The Oscars have decided to pay their last respects and homage to the late actor Chadwick Boseman through an NFT artwork by AdVenture Media.

Although there was a social media uproar after Anthony Hopkins received the award for his work in ‘The Father’ instead of the young late actor. The launch of his NFT is seen as an attempt to mitigate the outrage and pacify the angry fans.

Boseman died of a rare cancer last August and had been reserved a posthumous nomination for his work in Netflix’s ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ which was strongly favored to win coming into Sunday’s ceremony.

Social Media Outrage on Anthony Hopkins Oscar Win
Died at the age of 43, Boseman had already conquered multiple awards like Critics Choice Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for the role, and many pundits predicted a deserved victory.

Social media claims false practices to manipulate the oscar names. The outrage is clearly seen when Hopkins’s name was announced in the show. In reality, it might be the case of proof that even organizers don’t know who’s name will be announced prior to opening the envelope. The tea leaves seemed easy to read, particularly after producers shifted the best actor win to the last award of the night.

Chadwick Boseman Paid Homage with NFT
Isaac Rudansky, the founder of AdVenture Media, stated; “This rare special edition NFT is the very first offered as a tribute to the prolific actor, a unique piece of art which is limited to just 1 edition and will never be minted again.”

Rudansky added that NFT “commemorates Chadwick’s incredible legacy while supporting the nationwide initiative to bring 10,000 colorectal screenings to underserved communities in 2021 through CCF.”

In the event, it is also mentioned that the nominees of the Academy Award would receive a one-of-a-kind digital artwork manufactured by artist Andre Oshea, redeemable by an NFT – a non-fungible token.

The artist’s NFT of the late actor, according to a press release, is a “celebration of Black creativity in cinema and art, and a salute to Boseman’s undeniable cross-generational influence as the first superhero of African descent Black Panther.”

The Oscars Pays Chadwick Boseman Homage Through an NFT
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BitBoy, the popular crypto streamer with over 750000 followers and co-host of the New Money Gang podcast, announced that his Theta NFTs will be launched on ThetaDrop in May. He's a part of a group of creators who are launch partners for the ThetaDrop general NFT marketplace.

BitBoy tweeted:

"We love #NFTs! We're doing an exclusive drop with @Theta_Network / @ThetaDrop. With unlockable NFTs to include merchandise, in-person meetups, and the chance to play a game of online poker with me! Coming May 2021."

Theta's NFT marketplace will open up broadly in May and June and showcase partnerships with brands such as World Poker Tour. BitBoy's website, BitBoyCrypto, dedicated to educating and informing the public on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, will also launch his Theta NFTs.

BitBoy NFTs Come With Real Value Perks
BitBoy is incredibly popular, and his Youtube videos garner daily view counts higher than 200000. The NFTs built on the Theta blockchain will be released as a part of a dedicated section on his website. BitBoy will go live during the NFT drop.

The NFT drops will be created in the BitBerse comic-themed art style and will be very eye-catching. These are not just for collecting but also linked to real value items that buyers can redeem in real-time or at a later date.

The real value items include a private zoom call with BitBoy, exclusive BitBoy merchandise, in-person meetups, and the chance to play a game of online poker with him. The purchasers of the NFTs will receive an exclusive badge allowing them to chat on THETA.tv.

ThethaDrop Offers Real-Time Interaction Between Creators And Buyers
ThetaDrop's real-time NFT marketplace allows the artist or influencer to interact with their fans directly. This is an excellent method to increase engagement and interactivity on a global scale. The NFT drop mimics the social aspect of traditional art gallery openings where the artist and the buyers meet and greet each other.

NFTs are gaining a lot of attention and traction among creators and influencers. The theta platform offers a lot of value while creating NFTs as gas fees are 99% cheaper than Ethereum. The platform provides fast transactions and has low energy demands due to Theta's Proof of Stake consensus protocol.

ThetaDrop TFUEL Transactions Packed With Benefits
Theta's utility token is TFUEL, and users of the ThetaDrop platform will need this token to create, buy, sell and transact digital NFT assets. Once the NFTs are minted, buyers need to use TFUEL to purchase NFT packs and pre-fund their account with the token to gain added benefits.

