#77 | BLUR Marketplace Dominates with 84% Of NFT Sales???

Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

Hey friends,

Hope you’ve had a great couple of days! In this edition we cover the BLUR marketplace's new dominance of NFT sales, Starbucks's NFT loyalty program success, and some historic NFT golf. Let's jump into it!

Steaming Headlines ♨️

BLUR Takes 84% of NFT Trading Volume

OpenSea has absolutely dominated the NFT market historically, accounting for 73.1% of sales last year. A couple of editions ago, we covered a disturbance in the force as OpenSea implemented 0% fees in response against its 4-month-old rival marketplace BLUR. However, despite these 0% fee efforts that caused controversy amongst creators, BLUR has continued making waves in Web3 by seizing a staggering 84% market share of the trading volume on Ethereum over the last week.

It's worth mentioning that despite the downward turn of crypto last week, BLUR's milestone wasn't just because of a low week in sales; actually it was quite the opposite with Ethereum-based NFT sales climbing 162% higher than the week before, settling at a cool $760 million by Friday, of which OpenSea only captured 13% off. This highlights how OpenSea has definitely been hurting, despite the week having over double the NFT sales, OpenSea only saw a 22% increase in volume whereas BLUR jumped 186% over the previous span.

So what's the reasoning for BLUR's current supremacy? It most definitely could be their recent $400 million in $BLUR airdrops, but according to Altcoin Buzz “it doesn’t seem like traders selling off their BLUR tokens and buying and holding high-value NFTs is what’s causing the spike in trading activity at BLUR. Instead, whale traders with sizable NFT holdings seem to be flipping NFTs more frequently than before in an attempt to raise the odds that token reward distributions in the future will maximize”. Highlighting a potential false pretense here where traders have been wash trading in order to maximize their next airdrops.

Despite what the true cause is, BLUR is undoubtedly the new NFT marketplace king of the castle for now. It will be exciting to see how this heated OpenSea v BLUR battle continues to play out, but for us, as the consumer, this competition will always be a good thing whether it means the innovation of new marketplace features to draw us in or just lower marketplace fees.

Starbucks Sees Huge NFT Success

7 months ago we covered Starbucks and their plans to enter Web3 by merging NFTs with its insanely successful Starbucks Rewards loyalty program. Now 2 months after the launch of the Starbucks Odyssey NFTs, they have flexed the scale of this initiative's impact with digital collectibles given for free to holders now trading at over $2,000.

The Starbucks Odyssey rewards program is built on Polygon for its faster and cheaper transactions compared to Ethereum, making it more practical for the new Web3 loyalty program they are pioneering. The motivation here is how this Web3 loyalty program provides Starbucks with a unique way to reward and incentivize their customers through building a stronger community and brand engagement, while also opening up a new revenue stream.

Starbucks sees over 40 million daily customers, which really shows the influence that they have on Web3.

And therein lies why Starbucks has recently been making headlines. In December they gave away free limited edition “Holiday Cheer Edition 1 Stamp” to Odyssey NFT holders who completed challenges and purchased a holiday gift card, which has now had over $140k in transaction volume across its 537 owners with a $2,000 floor price as of writing.

For context, the current loyalty program has Odyssey users earning points by completing tasks such as online trivia challenges and redeeming them for NFT stamps. Buying drinks at Starbucks can also grant users points that can lead to unlocking NFTs, and it's been promised the program will have IRL benefits like private events and international trips. The Starbucks Odyssey NFT loyalty program is currently still in beta, but given the success and enthusiasm of Starbucks fans towards this Web3 initiative, its positive signs all around and yet another example of how legacy brands are pushing us ever closer to NFT mainstream adoption.

LinksDAO Makes Offer on Scottish Golf Course

Finishing off with another utility literally pushing the boundaries, the LinksDAO has just made an offer for its first NFT-funded golf course. The Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland was priced at $900,000 and after recently being put up for sale the members of the Links Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) voted on the acquisition, with 88% of LinksDAO members in favor, marking a special moment for the golf-centric community that could soon own a part of the heritage from the country that originated the sport.

So what's the LinksDAO punting on? Well, they are “Building the world's greatest golf community… A global community of golf enthusiasts in Web3 reimagining the modern golf and leisure club”, and through 9,090 NFTs that raised $10.4 million dollars, they are set on acquiring several golf courses. Although the DAO has a focus on the United States, the iconic Spey Bey was too good to pass up and the DAO quickly came together to “own one of the world's greatest golf courses”.

The LinksDAO is acting as a great example for a DAO, where NFTs and Web3 enable a truly decentralised but democratised community, but this isn't just a lucrative investment in golf courses because members of the DAO also get plenty of other IRL benefits like golf memberships and exclusive events, but also discounts and benefits with prestigious partners like TopGolf and Callaway.

NFTs enabling global golf enthusiasts to come together and put an offer for a historic golf course as a first of many acquisitions is a pretty awesome scenario that Web3 has enabled, all while curating an exclusive community and providing IRL utility at high calibre golf partners, it really shows the new potential and opportunities that NFTs have created, we can't wait to see what's next!

We hope you enjoyed todays curation of stories, while we whip up the next edition have a good week and take care, see ya!

What's the NFTea? 🍵

TwelveFold — a riddle that has had the entire NFT space confused and perplexed for almost a week now — has finally had its details revealed.

Yuga Labs is reacting to new advancements in Bitcoin Ordinal technology and inscribing generative art pieces on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The NFT community at large was not too pleased with this move, for multiple reasons. First off, it seems like quite a cash grab:

Others weren't so enthused about the terrible user experience of buying/selling Ordinals.

And last but not least, there are huge concerns about how commercialized this product is when the art is done "by an in-house team".

One thing's for certain though — this collection of 300 pieces will definitely sell out and very probably also raise a lot of money for Yuga Labs.

What are your thoughts on Ordinals? Tweet at us @MorningNFTea and let us know!

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DISCLAIMER:

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.