any blockchain programming experience, just a normal mainstream user knowledge.

NFTs have made the blockchain space a multi-billion industry, and the growth is expected to skyrocket in the coming days. This latest cash injection would see Immutable expand its network and join the big players. Click here or this site to understand more about Immutable X.

Recur after Series A raise of $50M reaches $333M Valuation

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Bon Coiney

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September 14, 2021

Evolution is in human nature, as evident from the history of mankind. The latest segment of growth is cryptocurrencies that have opened up new opportunities. Amongst the crypto universe, there are several segments continuously in the works. NFTs are one of these segments that have become more and more popular because of their ability to provide an interactive and fun approach to otherwise mundane crypto financial markets.

In the NFT Metaverse, several projects have been trying to establish their foothold, but only a few succeed. Recur, a famous NFT company has been making waves with its funding rounds. Recently, Recur conducted a Series A investment round led by billionaire Steve Cohen of $50M. This investment round helped the platform to reach a total of $333M valuation, to rank relatively high in the almost saturated NFT market.

Series A Fundraising

The fundraising came from DIGITAL, a metaverse in itself founded by Steve Cohen, Mark Daniel, and Benjamin Milstein. The funds raised will be utilized to grow to Recur into an enviable metaverse with an array of features. The investment will also be used to hire over 150 people, develop new brand experiences and launch an NFT platform called NFTU.com.

In the previous investing rounds that helped Recur raise $5 Million, the company saw participation from several other investors as well including Defi Alliance, Courtside VC, Volt Capital, Joe Lubin, The Winklevoss Twins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Belsky, Hashed, Nascent, Delphi Ventures, JST Capital, Divergence, 640 Oxford, IOSG, CMT Digital, David Choi, Jason Derulo, Scott Lewis, and Chris Hermida.

According to Recur,

“At RECUR, we imagine a future where NFTs can be taken anywhere as tokens of personal expression, community membership, and fandom, among so many other use cases. We want fans to own pieces of the stories and IPs they love, with real value retained across any future chain. Further, we see a future where the standard for a decentralized RECUR-ing royalty is embedded, giving the creator due credit as assets are exchanged over and over again….forever.”

Recur has also announced partnerships with Ai firms Veritone and CLC, one of the most significant collegiate trademark licensing companies in the country. With the NFT market growing every day, raising funding and making meaningful partnerships are the recipe for the success perfectly showcased by Recur.

Arbitrum’s TVL Surges to $1.5B Today

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Bon Coiney

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September 13, 2021

Following the top stories in the crypto ecosystem for the week, Ethereum layer-two rollup network Arbitrum One has caught the eyes of speculators by showing a significant growth in breaching and going beyond the $1.5 billion of total value locked (TVL) in protocols using its services on Sept 11, as DeFi degens rushed to invest in the first early farming & agricultural DApps launching on the network. This surge has been shown to grow by roughly 2,300% this past week.

It was suggested that this might be due to the rumor which started on social media (like Twitter) that the protocol intends to issue its token in the coming days. Off-chain Labs launched the second layer to mainnet on Aug 31. (less than two weeks ago) which followed an influx of a $120 million funding round. Arbitrum currently holds 65.7% of all capital locked on layer-two networks, followed by the second-layer decentralized exchange dYdX with 14.6%.

About 80% of Arbitrum’s growth can be attributed to the ArbiNYAN yield farm (related to the Nyan cat meme), as most users are still flocking. This is the first Farming platform, which has lured & attracted investors with multi-thousand percentage returns for staking its native token.

The hype surrounding the ArbiNYAN must have been underrated, as rapid migration of liquidity onto Arbitrum has occurred, impacting the broader DeFi ecosystem. Arbinyan has 1.48 Billion TVL, meaning that almost all of the funds in Arbitrum have been moved to get the astounding yields the farm is offering (3,314.70% APY in the Nyan pool as at the time of writing).

A significant share of the capital flowing to Arbitrum also appears to have come from so-called ‘Ethereum killers’.

Dune Analytics data shared to social media on Sept. 12 indicated that while Arbitrum’s TVL grew by roughly 2,300%, the TVL of bridges to Solana, Fantom, and Harmony had shrunk by 58%. 36%, and 62% respectively that same week. The Arbitrum bridge TVL absorbed the Solana bridge TVL. Arbitrum (Ethereum Layer 2) is the Solana killer.

Sotheby closes Bored Ape NFT auction with a $6 million premium

By

Bon Coiney

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September 10, 2021

NFTs have been taking over the art world and giving the artists due credits for their efforts and work. Every day there are hundreds of NFTs being sold, but some of them make waves worth mentioning. Among these NFTs, one that has received a lot of interest is 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT, sold by Sotheby.

The BAYC NFT was closed at the price of $24.4 Million, which was $6 million more than the initially anticipated price. Earlier, the cost of BAYC NFT was estimated somewhere between $12 Million to $18 Million. Still, as the bidding war began, the bids exceeded $19 Million three days prior to the close of the auction. The NFT was ultimately sold at $24,393,000.

The official BAYC account has some interesting views about the sale as posted by them on Twitter.

“What a historic moment for the club: the @Sothebys auction of 101 Bored Apes has closed at over $24m. Congratulations and THANK YOU to the whole ape community. To the buyer, I think we speak for everybody when we say: WELCOME TO THE CLUB.”

The NFT collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club includes rare properties such as solid gold, trippy fur, pizza hanging from the mouth, and an unshaved face. All of these characteristics are rare, making the NFT extremely collectible.

About Bored Ape Yacht Club

The Bored Ape Yacht Club has an exquisite collection of over 10,000 unique Bored Ape NFTs. All of the unique NFTs are built on Ethereum Blockchain and doubles, along with Yacht Club membership cards with members-only benefits. These members-only benefits include access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board, and future perks that are to be unlocked by the community.

Bored Ape Yacht Club was created by Yuga Labs and included 10,000 NFTs randomly generated from over 170 unique properties. Earlier, the price of an APE NFT was 0.08ETH which is now calculated at 40.42 RTH on NFT marketplace Opensea.