Sellers who are offering NFTs can accept TFUEL as a form of payment. Upon transferring NFT from the seller to the buyer's wallet, TFUEL transaction fees will be burned. Utilizing TFUEL on the ThetaDrop platform will grant additional benefits too. The team will disclose these benefits soon.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Popular Crypto Streamer, BitBoy, To Launch NFTs Via ThetaDrop In May
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Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are storming the gaming market as decentralized collectibles, cards, unique powerups and a slew of in-game content are making their way into all manner of games ranging from RPGs to high-class adventures with engrossing tales and character development. It seems NFTs have managed to breathe new life into the decentralized gaming sector, adding tremendous value to digital content that is being turned into unique sets of assets players are vying to shell out top dollar for. The following is a short list of the top Token Sales in the decentralized gaming sector that are set to rock the month of April.

1. Sorare
Raised: $60 million

Sorare opens up the list of interesting token sales for the month as a fantasy-football game with NFT integration that has attracted the interest and excitement of both the gaming and investor communities. Sorare offers players a selection of unique football player cards that can be bought and used in-game to control characters, form teams, win championships and valuable prizes.

Sorare already has an established fan base as over 130 football clubs are already partners of the project and sales volumes of the game’s collectible cards have exceeded $4.2 million from 120 countries in January of 2021 alone. The latest funding round headed by venture fund Benchmark Capital attracted $48 million to the project, propelling the total amount of funds raised to just over $60 million.

2. Boson Protocol
Raised: $36 million

The Boson Protocol is the next major player on the list striving onto the arena with its innovative product offering in the form of a capture resistant dCommerce ecosystem using NFTs encoded with game theory. At its core, Boson is public infrastructure for coordinating commerce transactions, hosting all manner of Dapps, and allowing its participants to conduct transactions with NFTs.

The project has been highly successful so far in attracting funding, as its latest public round ended with the raking in over $25.8 million in funds, raising the total amount to over $36 million, highlighting the prospects investors see in the endeavor.

3. Enjin
Raised: $18.9 million

Enjin is up next on the list as a fully NFT-dedicated platform that is making the transition to the Polkadot blockchain to ensure better throughput, transaction speeds and overall user experience in the NFT space. Enjin (ENJ) is more of a product ecosystem that is aimed at offering developers the tools and environment necessary for creating advanced virtual worlds and economies.

As a fully decentralized product that already supports such exciting games as Rust – a post-apocalyptic sci-fi universe, Enjin enjoys the support of investors, both minor and major. The platform has successfully attracted $18.9 million during a private token sale round led by Crypto.com Capital, DFG Group and Hashed, which has given the project the funds necessary to continue development.

4. Chainbinders
Raised: $7.5 million

Next up on the list of exciting token sales in NFT-based gaming on decentralized platforms is Chainbinders – a Japan-inspired game from DokiDoki Finance (DOKI). The game revolves around a host of 15 characters called Chainbinders who inhabit a post-apocalyptic world and strive to unravel the mystery surrounding the cataclysm that had shattered their home. The heroes are endowed with supernatural powers; the set includes 100 unique cards that can be obtained through gacha-style digital slot machines and then sold on the open market in NFT format.

Apart from its exciting premise, profound storyline and mesmerizing style that was created by over 50 artists, musicians, and songwriters, Chainbinders also sports an advanced game theory that foresees the burning of cards to increase redeem Ethereum and, subsequently – the price of remaining cards. Chainbinders has successfully raised over $5 million worth of financing on the first day of its sale, with $3.8 million received in under 2 hours, no less. The total amount of funds raised so far is $7.8 million. The project is surely worth keeping an eye out for.

5. ​​​​​​​Illuvium
Raised: $5 million

Illuvium (ILV) is more than just a decentralized DApp – it is a full-fledged game – a fantasy battle game at that, which offers players an open-world RPG with beasts ripped right out of prehistoric times when the world was young and a cataclysm that sends tremors of chaos across the in-game universe. The players of Illuvium are sent on an adventure to hunt and capture deity-like creatures called Illuvials while uncovering the dark secrets of the world and the reasons behind the cataclysm.

The game’s premise proved exciting enough to bring in over $5 million from Framework Ventures – an established venture capital fund operating on the decentralized finance market and engaged in supporting promising startups. The NFT autobattler game has hit the target when it comes to unique content as players have supported the project’s strive to offer collectible beasts that can be sold on the open market, with some fetching impressive prices.

Top 5 Biggest Token Sales of Month In The NFT Gaming Sector
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Unique items have long been attracting collectors who are willing to pay top dollar to get them. Paintings, baseball cards, stamps, vintage cards and rare coins have all been sold at huge premiums to collectors in the past. Now, these items are moving into the digital realm, thanks to the use of blockchain technology.

