Happy New Year! We think 2022 is set to be one of the most exciting years for NFTs yet, with big brands jumping in, old favourites soaring to new heights and hopefully a few underdog stories too. We’ll be covering a few projects we expect to see more from this year and as always, we’ll be showcasing a couple of Metaverse artists we think you’ll love.
Amazing cover artwork by @DANDYTRON http://foundation.app/@dandytron // http://opensea.io/dandytron // http://hicetnunc.art/dandytron
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Contents
Gray Boys
On the surface a 10K collection of generative aliens, under-the-hood a membership pass to an innovative DAO with a proxy-based wallet for shared ownership of utility. Beam up to the mothership with Drop Magazine as we probe the Gray Boys.
6-7
Janky Heist
Janky & Guggimon? Superplastic? The Jankyverse? Forget what you know about the English language and Drop into the NFT collection that is taking FOMO to new heights following an exciting announcement with fashion power-house Gucci.
8-9
Visithra Manikam
Visithra Manikam is a multi displinary visual artist from Malaysia who paints expressionism and pop surrealism paintings using acrylic paints, ink, and mixed media.
10-11
SolaVerse
Whilst we can’t offer financial advice, we can tell you that being involved with The SolaVerse will take you to the moon (and the stars beyond)! Read on to explore this intriguing play-to-earn project.
12-13
Meta News
All the things you might have missed this week in the Metaverse.
Gray Bo The year is 2030, the latest covid variant has just dropped the hottest 10K collection of the summer, big brands rule the metaverse and keep airdropping ads into your wallet, the worst part is your priced out of all the good projects from the golden days. Fear not future degen, don’t you remember? You picked up a Gray Boys DAO – this project was designed to deal with this exact problem! Gray Boys are a 10K collection that grants membership to The Mothership, a DAO that acquires NFTs and fractionalizes the ownership and benefits amongst its members. Though the concept of fractionlizing NFTs is old news, Gray Boys have innovated by allowing the DAO members to utilise the U T I L I T Y of the NFTs they acquire. How can they do this? By extending upon Metamask’s Open Source code to develop a special read-only proxy wallet.
Gray Boys x NGINX
Think of it like the NGINX of wallets, though NGINX is a reverse-proxy… too technical? It basically means the DAO owns the NFTs and the Gray Boys members will have the ability to generate message signatures associated with the DAO rather than their own personal wallets. Still not following? That means you would be able to verify ownership of the NFTs held by the DAO, you could join the bored ape yacht club discord and get verified, you could access the perks associated with any NFT the DAO owns, you could right click save SO many things.
oys DAO Fract actional Ownership
Ok so you own a fraction of an NFT, let’s stick with the Bored Ape analogy, what happens then in 2022 when they announce their new token airdrop for holders, who gets it? The simple answer is of-course the DAO, and by proxy you would own a fraction of that too. You can also monopolise your ownership if you’re into that sort of thing, each Gray Boy you own is associated with a fraction of ownership, the more Gray Boys you’ve got, the more percentage of the DAOs holdings you own.
What now?
So, where’s the project headed? What are they going to buy? Well, the beauty of a DAO is that the community of holders decide on the direction and decisions of the project as a whole. If you find this type of project interesting and the 0.44Ξ (Jan 2022) floor price appeals to you, we suggest the next step is to jump into their discord and DYOR.
Collection: 10K Owners: 3.1K Floor: 0.44 Ξ Not for sale: 91%
Janky “The fuck does this brand even do?” – Elon Musk, probably Have you ever heard of virtual influencers? Janky and Guggimon are animated celebrities with millions of followers across social media platforms. Developed by Superplastic, the pair have collaborated with Fortnite, Gorillaz, Volkswagen and more! If you think that’s confusing you might want to strap in, there’s a whole Jankyverse to discuss and a Janky Heist NFT collection which after months of lurking below a 0.1Ξ floor is currently sky-rocketing with sales following a collaboration announcement with Gucci.
So what does this brand even do? Well, if you look at their janky ass roadmap you will discover a secret store for Janky holders with merchandise, drops, giveaways and a bunch of other community exclusives. In lieu of rarities, the project presents a Jankyness Chart based on levels rather than traits and coming in January is a Pillz airdrop which can be burned in exchange for a special NFT, we imagine these will be Janky derivatives of your existing NFT, much like Mutant Apes.
