Morning Minute | OpenSea Comes For The Masses
TylerD's Market Summary
Onboarding friends into NFTs is getting much easier. Plus catch up on the latest SEC debacle tied to the BTC ETF approvals.
💡 OpenSea Introduces Self-Custodial Wallet
OpenSea may be losing the marketplace wars currently, but they aren't going down without a fight.
And they're placing their chips on the future of NFTs, based on this latest move.
Will it move the needle?
What Happened?
On Monday, OpenSea introduced a new onboarding experience, allowing creation of a self-custodied wallet with just an email address.
The wallet is fully integrated into OpenSea, powered by Privy, and allows users to:
- buy, sell and send crypto (with credit or debit card)
- buy, sell and send NFTs (with credit or debit card)
- Manage crypto
- View crypto transactions
That functionality is nice, but it's the onboarding experience that really sets this apart.
Getting started is this simple:
- Sign in with email
- Purchase an NFT with a credit card
- Receive NFT in wallet
That's about as simple of a workflow as you can get.
OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer commented on the new product:
"One of our internal mantras at OpenSea is: 'how do we make your first NFT purchase as simple as purchasing a pair of sneakers from a Shopify store?'
We’re taking a huge step towards that today, as we introduce our wallet onboarding flow for users new to web3."
Why It Matters
The web3 community has long harped on the difficulties and roadblocks of getting started in crypto and NFTs from an infrastructure standpoint.
Funding Coinbase and buying crypto. Setting up a MetaMask. Sending crypto from Coinbase to MetaMask. Then connecting to OpenSea or other NFT marketplaces to make purchases.
It was too many steps.
Now it's not.
From email signup to NFT purchase in 3-4 clicks is a significant step forward in simplifying the onboarding process.
When FriendTech came out late 2023, it was partially praised for how easy it was to get started. Download the app, fund with a bit of ETH on Base and get going.
The embedded wallet was a huge part of that, and it's a pretty similar concept here.
While I don't think this moves the needle in the immediate short-term, this is the kind of move that sets OpenSea up for success in the mid-to-long term.
This is how the masses will be onboarded to NFTs.
Kudos to OpenSea for figuring it out.
🤯 The SEC Fumbles BTC ETF Approvals
Yesterday was a day for the memory books for anyone in crypto or on Crypto Twitter (X).
A comedy of errors played out like we've never seen before.
Here's what happened:
- Around 4:15 pm ET, the SEC account tweeted out that the BTC ETFs were approved (now deleted)
- About 10 minutes later, Gary Gensler tweeted out that the SEC twitter account had been compromised and the ETFs had not been approved.
- Another 10 minutes after that, the SEC apparently "regained control" of their X account and tweeted that they had been hacked.
A true roller coaster of events - oh, and that's reflected in the BTC price action.
As soon as the first tweet landed, BTC ran from $46,800 to $48,000. It then fell all the way to $45,200 before Gary posted, then back to $46,400 before the SEC tweet, which sent it back to $45,400.
Hundreds of millions wiped out in leverage during this exchange.
Only in crypto.
Was that just a preview of what to expect when the real approvals come today around 4 pm ET (widely expected)?
We're about to find out. Buckle up.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- ETH trading volume jumped to $25.9M on Tuesday, thanks to $5.7M in volume on OpenSea; leaders were mostly red though down 3-5%
- Azuki led volume again but continues to lose its downtrend, now back at 6.8; BAYC down to 23.8 and MAYC at 4.55, also in a downward spiral
- Node Monkes led trading on Bitcoin, though falling 10% to 0.175 BTC floor; Bitcoin Puppets jumped 30% to 0.035, and new project Hashlings opened at 0.046 BTC on 23 BTC volume
- Saga Monkes led trading on Solana, soaring after Solana co-founder Toly made one his PFP (+133% to 10.23 SOL); Froganas -21% to 5.9, Mad Lads -5% to 170, Tensorians at 99
- The Otherside dropped a new teaser with the tagline "Apes Come Home" with a February 2024 date, likely indicating their next visit
- Players of Pixel Vault's "Battleplan" will be competing to win a Cybertruck in their next round of game play
- VeeFriends released its first children's book, "Meet Me in the Middle," though the market shrugged it off with the NFTs falling 10% to 1.7 ETH
- Ninja Alerts inscribed the traits for their upcoming Pizza Ninja collection on BTC yesterday, with all of the data stored on Pizza Sats
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors were mixed on Tuesday after the BTC ETF debacle; BTC -2.7% at $45,400; ETH +4.3% at $2,390; SOL -4.5% at $97.40
- Memecoins rallied led by BONK +14% to $950M marketcap; WIF held at $133M
- Fox Corp introduced Verify, a new protocol for media provenance leveraging blockchain powered by Polygon aimed at authenticating content and images
- ArenaX Labs raised $6M for its AI powered games like AI Arena, an AI-powered character game that will launch on Arbitrum
🚀 NFT Total Volume (ETH)
- Azuki (1,636 ETH, 6.79 ETH Floor)
- MAYC (1,399 ETH, 4.55 ETH)
- Pudgy Penguins (1,114 ETH, 10.6 ETH)
- BAYC (903 ETH, 23.8 ETH)
- Degods (486 ETH, 2.95 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
- Zero Name Service (49%, 0.3 ETH Floor)
- Ether Avatar (43%, 0.18 ETH)
- Topia Worlds (23%, 2.63 ETH)
- Supreme Kong (15%, 1.15 ETH)
- Terraforms (9%, 1.38 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Art Blocks Curated is back for the first drop of 2024 today with "Cytographia" from Golan Levin. The set of 418 is inspired by cellular organisms, clearly depicted in the previews. Biology lovers, this one's for you. The DA starts at 4 ETH and will finish at a 0.15 ETH resting price.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
- Age of Dino - Dinosty (8:00 a.m. ET)
- Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
- Polygon x Ecosapiens (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Art Blocks Curated "Cytographia" (1:00 p.m. ET)
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