#207 - Don't call them comebacks! Azurbala & BattlePlan

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

We're the web3 newsletter that’s here for the bear, the bull, and the frog.

Today,

1. Azurbala teases new community-led artwork

2. More BattlePlan! details and release date info

3. How high will gas prices go?

Plus, all the web3 headlines, memes, and Tweets of the day.

D-Daily takeaway 🥡
The CryptoPunks floor returns to pre-Blur Blend levels.

What's this? 🤔
Our floor price index tracks the biggest, most influential pfp projects, art collections, and gaming assets.

Don’t call them comebacks! 2 big NFT projects tease relaunch info

Here are two projects that have spent time in the web3 wilderness – and look to be roaring back with some exciting new content.

First up, Arzubala

Tally Lab’s narrative metaverse project was born from the success of their crowdsourced book, Bored and Dangerous, which saw Jenkins the Bored Ape Valet venture into a tropical alien world called Azurbala.

That world is home to the “Azurians,” creatures who were set to become the Tally Lab’s official pfp collection.

…Until the artwork was revealed and the Azurbala community went apeshit.

(Check replies to the Tweet ☝️🤦‍♀️).

6 months on, after pausing the project and restarting with a new creative director at the helm, Azurbala is back with an updated logo, a new focus on IP building, and brand-new pfp artwork.

New look Azurians

The new, improved Azurian pfps are now a “jungle punk” aesthetic.

Here’s the artwork teaser video:

While the vid doesn’t reveal much, it’s giving Inhabitants x HVY-MTL vibes? 👀

The most exciting thing about Tally Labs’ restructuring is that they’ve placed a much bigger emphasis on community feedback.

A community council, multiple surveys, and an art council of known industry figures all gave their input on the new pfp collection.

Look for a full reveal later this month.

For more on Azurbala V.2, listen to this week’s Spaces or read the new whitepaper.

Second, more BattlePlan! details

Pixel Vault – the company behind the Inhabitants NFT collection – hasn’t experienced the same PFP FUD as the original Azurians.

But the project has received ongoing criticism for repeatedly failing to ship long-promised content to holders who spent big on assets from PVs complex ecosystem.

– Criticisms that Pixel Vault’s CEO acknowledged when he announced restructuring and a new focus on simple deliverables, earlier this year.

Now, it looks like one of Pixel Vault’s most anticipated projects is finally becoming a reality…

That project is BattlePlan! – the on-chain strategy fighter game rendered with hand-drawn animations.

So what’s new?

• It was announced that TitMouse, the renowned animation studio, is the team behind BattlePlan’s Saturday cartoon-style artwork.

• The game itself is “feature complete” and will enter playtesting in June.

• The full public launch of BattlePlan! is currently scheduled for July.

Notable Tweets ✅

On the web3 wire

SEC must respond to Coinbase’s latest legal action within 10 days ✉️
A Third Circuit court enforced Coinbase’s request that the SEC provide official guidance on how securities laws apply to digital assets

Balaji pays up for his million-buck Bitcoin bet 🎰
Balaji Srinivasan paid up early and posted a video reiterating that he took part in the stunt to raise awareness about the fragility of the fiat banking system.

Former OpenSea employee convicted
Nathaniel Chastain was convicted of using his role of selecting projects for homepage featured slots to gain an unfair advantage on the market.

Why are gas prices so high?

NFT markets are slowing to a stop, with the number of active traders and unique wallets in danger of hitting the X-axis.

You could argue the slump is due to several reasons, from a crypto revival to the cost of living crisis.

But, if you want one major reason why people have stopped buying (Ethereum) NFTs, it’s gas prices.

How high are they?

High! On Tuesday, the average cost of a single transaction on Ethereum was more than $17.20.

As a result, 60K ETH was burned in April. That’s more than $110 million.

If a buyer has any doubts about the JPEG in their basket, seeing gas prices that would look more appropriate at an IRL gas station can definitely make them think twice about their purchase.

What’s causing the surge in transaction fees?

We’ve seen significantly higher gas since Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade, which allowed withdrawals of staked ETH.

Ensuing withdrawal requests meant the network was processing over a million transactions per day.

As a result, in the 30 days after the upgrade, transaction fees increased by more than 150%.

Then came the memecoins

$PEPE and other Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies are soaring right now, enticing even the most serious degens into throwing a few dollars at their alt currency of choice.

Activity from memecoin trading and liquidity pools is overtaking the volume of established assets like USDT, pushing gas prices to their highest for a year.

While it can be hard to resist the power of the meme, just remember: it costs gas to buy – and to sell!

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Meme of the day

Tomorrow: web3 threads of the week 👋

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