Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_62bb694e03e53" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“Bill Murray 1000,” a collection of biographical NFTs, depict acrylic-on-canvas paintings of Murray</li>
 <li>FLUF world and Ripple establish new blockchain The Root Network</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bill Murray’s NFT fan club&nbsp;</h3>



Startup Project Venkman wants to transform how brands use loyalty and rewards points to drive consumer retention — from tokenizing rewards points to conferring NFT (non-fungible token) status, from airlines to fintech companies.



Gavin Gillas, Project Venkman’s CEO, told Blockworks the key to building an NFT brand is to ask potential buyers to “invest in a membership.” Perks, such as exclusive event access and intellectual property rights, should be built in collaboration with the community and founders, he added.



He likened blue chip NFT community Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) to a top-tier members-only social club.



“This is your new alumni association or your new trade association,” he said.&nbsp;



Project Venkman is launching an NFT collection on Coinbase’s nascent new marketplace featuring actor Bill Murray in collaboration with media company theCHIVE. 



“Bill Murray 1000,” a collection of biographical NFTs, depict acrylic-on-canvas paintings of Murray. Each NFT includes stories Murray personally recorded about his life — from his love for the Cubs baseball team to his meeting former President John F. Kennedy. Holders get access to in-person events with Murray and exclusive merchandise.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">FLUF World&nbsp;</h3>



The FLUF World NFT project and its parent company Non-Fungible Labs are hoping to inspire NFT creators through their newly launched Futureverse Foundation, a charitable endeavor partnering with actor Keanu Reeves and artist Alexandra Grant.&nbsp;



The Futureverse Foundation aims to provide grants to artists around the world and exhibit their work on digital and physical platforms. Grant winners will be selected through a nomination process, and Reeves and Grant will act as advisors.&nbsp;



Additionally, Ripple (XRP) invested in FLUF World to develop a new decentralized blockchain, The Root Network, through which creators can utilize smart contracts without having to write and implement the contracts themselves.



The Root Network was built alongside the XRP Ledger (XRPL) that Ripple contributes to. XRP will be the default digital asset for transaction activity in the network&#8217;s multi-token gas economy, giving the XRP community access FLUF NFTs. Bridges to ETH networks via the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) can also run on the Root Network.&nbsp;



The Root Network will provide the infrastructure for The Open Metaverse project that enables other projects to mint, buy, sell, or trade in-network tokens on chain.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1) Today <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FLUFWorld?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FLUFWorld</a> is excited to announce an unprecedented partnership with <a href="https://twitter.com/Ripple?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ripple</a> to bring the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpenMetaverse?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpenMetaverse</a> to life via The Root Network! Here&#39;s how Ripple and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) will open up a world of possibility for our blockchain and communities 🧵👇 <a href="https://t.co/SptyKeu9qQ">pic.twitter.com/SptyKeu9qQ</a>&mdash; FLUF (@flufworld) <a href="https://twitter.com/flufworld/status/1537782733774389251?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading">It’s a MADworld out there</h3>



NFT platforms MADworld and Ucollex announced a partnership with Animoca Brands Japan and publishing company Kodansha to bring the popular manga series “Ghost in the Shell” and “Fairy Tail” to Web3 life.



The collaboration, announced at NFT.NYC last week, includes licensing the intellectual property (IP) rights of these series via NFTs to onboard more “culture collectors” and “uninitiated fans” into Web3, according to Robert Tran, CEO of MADworld and Ucollex.



Asked about the challenges of IP licensing when it comes to NFTs, Tran said despite the complex, expensive, and sometimes challenging-to-identify legitimate copyright and IP licenses in NFT projects, the opportunity is enormous, especially for anime creators.



“As the global market demand grows, NFTs provide a means to level the playing field for creators since most anime artists work on project basis and receive less than 10% of revenue brought in. In fact, our market intelligence indicates that a sizable number of Japanese manga artists have an average monthly pay of $1,000 &#8211; $1,500 per month,&#8221; he said in an email.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Cold security in tumultuous times</h3>



Blockworks connected with Ruben Merre, CEO of crypto hardware wallet maker NGRAVE, about the importance of cold security in light of recent crypto market conditions.



Blockworks: How has the market downturn affected NGRAVE’s business?&nbsp;



Merre: Crypto holders across the board have come to the widespread consensus that ownership of crypto on either a centralized exchange or through a broker is something more relative than we might have initially thought. Accordingly, there has been a pointed increase in both interest and demand for self custody solutions and hardware wallets.



