#88 | Latest NFT Advancements From OpenSea, Metamask, and AI??

Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes

Hey friends,

Welcome back, great to have you joining us. In today’s edition, we look at some big infrastructure changes for the future of Web3 from International Securities regulations, to Metamask and OpenSea’s recent platform upgrades before finishing off with some AI fun. Let's jump into it!

Since the last Brew Up there hasn't been too much action with Bitcoin and Ethereum still holding the 28k and 1.8k lines respectively, with fxstreet saying there has been no directional bias as crypto continues to consolidate at its current price.

This settling of the crypto market was supposedly linked to the Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) report released before the Easter Holiday, which saw a 236,000 increase in payrolls against the market expectation of 240,000, but despite the expectations around the state of US employment, Bitcoin and Ethereum remained unmoved, suggesting market participants likely priced in the jobs report ahead of time.

You are probably familiar with the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) which has had a tough time dealing with the emerging technology of crypto and Web3. Taking this to a global scale we have the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), which have just confirmed plans to launch a consultation initiative for the regulation of crypto and digital assets. According to ledgerinsights, The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is leading the crypto working group where market integrity and transparency are the first focus, as well as custody and safekeeping. This work program is scheduled for 2023/2024 which will see an output of final Web3 securities recommendations and support for governmental bodies worldwide.

Regulations of crypto and DeFi (decentralized finance) have been a highly aspirated demand of regulators around the world, and international bodies like the IOSCO getting involved with cryptocurrency-focused regulation to help countries keep up is an important step to improve investor protection, maintain market integrity, and minimizing potential risks for the space as a whole.

Globally leading Web3 wallet provider Metamask has just unveiled version 10.28 which has some pretty great updates for NFT users that are sure to help us out, so why don't we take a look?

Alongside the current wallet view, Metamask will now have a dedicated NFT tab jam-packed with new features to help simplify the viewing, transferring, and interaction of your Non-fungible Tokens through its improved user interface.

The main changes that people will start noticing apart from the new NFT tab are focused on the tokens themselves. This includes simplified sending of ERC-721 NFTs straight from your wallet, removing the reliance on external platforms like OpenSea for transferring your assets between addresses. There is also coming support for ERC-1155 transfers, and auto-detection of the ERC-721 & ERC-1155 tokens in your wallet so you no longer need to manually enter the contract address into Metamask to see your unique collection.

Metamask continuing to innovate their popular wallet with these built-in features offers safer use for NFT users who don't need to expose themselves through third-party sites while improving the ease of use for everyone involved, I'm sure this is only just the start for these wallets of the future.

Next on the list for recent developments in the NFT space comes from leading marketplace OpenSea who launched OpenSea Pro this week. If we jump back to April last year, OpenSea hit the headlines after acquiring NFT marketplace aggregator Gem.xyz; now just over a year later, OpenSea has refined Gem.xyz’s platform into an OpenSea Pro that helps collectors interact across 170 marketplaces with newer, improved tools.

According to the announcement, OpenSea Pro seeks to offer a new level of optionality, selection, and control for professional collectors. This includes new capabilities for automation and an "advanced orders" to “sweep across the deepest liquidity of any NFT marketplace aggregator”, all with a newly refined mobile-compatible interface for easier browsing, sweeping, and listing from your phone.

With the recent battle for NFT marketplace dominance between OpenSea and BLUR , this is a hefty counter punch from OpenSea that undoubtedly aims to regain its user base with these new features that the likes of BLUR have had the upper hand on. OpenSea Pro currently offers 0% fees for its launch promotional period in an effort to stay competitive, so whether or not this becomes a BLUR killer, it's always great to see innovations from these leading Web3 platforms.

Just in case you’re looking for an airdrop, here’s our (non-financial) advice — split wallets for interacting with different platforms to maximize your “loyalty”.

Another interesting advancement in NFT infrastructure has been the recent uptake of AI which has attracted the attention of players like OpenSea. The beauty of NFTs comes from their ability to limit digital “things” to a finite amount, but that doesn't stop straight copies of the original also being minted through the permissionless nature of Web3.

An example of copy minting comes from the second highest volume NFT project the Bored Ape Yacht Club where although they have 10,000 originals, its imagery and metadata have been copied with more than 4 million counterfeit NFTs in the wild impersonating BAYC’s “non-fungible” value.

Web3 poses the problem where you can't stop the minting of NFTs in a permissionless and decentralized internet, but with marketplaces acting as the door to this world, they have the ability to limit consumer's exposure to these fraudulent collections. NFT marketplaces have continuously been challenged by manually checking for counterfeits, but they have recently turned to artificial intelligence-powered content recognition and fraud detection systems to help make Web3 safer for everyone.

According to cointelegraph, “Some of the largest NFT marketplaces — including OpenSea and Fair.xyz — have recently started using AI solutions to help with near real-time copymint detection. That means the AI solutions can assess new and existing collections for a wide range of parameters. Based on the results, they can detect potentially fake NFTs and either take them down instantly or notify marketplace moderators to take further action.”

On our road to mainstream adoption, every step toward a safer experience for the average citizen is undoubtedly one of the most important. In our increasingly AI headline-driven world, it's nice to see the technology utilized for maintaining the authenticity and originality of NFTs in a more accessible Web3.

The market’s pretty bad these days.

So bad, to the point where a collection with stolen art managed to get to the top spot on OpenSea Trending… while also taking down the original collection.

The project Nakamapes first crossed my timeline when certain ‘influencers’ started promoting a narrative that didn’t quite make sense to me.

A little deeper digging and receipts started coming out of the woodwork.

If there’s anything to take away from all of this, it’s that currently the bar for NFT projects is very, very low. Founders — do better! Buyers — stop supporting projects that rip off others.

Big thanks for your support, we hope you enjoyed this newsletter and we look forward to curating the next edition, take care!

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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.