Jankyness Chart The Janky Heist collection is split into 7 levels, the most common of which being Normies, and the rarest being 8 Christies x Superplastic 1/1s. As well as affecting the inherit
Heist rarity of your Janky, levels will also play a key role in Janky Tokenz. Though this part of the project is not yet released, it’s safe to assume higher levels = more tokens.
Gucci Not much is known about the secretive collaboration just yet, but we expect more information to be released over the next fortnight. Gucci have notably been stretching into new ventures all year collaborating with 100 Thieves, Northface, Balenciaga and now Janky. Given Superplastics background we would speculate the collaboration is collectible related, and what’s more collectible than an NFT? Whatever it is, you’ll need to be a Janky degenerate if you’re GMI.
A Sleeper Hit for 2022?
Once you unpack this project there’s a lot to discover, and for degenerates who are used to dealing with a single landing page and twitter account, this aint it chief. Between 8 OpenSea collections, 5 twitter accounts and two (we think) primary websites there’s a lot of twists and turns to wrap your head around what’s going on here. Thankfully, there’s also a discord filled to the brim with Janky Veterans, helping the newcomers understand the project, where to go, what to do. This project has been in the game a while now and though their new-found success may seem out of the blue, there’s clearly something special going on here and Gucci is just the beginning of a dope ass journey.
Visithra M Visithra Manikam is a Malaysian visual artist who paints expressionism and pop surrealism paintings using acrylic paints, ink, and mixed media. Her work embodies two main styles, Ikigai and Ikari. Ikigai means the reason to live and reflects the modern Indian art style while Ikari means anger, wrath and exasperation reflecting a more expressionistic style. These contrary yet complimentary forces come together under a single collection of deep colours, shared symbolism, and deeply thoughtful content.
Visithra is no stranger to the metaverse, as the owner of Mutant Ape #9933 she has even painted some derivatives of her ape available on Opensea and with around 85 works available on the secondary market there’s no shortage of awesome visuals for interested buyers. You can find derivatives of other NFT community projects too, for example her impressive Long Neck Ladies derivative.
As well as the art, Visithra has built a reward system holders and keen collector Those that collect 3 of eac style (Ikigai/Ikari) can rec a 1/1 NFT gift. There are several stipulations and ru around this that you can fi on Visithra’s website. Visit work has been exhibited i India, Japan, South Korea and more. With just over owners and a floor price o 0.09Ξ, the vissyarts famil one to watch.
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SOLAV Well guys, the streak had to end eventually... If you’re here looking for another generative art fix from me then I’m sorry to say you’ll be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for an ambitious project, aiming to launch a space-themed, browser-based, play-to-earn (P2E) game, complete with staking and a dedicated NFT marketplace, then you’re in the right place! Bringing us all of these hyphenated bells and whistles are Senna Leighton and Jon Wigham, the brains (and hands) behind The SolaVerse! Not overly familiar with the concept of P2E? Don’t fret, it’s very simple! The idea is that you can play these games for free and have an experience like any other, especially MMOs; engaging in activities, completing missions and carrying out tasks in order to gain XP and develop your character or profile. The added benefit within this new realm of blockchain gaming is that players can now earn native
tokens for the game they find themselves within. Value mainly comes from the utility of these coins as they power the ecosystem and are used to facilitate various processes such as purchasing skins and items!