Recent events have served as a serious wake up call and have definitely re-incentivized individuals to ask crucial questions surrounding ownership and decentralization of key players in the industry. All in all, I don’t expect to see people abandoning exchanges and brokers altogether, but going forward, a larger proportion of each individual’s funds will now be kept in cold storage.



Blockworks: What has been the consumer sentiment when it comes to people moving off-exchange to protect their digital assets?&nbsp;



Merre: We’ve had users tell us that putting their holdings on their hardware wallet has quite literally allowed them to sleep soundly at night in these tumultuous times; safe in the knowledge that their holdings are truly offline.&nbsp;



When the whole Celsius situation happened, people in Europe and North America were shocked to see their access to funds being blocked, because for quite some time, these regions have, for the most part, enjoyed stable banks and financial institutions.



In some developing economies, however, this news was perhaps not quite as startling. Traditional banks in certain other economies have not necessarily been as consistently stable, so the public seemed to have a better understanding that this possibility existed when dealing with brokers and indeed exchanges too.



Blockworks: What are the current problems with security that would prompt a user to want to safeguard their NFTs?&nbsp;



Merre: Security issues range from phishing messages in hacked Discord groups, to hacked wallets, to leaks of private keys. We have already seen the number of NFT hacks increase at an alarming rate from last year, with financial losses up to May of this year.



You would not store an invaluable work of art somewhere without first investing in top tier security measures such as safes, cameras, or even security staff, so why should it be any different when it comes to your NFTs?



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Bill Murray

Web3 Watch: ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and Bill Murray Get New NFT Collections

<div id="highlights-block_62b1f774382ae" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Launch partners include Fox, Creative Artists Agency and Universal Pictures</li>
 <li>The platform intends to lower barriers to entry into Web3 for developers</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto payment services provider MoonPay announced the launch of a new self-service platform called HyperMint that enables large companies and brands to create, manage and mint utility NFTs at scale. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright debuted the new product in a keynote address at Radio City Music Hall during the NFT.NYC conference Tuesday.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Today, our CEO <a href="https://twitter.com/isotowright?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@isotowright</a> demonstrated our new minting-as-a-service tool to the public for the first time ever. <a href="https://t.co/8A3hKVqRqZ">pic.twitter.com/8A3hKVqRqZ</a>&mdash; MoonPay @ NFT.NYC (@moonpay) <a href="https://twitter.com/moonpay/status/1539267659438731265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The following partner brands will leverage HyperMint’s advisory services and distribution capabilities: Fox Corporation, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Universal Pictures, music producer Timbaland’s Beatclub, and lifestyle and gaming platform FaZe Clan.&nbsp;



British luxury department store Selfridges, in collaboration with fashion house Paco Rabanne, has also used HyperMint to create NFTs (non-fungible tokens) tied to physical merchandise and access to in-person events.&nbsp;



Creators, brands and enterprises often struggle with “project-killing complexity, untrusted systems and partners, and prohibitive costs,” MoonPay said in a statement.



Other challenges include strategy development, scaling, and the deployment and sale of utility NFTs worldwide.&nbsp;



HyperMint is designed to help users avoid those obstacles, the company said. It allows NFT creators to quickly take their ideas to market, eliminating reliance on third-party developers. The company stated that HyperMint can mint hundreds of millions of utility NFTs in a day. 



Moonpay wants to be known not just as a payment infrastructure company but as a Web3 infrastructure company, Soto-Wright said on stage.



HyperMint should play the same role for Web3 that Amazon’s cloud computing service Amazon Web Service (AWS) did for Web2, MoonPay said, to help companies rethink their industries and underpin the future of Web3.



The Web3 space has “a long way to go to elevate the content of NFTs around real-world utility and functionality,” Soto-Wright said.



MoonPay’s other products include NFT Checkout — which lets users buy NFTs with credit and debit cards — and MoonPay Concierge, a referral-based service for high net worth individuals that purchases crypto and blue-chip NFTs on their clients’ behalf for a fee.



In April, the company revealed that $87 million of the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/moonpay-marshals-555m-in-series-a-funding-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$555 million they raised in a Series A</a> round came collectively from more than 60 public figures and celebrities, artists and athletes.



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Hypermint

MoonPay Primes NFT Minting Service HyperMint

Shalini Nagarajan

<div id="highlights-block_62ac587927134" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>A fourth annual NFT (non-fungible token) event featuring 1,500 speakers will take place next week across seven venues in New York City</li>
 <li>“We don&#8217;t allow people to come and talk about crypto because we don&#8217;t want that,” the event producer told Blockworks</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



NFT.NYC is an annual conference aiming to thrust new projects into the spotlight by providing a stage for <a href="https://www.nft.nyc/speakers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">speakers</a> from various domains and disciplines.



