#331: NFTs Are Going Mainstream Again?

🕵️‍♂️ PLUS: Crypto's top sleuth mints his work, a prediction for prediction markets

NFTs in media, music, and beyond

Although the topics I cover have expanded much further beyond NFTs, I still have a soft spot for them. They’re the reason I got into the space after all.

There were several announcements, observations, and releases that have me hopeful for the next iteration of NFTs as brands, IP, and companies with sustainable business models. Are we…*gasp*…back?

A short list of developments and observations:

• Calladita is a movie funded by a NFT collection in 2022 and hit #1 in Netflix Spain

• Bored Ape Yacht Club was featured on Jeopardy

• Claynosaurz is partnering with Gameloft to create a mobile game. Gameloft is a reputable mobile games publisher and has worked with top-tier IP such as Disney, Minions, LEGO, and My Little Pony.

• Kai Cenat (13 million Twitch followers) featured a Pudgy Penguins toy figurine

• Doodles released the digital premier of Dullsville and the Doodleverse and is partnering with Rubik’s to create Doodles-themed Rubik’s Cubes, including a 1/1 21.37 carat Diamond Cube.

• Bored Apes and crypto were briefly mentioned in songs by Big Sean and Eminem ft. 2 Chainz

  • “F*ck you mean? My life real GTA
    And I need a payment in ETH
    Right now the motherf*cker ETA”

  • “Spoke to Ghazi and he can pay me in crypto (Yeah)
    Bored Ape Yacht Club, yeah, I'm Ricky Steamboat”

One of the key themes and strategies that makes me more optimistic about these developments is that the NFT part isn’t forced down people’s throats.

On the other hand, we have rap lyrics with ETH nestled between two f-words forced into our ears. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers 🤷‍♂️

Crypto’s top sleuth mints his work

ZachXBT, the industry’s top sleuth who exposes scammers shared a thread on how he helped catch the perpetrators of a $243M heist. Towards the end of the thread, he shared a Zora link allowing users to mint a NFT to commemorate the investigation.

Over 2,000 editions have been minted and ~$250 has been earned with 15 hours left. Zach’s goal of the mint isn’t necessarily to earn tips, since he earns much more from donations when he occassionally does them.

Instead, this is a great example that supports the trend of mints replacing (or in this case, augmenting) traditional social media’s likes I covered earlier this week. Good content should be minted, and the reasons to do so are growing.

More prediction markets launch

Is there a prediction market for how many more prediction markets will launch by the end of the year because they’re popping up everywhere.

Predict.fun x Fantasy Top

Predict.fun is a prediction market on the Blast layer 2, and recently launched a partnership with Fantasy Top to create a prediction market on who would win one of the tournaments.

(Fantasy Top overview if you’re wondering WTF I’m taking about)

What’s interesting about this is if you take a step back, Fantasy Top (and fantasy sports in general) is essentially a prediction market platform too. It might sound weird, so let’s get a definition from ChatGPT:

A prediction market is a platform or exchange where participants buy and sell contracts or shares based on their predictions of future events. The price of each contract reflects the collective belief about the likelihood of a specific outcome, effectively aggregating diverse information to forecast events such as elections, economic indicators, or sports results.

Attributes of a Prediction Market:

1. Event-Based Contracts: Contracts are tied to specific future events, with payouts contingent on the actual outcomes.

2. Market Prices Reflect Probabilities: The price of a contract is interpreted as the market's estimation of the probability that the event will occur.

3. Information Aggregation: By allowing many participants to trade based on their information and beliefs, prediction markets aggregate diverse insights, often leading to accurate predictions.

4. Financial Incentives: Participants have monetary motivations to make accurate predictions, aligning personal gain with truthful forecasting.

5. Liquidity: Effective prediction markets require sufficient trading volume to allow participants to buy and sell contracts with ease.

6. Transparency and Fairness: Clear rules govern how markets operate, how outcomes are determined, and how disputes are resolved.

7. Open Participation: Many markets encourage broad participation to enhance the diversity of information and opinions.

8. Regulatory Compliance: Depending on jurisdiction, prediction markets may be subject to regulations similar to those for gambling or financial trading platforms.

9. Risk Management Tools: Participants can use various strategies and instruments to hedge against risks associated with uncertain future events.

10. Technology Infrastructure: Robust and secure platforms are essential to facilitate trading, ensure transaction integrity, and handle settlements efficiently.

If you tweak or replace some of this wording, Fantasy Top fits the description and many attributes of prediction markets.

Players are buying/selling Hero cards based on their future social performance. Depending on their content’s performance, the value of the Fantasy Top Hero increases or decreases. The main difference is that you bundle Heros into a 5-card deck for tournaments.

Each Hero is a…prediction market?

By that logic, Predict.fun’s Fantasy Top prediction market is a prediction market of a prediction market. 🤔

Predicting news headlines

The top prediction markets like Polymarket are focused on a broad range of topics, but there are also niche ones launching as well.

TMR.NEWS is a daily prediction market focused on one thing: Tomorrow’s New York Times front page headline.

How does it work?

• Players submit their prediction for tomorrow’s headline and their wager

• Once the headline is published, TMR.NEWS uses OpenAI’s natural language processing model to score each of the predictions

• Rewards are distributed proportionally relative to everyone else’s predictions

• Data from NYT and OpenAI are brought onchain through web proofs

TMR.NEWS is simple, transparent, and objective, preventing edge cases that occasionally occur on Polymarket.

And there’s still room for fun, as it seems that someone always submits an Onion-like headline. Today’s is: “Vitalik wants to break up with his Japanese girlfriend to focus on Ethereum development.” 😂

A prediction for prediction markets

With the examples of Predict.fun x Fantasy Top and TMR.NEWS, we’re seeing more flavors of prediction markets than your local ice cream chain. Prediction markets will incorporate more social, AI-facilitated, or platform-specific mechanics.

One example of this is xMarkets. The platform hasn’t launched yet, but it brings all these pieces together.

• X users with over 1k followers can create prediction markets and are encouraged to share them since market creators earn 50% of the trading fees

• AI helps market creators refine their prompts to prevent edge cases

• Resolution can be determined by AI, UMA (what Polymarket uses), or the creator

So if you are sick and tired of prediction markets this, prediction markets that, sorry not sorry. Add this category of onchain products to the memecoin pile because they aren’t going away.

See you next week!