Apple Brings NFTs To 1 Billion+ Users With App Store Support

Estimated Read Time: 6 min

Hey friends,

A big welcome to the TThugsArmy from our recent Trillionaire Thugs project breakdown! We are happy to have you join as we continue to bring the hottest and most influential NFT stories. This time around we have some big plays from Apple and Disney, so let's grab the Tea!

Apple Enables NFTs On The App Store

Bit of a mixed reaction story to start with, so let's break down why the biggest company in the world enabling NFTs has been met with so much backlash. Apple is now officially allowing NFT sales on the App Store, and the support of apps that use NFTs within them. So what's the problem with this epic news? Apple also announced that NFTs sold through apps from the App Store will be subject to the same fees as regular in-app purchases; a 30% commission on all sales. It's great news that Apple has given support for NFTs and Web3 within its eco-system, but a 30% tax will severely hurt new projects trying to grow. For context, the largest NFT marketplace 'OpenSea' only charges a 2.5% commission rate on sales, and Solana's leading NFT marketplace 'Magic Eden' only charges 2%. After the policy change, Magic Eden withdrew its service from the App Store, even after Apple offered to lower the commission to 15%. Other NFT marketplaces have also limited their functionality due to these hefty commissions. The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeny, who we recently covered for supporting their first ever NFT game, said “Now Apple is killing all NFT app businesses it can’t tax, crushing another nascent technology that could rival its grotesquely overpriced in-app payment service. Apple must be stopped.”

Despite the high commission rate, Apple's support of NFTs is no doubt a positive step forward for the long run, with their over 1 billion active iPhones, we will potentially see industry-changing amounts of people onboarded to Web3. It is worth pointing out that specifically for NFT mobile games, we could see huge benefits from support on the App Store. Gabriel Leydon, CEO of Web3 game developer Limit Break, said the move “could put an ETH wallet in every single mobile game onboarding 1B+ players!” adding he would “HAPPILY give Apple a 30% cut of a free NFT”. The $400 billion revenue company has never before been involved in NFTs or crypto, so its validation of the emerging technology should be seen as a positive, and we will have to see how the rest plays out.

Disney Doubles Down On NFT Future

It was only last week we covered Disney's announcement of their interest in using NFTs and Web3 for “next-generation storytelling”, but a recent job listing all but confirms the media goliath's intentions. The Walt Disney Company posted a job listing on LinkedIn where they are “looking to hire a transaction lawyer to explore emerging technology opportunities, including NFTs, blockchain, metaverse, and DeFi”. The hire would “Partner with business teams as they plan new global emerging technology projects, typically on an accelerated and aggressive timeline". What is evident from the listing is Disney's explicit interest in Web3 projects, saying the hire would "Assist in performing due diligence for NFT, blockchain, third-party marketplace and cloud provider projects, and negotiating and drafting complex agreements for those projects".

At the recent Disney23 fan convention, the CEO Bob Chapek said “Disney+ will not just be a movie-service platform, but it’s going to become an experiential lifestyle platform. A platform for the whole company to embody both the physical things that you might be able to experience in a theme park, but also the digital experiences that you can get through media". This could just be a fancy way to describe the Metaverse, but Disney's recent actions on the topic of NFTs and Web3 tell us that something is definitely cooking.

Solana NFT Transactions Reach An All-Time High

Solana is next in line behind Ethereum as the most popular blockchain for NFTs, and after surpassing 1 million transactions in a single week, which is almost $50 million (Nansen, 2022), we may start to see increasingly more competition for the home of NFTs. Javier Gonzalez is on Nansen’s NFT team and says the recent data from Solana NFTs has been organic; “Sometimes you could see it’s this one project taking a lot of volume, or maybe it’s people wash trading that project, but that’s not the case here”. The term “wash trading” is a practice in which someone transfers an asset between multiple wallets they own in order to create the impression that the asset is in-demand and frequently traded, thereby inflating its value. Although Ethereum has high transaction fees, which has been a driving advantage for Solana NFTs, Ethereum's high fees also prevent this wash trading.

Ethereum still remains the most popular for NFTs, topping almost half a billion dollars over the last 30 days, whereas Solana tops off at $126 million according to Nansen. Nevertheless, this organic growth of Solana NFTs has undoubtedly established itself as a leading blockchain for NFT collections, and is worth keeping an eye on.

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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.