These items are now represented on several different blockchain networks as “unique” digital assets known as nonfungible tokens. The use of blockchain technology means that authenticity and ownership are easily verifiable, especially in a world where scarcity plays a vital role in the valuation of an asset.

A piece of art originally created by the renowned street artist Banksy, was turned into an NFT version of the physical painting that was destroyed on purpose — later sold for nearly $400,000. Anita Moore, CEO at Blind Boxes, an NFT platform for digital artwork, told Cointelegraph, “By decentralizing the concepts of provenance and authenticity, NFTs are revolutionizing the way we think about ownership and value.”

What are NFT trading cards?
NFT trading cards are virtual representations of their physical underlying asset. By being represented on the blockchain, these cards are granted immutability and public verification of ownership. Even if the physical version is lost or destroyed, the NFT will endure and live on the blockchain for as long as the latter exists.

People can create a virtual representation of these cards by creating a token on Ethereum or other smart contract blockchains. These tokens are non-fungible and contain metadata about the card, especially its image. These can be stored, viewed and transferred via an NFT-enabled wallet.

There are many platforms where people can create, buy and sell these items. Some of the biggest are currently OpenSea and Hoard.exchange, among others.

Collectibles are growing as an investment
Trading cards, much like artwork, are unique items, and their move into the digital realm is growing at a pace where collectibles as a whole are becoming an investment class. Outside of the cryptocurrency space, trading card sales have been taking off.

Nick Rose, founder and CEO of the NFT platform Ethernity Chain, believes that by backing these tokens themselves, celebrities and influencers are delivering the realness-value to the assets, telling Cointelegraph,

"It is clear that authenticated NFTs from actual real world sports and entertainment figures are the only real future for NFT collectibles. When we launch a drop with Tony Hawk, Muhammad Ali or the legendary footballer Pele - These are all authenticed, endorsed and backed by these people - thus creating an actual underlying value for them."
There are many examples of successful ventures in the collectable NFT space. The price of mint condition cards on the trading platform StockX has jumped from $280 to an average of $775, from a year ago. A rare Tom Brady card was sold for $1.3 million on the platform recently, as it’s one out of 100 of its kind from his rookie season.

Many traditional investors have started turning to riskier asset classes like cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies. However, when asked about this recent trend Radek Zagórowicz, CEO at Hoard Exchange, a blockchain gaming platform, warned about the dangers of blindly following “hype trains.” He explained to Cointelegraph,

“NFT is a new digital revolution, but as with every new technology, it is very often misused. There's a lot of projects that want to use it only as a promotion tactic, as opposed to a real valuable purpose. Investors have to be very careful and not to invest in every project which mentions NFTs as it was with blockchain a couple years ago.”
These events unfold as millions are laid off over the lockdowns issued in an attempt to curb the growth of the COVID-19. As the economy tumbled, countries like the United States, Brazil, Germany and Japan slashed interest rates and bought government bonds, making them less attractive for investors.

At the same time, quantitative easing has also led to hyperinflation fears, leading traditional investors away from stocks and fiat currencies, and into the precious metals and cryptocurrencies; with the newest interest being NFTs.

Mainstream artists, organizations dive into NFTs
Over 230,000 NBA fans have joined NBA Top Shot to own moments of NBA’s history as NFTs, and MLB and its players have now announced the launch of new NFT trading cards, in partnership with Topps, the leading trading card maker in the United States.

Dapper Labs, the company that created the popular NBA NFT trading cards, has secured $305 million in a single funding round by providing tokens of sports icons. Well-known figures in the NBA have participated in the funding round, including Michael Jordan, Alex Caruso and Kevin Durant.

YouTube star Logan Paul has also entered the NFT craze with the sale of 3,000 NFTs, including Pokemon cards, making over $5 million. Demand for the NFTs was partly driven by a contest that distributed three first edition packs of Pokémon cards to buyers, valued at $40,000.

