Who will prevail? Minecraft or Epic Games??

Hey Frens,

Thanks for joining us on the 20th edition of Morning NFTea, this time around we have news from Minecraft to Ukraine monument restoration, so lets get into it!

Minecraft Blocks NFTs

It's the most popular selling game of all time, but unfortunately, Minecraft won't be having anything to do with NFTs any time soon. NFT projects that were based on Minecraft's sprawling open-source ecosystem such as NFTworlds have mainly been fueled off speculation, but in a recent blog post from Mojang, this speculation has quickly been put to an end. Developers from Mojang said blockchain technology was not permitted, and that "NFTs and other blockchain technologies create digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft's values of creating inclusion and playing together". The open-source ecosystem of Minecraft was a hive for upcoming NFT projects that could benefit from play-to-earn style games but using an already developed and extremely popular infrastructure, pieces of Minecraft metaverse land from NFTworlds that have recently had a floor of 18eth have had their price drop to 1eth. Although not the usual step forward for NFTs we typically report on, this is a good reminder that the Web3 gaming future has still got a lot of work to make.

Epic Games DOES NOT Block NFTs

It's quite a big statement to have the world's most popular game with a 141 million user base come out and explicitly turn down blockchain technology, but from this news comes Epic Games who have said they “Definitely won't follow Minecraft's lead and block NFTs”. Tim Sweeny, the CEO of Epic Games, has said "Stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others". The pro-blockchain views of Epic Games on the metaverse have been pretty clear when they recently raised $2 billion with intentions to “build the metaverse”, and have even allowed NFT-focused games on its 194 million user marketplace which we covered on an early edition of Morning NFTea. As much as there may be negative publicity on NFTs and platforms turning them away, this story is evidence that at the same time there are also platforms like Epic Games that are fully embracing NFTs and pushing progress forward.

OpenSea Debuts Solana NFT Minting

OpenSea began selling Solana NFTs back in April, but despite OpenSea's dominance with Ethereum NFTs, it has yet to rival Solana's Magic Eden marketplace. In a new effort to match Magic Eden's feature set, OpenSea has just debuted its new Solana minting platform. The new Solana Launchpad is focused on enhancing the collector's experience, with the announcement saying; “We believe in a multi-chain future where people on OpenSea have access to NFTs across a vast number of blockchains. In the last year, Solana has emerged among the top blockchains for NFTs, and we share their vision of a scalable and inclusive NFT ecosystem”. An important note to take from that statement is “we believe in a multi-chain future”. It's common to see discussions on where the future of NFTs will live and which blockchain is the best, but Web3 will be multi-use, so it's important to think of a multi-chain future. The new launchpad will guide Solana creators through the entire process of launching an NFT collection, from pre-mint activities to whitelist minting, post-mint, and secondary sales.

NFTs To Fund Physical Monument Restoration In Ukraine

In a quick pivot from NFTs in the digital world, the Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation has said that “blockchain technology and NFTs will contribute to the economic recovery and development of Ukraine”. The Ukrainian government will be using the sales of NFTs to restore real-world artworks and monuments that have been damaged in the recent war with Russia. "During the six months of war in Ukraine, the Russians destroyed hundreds of our museums, theatres, and cultural institutions”, ”Ukrainian culture and national heritage have been damaged by almost 6 billion euros” said Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Information Policy. This work to raise funds through NFTs has been from the Meta History Museum of War platform, which is aimed at preserving the timeline of major events from Russia’s war with Ukraine, and they have done a great job already raising over 800eth or about $1.3 million from their NFT collections. The war museum is able to raise funds through NFT drops that are dedicated to certain events, with the latest being key moments from March 15th - 31st depicted by popular Ukrainian artists. The recent NFT sales contribute to more than $100 million in crypto donations since the beginning of the war in February and is a great example of how NFTs can be used in a positive and powerful way.

Thanks for joining us on this special 20th edition! Alongside NFTs being a new technology, we are also a relatively new newsletter. If you've found value thus far, we would greatly appreciate your subscription. Catch ya on Thursday for our next edition of Morning NFTea!

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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.