Around the Blockchain | Mila Kunis Studio Launches 'The Gimmicks'

This week’s recap will feature a high-profile businessman, a celebrity launching on a new blockchain, and a fun new mint for those who like giveaways and lottery tickets. Let’s talk some non-ETH news. But first, as always, a check in on the tokens.

The Fungibles

Finally, a shake up with coin prices headed up. Sparked by long-awaited launch of ApeCoin ($APE), the official Bored Ape Yacht Club token, liquidity was poured into the marketplace and every chain seemed to benefit, despite the coin being native to Ethereum.

The Avalanche token $AVAX led the way, ending the week 24.24% up from the prior week and coming in at $89.06, as per coinmarketcap.com. Both Cardano ($ADA, $0.89) with its 11.53% weekly gain, and Solana ($SOL, $90.87), which posted growth of 10.95% week over week saw notable moves upward. $FLOW ($6.00, 6.7%), $FTM ($1.30, 7.85%), and $WAX ($0.28, 2.1%) were up as well, leaving no losers on the major chains.

With the exception of Terra’s $LUNA, all major blockchains, Ethereum and Bitcoin included, are still far away from all-time highs.

This Week in Solana

Since the Ethereum network has already been mentioned once, might as well do it again. Remember Stoner Cats?

The 10,420 NFT collection minted out at 0.35 ETH each back in July, and the main roadmap feature was an exclusive animated show featuring an All-Star cast.

Months later and only 2 of the 6 planned episodes have been released, the most recent one back in November. However, one of their creators, actress Mila Kunis, is now a part of a new NFT project on the Solana network called “The Gimmicks." However, this time the 10,000 NFT collection will be completely free.

Minters will be responsible for gas, but on the Solana blockchain that is usually not an issue. The original mint date was scheduled for Friday, March 18, but instead the first of a planned 20-episode season was released directly on The Gimmicks’ website.

The new mint date is this coming Tuesday, March 22. If interested, the Google form for Allowlist access is still open, although once the Allowlist is filled there will be a waitlist in case the project does not sell out through the initial 10,000 Allowlisters.

Joe Shmoes’ Not-So-Average Club is a collection of 1,111 pixelated NFTs that grant holders access to a plethora of educational materials.

The team behind the project produced a 45 page constitution detailing the ways in which they would like to see their community learn how to be financially responsible and independent, becoming rich through the proper investing in NFTs, crypto, and DAOs.

Not surprisingly, the roadmap includes DAO formation including royalty payouts to holders, as well as airdrops and other community engagement efforts. The project minted out on Magic Eden’s Launchpad on Friday for 1.5 $SOL each but can currently be purchased on Magic Eden for a floor of 1.48 $SOL.

This Week in Avalanche

If you like the chance at winning free stuff, The Nodes Tickets might just be the NFT for you.

For those unfamiliar, a node is essentially a protocol that promises to pay passive income for life to the node owner. Typically non-tradeable, the emissions need to first pay off the purchaser’s initial investment before any real return can be realized. However, for 1.5 $AVAX, The Node Tickets allows you to mint one of 4,000 NFT tickets, able to be bought and sold or held.

All holders will be entered into weekly giveaways for nodes that will be purchased in the winner’s name, for the chance at free passive income. Although public minting launched on Thursday, March 17, only 396 have been minted so far, and the floor on NFTrade sits at 1.45 $AVAX.

On the bright side, with weekly giveaways still expected to launch on Friday, March 25, buying or minting a ticket brings much better odds at winning a free node than if all 4,000 NFTs had minted out.

For anyone familiar with the Anchor Protocol on Terra, Wednesday brought exciting news as the popular DeFi platform, in celebration of its first birthday, took its first step to being a multichain protocol by adding the Avalanche network to its system.

Boasting the exact same ~19.5% APY on UST as offered on Terra, those who are looking for a high-yield place to park stablecoins should consider Anchor. The platform also allows its users to borrow, assuming collateral is provided, as well as offering insurance on all deposits. Adding Avalanche compatibility will open up Anchor to new potential users. Should it find success, it stands to reason that more chains will be added in the future.

This Week in FLOW

The Wall Street Journal this week announced that Bob Iger, former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, has joined the board of NFT platform Genies.

The company, founded in 2016 and backed by Dapper Labs, calls itself “an avatar technology company” and is currently focused on building out its invite only NFT marketplace called “The Warehouse."

The Warehouse will mainly be an avatar accessory marketplace for eventual use in the metaverse, with each accessory being an NFT aimed to be accessible at a $20 or less price point.

On Tuesday, on the heels of the Iger news, Early Access users of Genies were all airdropped a Zodiac-themed hood accessory, courtesy of @JunWasJustin. Look for the public launch of Genies and The Warehouse in the coming months.

In more Dapper news, on Friday NBA Top Shot announced the ability to move Moments to non-custodial wallets. This is huge news for those concerned about true ownership and decentralization of their assets.

Now, instead of users only being able to buy, sell, or hold their Moments on the native NBA Top Shot site, anyone who chooses can send their NFTs to another wallet, such as Blocto, thus allowing the listing on other marketplaces. This is also great news for Flowty, the P2P lending site, as it opens up new possibilities in their efforts to create more opportunities for using Moments as collateral for loans.

The change is already live but only currently compatible with the BloctoBay, VIV3, GAIA, and Versus marketplaces.

Other Blockchain News

Miles Deutscher, famed crypto YouTuber of the show Crypto Banter, this past week interviewed Fantom’s CEO, Michael Kong.

According to Deutscher, based on the metric of market cap/TVL ratio $FTM is severely undervalued (4x undervalued compared to $AVAX and 9x as compared to $SOL).

As such, he asked Kong his thoughts behind that to which Kong replied that the chain is roughly one year behind Avalanche and Solana and has not yet built up the kind of momentum the others have.

The full 55-minute interview can be found on YouTube, and contains plenty more insights into the current state and future plans for Fantom.