This year’s event takes place June 20-23 across seven venues in New York City. General admission tickets are priced at $849, while VIP access costs $1,999.



Slumping cryptocurrency prices in recent weeks appear to have sparked renewed interest in snapping up NFTs (non-fungible tokens) at a bargain price. Trade <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bored-ape-yacht-club-nft-prices-slump-along-with-market/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">volumes</a> for some of the most popular collections surged earlier this month following a broad market sell-off, which pushed some floor prices down 30% in US dollar value.



Despite sinking valuations, Twitter is abuzz with NFT cheerleaders calling on each other to attend NFT.NYC. While 70% of the event’s attendees are expected to come from the US, 30% will be from 80 other countries, according to the event’s organizers.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">🚨 NFT NYC Security Tips 🚨 I&#39;ve seen a couple posts about NFT NYC and keeping your digital assets secured while there&#8230; Honestly I don&#39;t think most of the posts or threads go nearly far enough. You are a major target, and here is how you can protect yourself:&mdash; Jon_HQ (@Jon_HQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jon_HQ/status/1537491373888536576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Jodee Rich launched NFT.NYC in 2019 as part of a joint effort with top collectibles marketplace OpenSea. Currently wearing the event producer cap, Rich is a long-time innovator who wants to build out the practical and mainstream uses of the technology to power commerce and strengthen global brands. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Blockworks interviewed Jodee Rich, NFT.NYC’s executive producer:



Blockworks: What triggered your interest in NFTs?



Jodee: In 2018, [OpenSea co-founder] Devin Finzer and I were having lunch at Bar Pitti in New York, and we were both wondering how to communicate something that used initials like NFT. We decided on a conference, reached out to the community and ended up with about 100 speakers. At one point, in February 2019, there were more speakers than attendees. We&#8217;ve always wanted to be very community-focused and put as many thought leaders on stage as possible. That is why we have 1,500 people on stage this year. It was 600 last year, the year before I think it was 300 and the year before that it was 100.



Blockworks: What are some NFT projects that stand out to you?



Jodee: I like what Ticketmaster is doing. They&#8217;re giving people live stubs, commemorative stubs — things to remember the events people go to. A number of brands such as PwC, SAP and Coach are releasing collectible NFTs. I think the idea of NFTs doubling as awards is really fun. We’ll be giving awards at the NFT.NYC award night, and those will be both physical and in NFT form.



Blockworks: How do you see NFTs evolving going forward?


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-23048" width="179" height="268" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=555 555w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=200 200w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=171 171w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=174 174w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=146 146w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=53 53w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NYC-NFT.jpg?w=33 33w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 179px) 100vw, 179px" /><figcaption>NFT.NYC Executive Producer Jodee Rich | Source: NFT.NYC</figcaption></figure></div>


Jodee: My friend Jehan Chu [managing partner at blockchain venture capital firm Kinetic] and I are soon talking on stage at Radio City about “dynamically compositing” NFTs, which sounds like a mouthful. But it really interests me. I think the next phase for NFTs sees tokens grow, evolve and morph with external inputs. An NFT doesn&#8217;t have to be static. It doesn&#8217;t always have to look the way it does. It can carry metadata. Compositing means overlaying different images on NFTs as it evolves and is passed from one person to another. 



My personal favorite NFT evolution would be identity. I look forward to the day when my NFT controls advertising and social network access to me. I look forward to the day where Google properly indexes NFTs so that when people search for me, they see all of the NFTs I&#8217;ve touched and that I&#8217;m interested in. I think NFTs will become a way of expressing both our brand identity and our personal identity.



Blockworks: Do you have tips for NFT buyers who are only looking to trade their collectibles?



Jodee: I don&#8217;t think about that very much. For me, it&#8217;s the least interesting part of the ecosystem. We don&#8217;t allow people to come and talk about crypto because we don&#8217;t want that. We want thought leadership around NFTs. The trading part of it is probably the least interesting. This year we have a stage where people can come and talk about their drops, and we&#8217;re helping them by putting them on stage.&nbsp;



Blockworks: Is it still early days?



Jodee: If you say there are 1,000 days in the life of NFTs, I think we&#8217;re really only at day one. We are barely at the beginning. The good news is that your taxi driver probably knows what an NFT is.&nbsp;



This interview was edited for length and clarity.



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