Bored Ape Themed M&Ms Sell Out Quickly and United Talent Agency Reps Cinema-Worthy NFTs
Limited edition Bored Ape themed M&Ms, developed in partnership with KINGSHIP and M&Ms, sold out quickly. United Talent Agency announced it is representing multiple celebrity NFT lines. And Bitcoin and Ethereum values remain flat.
An eye on the charts
Bitcoin and Ethereum have largely flatlined this week. BTC is technically in the green and ETH is technically in the red on the week, but both are within two percent of prices last week when a sudden drastic drop dampened a rally that many thought spelled an end of the current bear market. The story is similar among a number of altcoins, though IOTA and Hedera are up – if slightly.
Cinema-worthy NFTs
United Talent Agency announced a series of Web3 moves over the week. The agency will be representing the MV3 NFT collection co-created by Jessie Nickson-Lopez, one of the writers behind Stranger Things. The agency has also hired three Web3 designers.
These announcements are indicative of a larger movement of actors and agencies into the NFT space. The news comes the week after Sir Anthony Hopkins announced an NFT line inspired by his film roles and WME agreed to represent the Boss Beauties NFT line, and two weeks after Creative Artists Agency signed VR executive Joanna Popper as its Chief Metaverse Officer.
Small-screen NFTs
NFTs aren’t limited to the silver screen as shown by a recent partnership between Seth Green and Steve Aoki reported by NFT evening. In addition to their shared experience with both NFTs and media production, the show will draw on the community to direct the series.
Bored Ape food and drink
Film isn’t the only way in which NFT communities are branching out. Also this week, Mars introduced Bored Ape themed M&Ms. The limited set comes in a Bored Ape box and Bored Apes are printed on the individual candies. Boxes are currently selling for $100.
Earlier this month, hard seltzer company Happy Dad released a Bored Ape-themed pack of specialty-packaged banana-flavored seltzer. The company has already seen millions of sales.
Jadu premint
In other NFT news, Jadu released a tweet detailing premint eligibility. Holders of a number of NFTs including World of Women, Meebits, Deadfellaz, and others can sign up for early AVAs and other rewards through Jadu.
The thread also gave out more background information on the AVAs, their roles in the upcoming Jadu game, and how they fit into the game’s world mythology. The company also released its first cinematic trailer created with director Michael Bay.
Conventional funding
While NFT companies have exploding monetization options, other technologies behind Web3 continue to grow through more familiar pricing models.
In the last week alone, cross-platform avatar generator Ready Player Me announced a $56M funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz while AI character generation team InWorld AI closed a $50M round led by Section 32 and Intel Capital.
Dress to match your avatar
Speaking of Ready Player Me, the team also announced a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger. Through the “Parallel” clothing line, shoppers will be able to compose custom virtual outfits for their avatars and order a matching physical outfit.
Just in time for the collaboration, Ready Player Me also announced a Share feature. Through the new tool, users can select a background and pose for their avatar for easier and more impactful sharing on social media and beyond. It sure beats the old model – cropping a screenshot of the preview in the avatar creator dashboard.
Infinite art
OpenSea, Decentraland, and designer Bence Vargas have joined forces to create the Infinite Gallery – an endless virtual gallery that constructs itself ahead of the user as they walk through it. Decentraland also partnered with Rarible to create a gallery for that NFT marketplace. Both museums are part of Art Week including a cross-platform event with the Spatial virtual world.
Elsewhere in the art world, videogaming legacy (and early VR pioneer) Atari launched an NFT collection and virtual exhibition space to celebrate its 50th anniversary.