In this case, users will be rewarded with $SOLA, The SolaVerse’s native ERC-20 token! There are several ways to earn, ranging from purchasing and holding their NFTs, to simply participating in the Android and iOS game that the team hopes to release in the early stages of this year! Wondering what these NFTs are? Well, Senna & John have mapped out three tiers of non-fungible items, each with different purposes. On the ‘primary’ level, we see SOLASTARS and SOLA-PLANETS, which act as virtual real-estate throughout the metaverse. Next, there’s the ‘secondary’ layer; in-game assets such as land and skins. Finally, the ‘tertiary’ level represents
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to form SOLA-STAR systems. Users who complete activities will be rewarded with tokens. However, a cut of this will go to owners of the planet and star on which they are playing. Additionally, transactions conducted using $SOLA i.e. buying power-ups will also incur a tax, which is split between system-owners and the treasury to allow for rapid expansion and development. The mechanics here seem well designed to align the motives of various stakeholders, with system owners incentivised to engage with the community, especially those using their SOLA-STAR. Now, with regards to the native token itself, there will be a sale for this just before the alpha launch of the game. The purpose of this is to raise vital funds to continue development, expand the team and make sure they can deliver on their plans for the future. A 7.5% royalty will also be assigned to secondary sales of SOLASTARS/PLANETS in order to
help accelerate development and maintain the ecosystem. Tokenomics for the coin, as well as other exciting information surrounding airdrops, real-life events and more, can be found in the whitepaper! There really is a lot going on with The SolaVerse and many benefits for STAR holders are already revealed, including discounted merchandise, airdrops and even DAO access/ voting rights when that goes live (planned for late 2022). This likely explains why, at the time of writing, the floor price for these tokens is already well above a 3x return for early buyers. If you’re interested in learning more then we would encourage you to visit the project’s website and dive deeper into the ecosystem!
Words by @early_alpha
This week in the M (Jan 3rd – 9th 202 Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid M3 serum! I’ll let you in on a little secret: As crazy things happen in the NFT space, we chuck them in our super secret writers’ chat over at Drop HQ and get all giddy about creating this section. If I’m honest, this one just about tipped us over the edge. Whilst we were brainstorming a catchy headline for Ethereum co-founder, Taylor Gerring purchasing a Mega Mutant Serum for 888 ETH (~$3.5m), another one was actually purchased two days later by a fresh, anonymous wallet for a staggering 999 ETH (~$3.8m)! By the time we were just about getting our heads around that, a third serum was purchased, just yesterday on January 2nd, by Chain Protocol CEO Deepak Thapliyal for a mindblowing 1542.069 ETH ($5.9m)! In a crazy series of events, Deepak had to outbid Venture Capital firm Meta4 Capital, who had actually put forward an equally insane offer of 1,500 ETH! Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time the Chain CEO has been newsworthy for aperelated activity. His initial BAYC purchase of #9452 was another enormous transaction of 347 WETH ($1.4m). However, whilst in the process of buying, he actually fumbled 230 ETH - luckily the recipient sent it back!
What in the $W is happening!?
Towards the close of 2021, saw another surge in activ flew through the roof and fl rose significantly over the As of January 3rd, this sits with only 571 worlds for sa step of the roadmap being down one by one, it’s no su was several thousand ETH of $) of volume in the last alone! During this time, th also witnessed the largest transaction, with #383 sell for 26.8 ETH (approximate
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XCOPY does it again… Anyone familiar with the space will have likely seen some of the eyewatering sums that the glitch artist’s pieces can fetch. This week we witnessed 2022 get off to a ridiculous start, as ‘All Time High in the City’ changed hands for a staggering 1,630 ETH (just shy of $6.2 million at the time of purchase). The sale represents a 630 ETH profit for the seller, who bought it just 3 months prior!
Will the real slim shady please ape in? As the NFT space began to heat up throughout last year, many celebrities and public figures found their way into the community. On New Years Eve, hodlers of Bored Ape Yacht Club got another ego boost when none other than the mighty Eminem decided to join their ranks, snapping up BAYC #9055 for a cool 123.45 ETH (just a smidge over $450k)!
With thanks to ou
ISSUE#1 (SOLD OUT) DScheezy2
ISSUE#6 (82 AVAILABLE) Hans Hojo282 JPOneSix ThomIvy NARDLEON
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ISSUE#2 (11 AVAILABLE) Hans YahtzeeFish Tambay Bellenger InItForTheArt
TiberiasMax RB27 Subadaya MFGravyTrain
ISSUE#7 (4 AVAILABLE) KennySchachter Hans ABOSCH_1111
ISSUE#3 (SO Hans
ISSUE#8 (6 A
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ISSUE#4 (SOLD OUT)
ISSUE#5 (SOLD OUT)
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ISSUE#9 (5 AVAILABLE)
ISSUE#10 ( 9AVAILABLE)
AstrocatNFTs FranckJ MinouLady Lilcoinmami
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Patrons: David Oxley
Issue #13 - 05/01/2022 - Was written by The Drop Magazine & @early-alpha with support from @DANDYTR0N, @acidmanNFT, @grayboysdao, @superplastic, @vissyarts & @the_solaverse Always DYOR