The Mega Deal: On Bored Ape’s Historic CryptoPunks Acquisition
On Friday evening, Yuga Labs, maker of Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced it acquired the brands, copyright and IP rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections from creator Larva Labs.
For the NFT community, it was the equivalent of Google buying Apple -- or something. Suffice to say it was a mega deal too stupendous to believe. Indeed, prior to the official announcement, holders of both NFTs voiced considerable skepticism about the rumored acquisition on the assumption it was simply too
Speaking from the perspective of an NFT creator rather than buyer, this is a mixed outcome, at best.
If I am reading this correctly, they are eliminating tiny fees creators receive every time the NFT changes hands on the future. That feature is a key attraction for many artists. Removing this pulls the rug out from under any notion that NFTs are a beneficial “sea change” from an artist’s perspective.
The boys in Silucon Valley are seeking to make NFTs work like the music for hire contracts on sites like Taxi where music composers sign away all rights (copyrights) for a small cash payment. Just like ad jingle writers have long been forced to do.
As our Dear Leader sagely noted, the NFT buyers universe is not all that large. Many looked at NFTs as a wonderful extension of the libertarian allure of cryptos. This will thin the ranks of buyers even further as the true believers move on to other shiny things.
Not a huge surprise. It’s similar to how utopian imaginations surrounding the whole metaverse concept are giving way to the reality that it is quickly becoming nothing more than an evolutionary advertising vector rattan a revolutionary liberariam wonderland.
PS: those of you who have spent time on NFT marketplaces may rightly cringe at my use of the terms “artist” and “artworks” in this context. For some good reasons. So many offerings are rather crude computer-generated (highy pixalated) “limited offerings” of single icon or image soley differentiated by the unique color combinations applied to each individual file.
In this humble observers mind, calling this crap art is a very long stretch. Like comparing a Beany Baby to a Calder mobile. Many or even most NFTs should be classified as collectibles and dropped into the same bucket as other “collectibles”, such as Beans Babies and Hummel figurines.
Apologies for all of the typos above. I shd not type on a cellphone rather than full-sized keyboard.
Typos
My only source of making comments is a smartphone that purposefully abuses my texts and communication efforts. I feet your pain.
While I’m here, NFT stuff to be is like a cross between Fox news and Russian propoganda mixed with money laundering, scammers, pyramid schemes and total stupidity, but, apparently it’s pixels have a vast capacity for storing future value, I’m skeptical!
Between real world adoption and critical links to dollar exchanging that tiny universe of speculation has about as much liquidity as a ruble. I really don’t mean to be closed minded and as an artist I’m drawn to adapting to new markets and future value, but as I researched it all, it just seems like pet rocks or cabbage patch dolls nested into cool technology. Instead of wealthy mom’s collecting beanie babies, we have mom’s chasing digital lotto tickets that eventually will vaporize into pixel dust.
Pixel dust – I like it!
There are things that have intrinsic value such as food, commodities, some manufactured goods, etc. Then there are things that have value because people assign value to them, such as art, music, and in some ways currencies. When times are tough, people somehow manage to figure out what has intrinsic value.
They used to say that a Brit would bet on anything, like which raindrop will reach the bottom of his windshield first. These days it seems like this idea is not too farfetched. Sports betting, fantasy football, NFTs, crazy crypto, meme stocks and other “modern inventions” seem to me very scary as a collective omen. People with money don’t seem to know what to do with it and those without are totally trapped. I just get the creeping feeling we have no place to go but down.
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“The problem, again, is that the future of the space is starting to sound less futuristic and more traditional.”
The question marks were supposed to be the 100 and bullseye emojis to incicate that the quote was spot on!
You know what inflates Nuevo Assets? Liquidity. Specifically excess systemic liquidity (central bank driven) and/or illicit siphoning of liquidity (criminals and sanction circumvention). Both sources are likely to become outflows in the near future and the next “big event” will likely wipeout 95%+ of the value of NFTs and Cryptos.
Central Banks need to fight inflation = significant tightening = outflows from the Nuevo Assets
Criminals and sanction circumventors have up to now been given a free pass. Global regulators and various civil authorities will now be hunting them to the ends of the earth and will find a way break the market.
More and more it is looking like the next “big event” will take out financial assets globally within the next 6-18 months.
NFT speculation is clarifying.
I recall something Peter Lynch said too long ago about Avon, like, in order for Avon earnings to make valuation sense, all the Avon ladies would have to sell their make-up crap to all the other Avon ladies.
The point being, if you go back to the mid 1920 period of roaring excess, the speculation market was driven by a supply of speculators who all depended on the next lemming in the pyramid.
The process of wealth accumulation at certain points isn’t about future value or growth, it becomes a phycological phenomenon that connects idiots to risk in a search for fast easy returns.
We see this in home flippers and the entire risk free pandemic run-up, including a willingness by some people to turn crypto speculation into a derivative that makes CDO squared risk look safe.
People get sucked into narratives easily and rationalize insanity. It’s like China building millions of empty apartments and pretending they have stability. That goes for almost any addiction, from zealous polarized politics to bonehead speculation. As usual, it’s a liquidity thing.
Love you Heis, but I hate crypto so goddamn much.
The ledger is a glorified spreadsheet. Sure, useful, but the intrinsic value worth so very little.