The wolf of nonfungible streets
Erstwhile crypto skeptic Jordan Belfort has bravely outed himself as an NFT proponent amid the booming growth of the sector in 2021.
Belfort is known for his dodgy antics while working as a stockbroker on Wall Street, with his story being captured in “The Wolf of Wall Street” film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
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The 59-year-old has slammed crypto on multiple occasions, and in 2018 he even compared Bitcoin to the level of fraud that his firm Stratton Oakmont used to engage in before he was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering in 1999.
On Oct. 25, Belfort revealed to his 600,000 followers that he purchased CryptoPunk #6033, depicting a male wearing a durag and smoking a vaporizer pen. According to the transaction history on OpenSea, Belfort spent 102.49 Ethereum (ETH) worth roughly $410,000 on the NFT.
He then followed that up by bullishly tweeting “Wow! I love NFT Twitter! And now that I’m here, I’m not fucking leaving!”
Earlier this month Belfort unveiled his own upcoming NFT drop, which will feature artwork inspired by The Wolf of Wall Street Movie and his life. While details are sparse at this stage, Belfort tweeted on Oct. 21 that he is currently working on how to “add utility for each holder” of his NFTs so that he can make it a unique drop.
Disney NFTs are the ‘bare necessities'
Disney is taking the plunge into the NFT sector with a collection of tokenized characters from popular movies and shows owned by the multinational giant.
While details of the specific characters have not been announced, there is a vast amount of content to choose from given Disney also owns Pixar, Marvel and the Star Wars franchise.
The drop is set to go live on Nov. 12 and is being launched in collaboration with the VeVe NFT platform. The collection is dubbed “Golden Moments” and any NFT purchaser will also receive three months of free service on the Disney+ streaming app.
VeVe hosts a marketplace for licensed NFTs, and the firm has previously launched digital comics in collaboration with Marvel and DC, along with launching NFTs depicting content from Adventure Time, Monster Hunter, Star Trek and Jurassic Park to name a few.
The Economist’s NFT sale raised $422K for charity
The Economist, the 178-year-old global news publication sold a tokenized magazine cover for around $422,000 on Oct. 25.
The NFT magazine cover was from the “Down the rabbit hole” edition of The Economist on Sept. 18, which explored the world of decentralized finance (DeFi). The cover depicts an Alice in Wonderland-themed illustration, with Alice looking down a rabbit hole while various crypto coins take the plunge below.
The NFT sold via auction for 99.90 ETH ($400,000 at current prices) on Monday, with the profits from the sale going to The Economist Educational Foundation, which is an independent youth outreach charity that teaches young people to analyze current affairs.
WWE seeks NFT-based summer slam
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has penned a deal with Fox’s NFT firm Blockchain Creative Labs to launch licensed NFT collectibles.
The multi-year deal was announced on Oct. 27 and the partnership will see the rollout of NFTs depicting iconic moments in WWE history, along with its stars and events such as WrestleMania and SummerSlam. A marketplace will be launched to host the assets, although the details are yet to be announced.
Related: Upgradable NFTs: How collaborations will leap forward
With the new partnership, it appears that the WWE is looking to learn from the mistakes of its previous NFT drops. WWE hall of famer John Cena labeled his own licensed drop a “catastrophic failure,” last month. Cena said that fans only purchased 7.4% of his NFTs and questioned whether the price point for the 500 Gold tier packages was too high.
“Myself and the folks in the WWE thought $1,000 was a fair price point. We were wrong. We were absolutely wrong,” Cena said at Florida Supercon 2021 on Sept. 12.
Other NFT News
Software giant Adobe announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with major NFT marketplaces including OpenSea, KnownOrigin and SuperRare to allow users to verify the authenticity of the digital content on the platforms.
On Monday, GameStop listed a total of eight jobs for crypto-friendly candidates to work on its NFT platform and Web3 gaming initiatives. The listings include three roles for NFT-experienced software engineers, three jobs for product marketers, and two roles focused on Web 3.0-based gaming.
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