This week in Web3

Welcome back to Decentra Daily, here are the top Web3 stories you need to know from this past week.

Estimated read time: 4 minutes

Table of contents:

• Top Web3 stories from the past week

• Whale Watchers - Big wallet plays

1. Ethereum's tenth shadow fork is successful

• Ethereum’s tenth “shadow fork” went into effect on Tuesday the 26th of July. More than 24 hours earlier than expected.

• Shadow forks are where data is copied from the main network (mainnet) to a test network (testnet).

• This is another successful step in moving to proof-of-stake, with no glitches reported.

• The next expected milestone for ETH is the Goerli testnet merge, scheduled for August 10th.

2. Metahero Universe Merch Madness

• Pixel Vault and Metahero Universe launched Merch Madness in preparation for their upcoming merchandise release.

• The bracket set-up puts Core Metaheroes against each other in a March Madness style bracket, with the top 4 finishers to be featured in Pixel Vault’s apparel collection.

• Merchandise will likely be sold in $POW, one of Pixel Vault’s native currencies.

3. Riddles launches Grassverse NFT project

• Up-and-coming NFT personality Riddles (@ethernaz), released his genesis collection called Grassverse.

• Consisting of 100 NFTs, which were in the form of photographs Riddles took whilst traveling.

• The genesis collection was quickly followed up with an airdrop of 2nd editions to genesis holders, coinciding with a further public release. There are 400 2nd editions in total.

• Utility will include having input on Riddles’ threads and potentially having holder's art showcased in the collection.

• Floor price for the genesis collection is 1 ETH, and the 2nd edition is .19 ETH.

• The most talked about piece in the collection is this Blue.Cock (lol)

• Raoul Pal likes Riddles’ takes:

4. Minecraft sucks and bands NFTs

• Minecraft decided to ban NFTs in a statement they put out.

• They justified this by saying that they wanted players to have a safe and inclusive experience, and NFTs would hurt this.

• Minecraft also stated that NFTs are “often purchased with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin” - something which is quite rare in the NFT space. Showing their lack of knowledge.

• NFT Worlds was building their project to integrate with Minecraft, and as such their project took a massive hit.

• With this news, Epic Games CEO came out saying that they “definitely won”t ban NFTs:

5. Nickelodeon releases NFT project

• Nickelodeon partnered with Recur to release a Rugrats & Hey Arnold NFT collection.

• These NFTs can be purchased on OpenSea, or through Nickelodeon’s new NFT marketplace.

• You can collect your favorite characters, hold them, or trade them in to earn Slime, which can then be redeemed to unlock mashups.

6. Gutter Cat Gang has a basketball team....and they're good

• Gutter Cat Gang recently partnered with PUMA to sponsor Team Gutter Cats.

• Team Gutter Cats are playing in the TBT (The Basketball Tournament) on ESPN, a 64-team single-elimination tournament.

• Gutter Cats recently beat Team Arkansas in the round of 16, moving on to face Aftershocks in the quarterfinals.

• Notable players in the TBT include former NBA players: James Ennis, Jimmer Fredette, and Omari Spellman.

• Team Gutter Cats' most recognizable player is Kyle Hines, the most decorated American in international basketball history:

7. Ex-Coinbase manager facing charges for insider trading

• Coinbase’s ex-product manager, Ishan Wahi, has been arrested and charged with insider trading by the Department of Justice.

• It is alleged that Wahi shared confidential information with his brother and a friend.

• Wahli informed them of at least 25 cryptocurrencies that Coinbase was planning to list, resulting in approx. $1.5 million in gains.

• Law enforcement arrested Wahi before he could board a flight to India.

Whale Watchers

Here are the NFTs high net worth wallets (whales) are buying today.

Stickmen Toys

First things first. A LOT of whales are buying this one up. This was a free-to-mint utility token created by a partnership of Warner Music UK and BOSE (of headphones fame). Promising merch, event access, plus full IP rights which is cool for this industry. 0.19 ETH Floor, 1130 sales in ~4 hours.

Alan Ki Aankhen by Fahad Karim - Art Blocks CuratedBeautiful art by Fahad here. These are generative black and white cityscapes with an Egyptian flair. He’s not a huge name in the art world yet, but Art Blocks Curated collection believes in him and these collections always fly. 1.49 ETH Floor with 178 sales today.

Alan Ki Aankhen by Fahad Karim - Art Blocks Curated

Beautiful art by Fahad here. These are generative black and white cityscapes with an Egyptian flair. He’s not a huge name in the art world yet, but Art Blocks Curated collection believes in him and these collections always fly. 1.49 ETH Floor with 178 sales today.

Headlines of the day

• From Maverick to Mogul, Madonna’s Manager Guy Oseary Transcends the Music World to Take on NFTs

• Fed hikes interest rates by 0.75 percentage point for second consecutive time to fight inflation

• Ark Invest Sells Off 1.4 Million Shares of Coinbase During Stock Plunge

• LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Turns DALL-E AI Art Into Solana NFTs

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.