Renowned artists, celebrities and major sports organizations may be jumping into the NFT trading card hype as a way to reach new audiences, but many believe that NFTs are just beginning to show their true potential. John Wu, President of Ava Labs, the DApp development platform also supporting Avalanche (AVAX), told Cointelegraph,

“We’re still just scratching the surface of NFTs potential, but the excitement from global, household brand names is very real. The brands we’ve been speaking with about launching NFT projects on Avalanche cover the full spectrum of art to sports to events, and see the vast potential of adapting collectibles to the internet economy.”
True asset ownership is not the end
Ultimately, the trading and collectable card industry has been around for a long time, but the authentication and preservation models, who value their mint condition, have become a cumbersome factor. Blockchain technology could provide a solution to these issues. However, this changes the whole dynamic of the collector market, given that the scarcity of mint condition cards is where the value comes from.

While some have built fortunes by participating in this nascent market, NFTs do come with a high degree of risk. The traditional sports card and memorabilia market alone was estimated to be worth over $5.4 billion in 2020. On the other hand, Dapper Labs is now valued at $2.6 billion, having grossed around $230 million in sales as of the end of February.

Thus, NFTs are unsurprisingly not quite there yet, however they do contain a valuable asset that can take the market further. Additionally, owning an NFT does not automatically mean that a physical version of the card should not exist. Just like with Bitcoin, a physical version of the coin may exist and prove ownership of the wallet that contains the holdings.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and tokens have allowed people to be their own bank and own their own money. NFTs are now doing the same for other asset classes, but the use of NFTs doesn’t end there. According to James Hakim, CEO of Curate, an all-in-one NFT marketplace app, told Cointelegraph:

“We're moving towards NFTs with utilities, not just tokenized digital art. Soon we'll be do a lot more with our NFTs, such as use them for staking, pay for goods, authentication and loyalty rewards”

NFT trading cards: A new way to own collectibles or an asset bubble?
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A collection of 50 CryptoPunks has been fractionalized into millions of tokens, each representing part of the collection.

CryptoPunks are one of the earliest forms of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain. NFTs are unique tokens that represent digital content such as images, audio or video. Created by Larva Labs, there are 10,000 CryptoPunks, each showing a pixelated face; either men, women, apes, zombies, or aliens.

CryptoPunks have relatively few sales, especially compared to NFT basketball trading cards NBA Top Shot, but they are typically some of the most expensive NFT sales. According to NFT tracker CryptoSlam, the most expensive NFT collectible sale ever (excluding artwork) was for CryptoPunk 7804—an alien with small shades, a pipe and a cap—for $7.7 million.

What does it mean to tokenize a collection?
In the blockchain world, it’s very easy to create tokens that can be used to represent pretty much anything. In this case, the original CryptoPunks are effectively frozen on the blockchain and these newly created tokens (called Wrapped CryptoPunks) become temporary versions of them.


CryptoPunk #7804 (Image: Larva Labs)
The difference is that thousands of tokens can represent one CryptoPunk (or a collection of them), meaning that each token represents a specific, tiny percentage of the original artwork, or collection of artworks. And when CryptoPunks are being sold for millions of dollars, being able to buy a small percentage of one allows smaller investors to get involved.

If CryptoPunks become more valuable, in theory the tokenized shares do too. In practice, this may not be the case because they’re traded on the open market, meaning they're subject to supply and demand.

50 CryptoPunks NFTs Go Fractional in New Collection
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The founders of a Las Vegas mob attraction are launching mob-themed nonfungible tokens encompassing digitized versions of real-world organized crime memorabilia.

Dubbed “The Mob Experience,” the collection includes NFT versions of artifacts that belonged to some of America’s most notorious gangsters. The artifacts include a hand-written note from Al Capone to his son, written from Alcatraz; the hand-written diaries of Meyer Lansky; Bugsy Seigel’s handgun, and Mickey Cohen’s brass knuckles, among other historical pieces.

The collection will be auctioned over a two-week period starting from April 22, according to a recent press release. But given the dramatic turn the NFT market has taken in the past month, is “the mob’s” arrival on the token scene a little bit late?

Data from Nonfungible.com reveals almost every meSPAM BANble metric relating to the sale of NFTs has plunged of late. The frequency of NFT sales dropped 30% over the past month, from 179,656 to 124,371.

Meanwhile, the total value of NFT sales measured in U.S. dollars dropped 15% from last month’s rolling average of $229,945,000, to the most recently measured data point of $193,261,000.

The number of active NFT wallets decreased 24% in the same period, while the number of unique buyers of NFTs dropped by the same percentage.

A recent Bloomberg report suggested that the average value of each purchased NFT dropped 70% moving into April. From a February high of $4,300, the average price paid for an NFT dropped to $1,400 just a couple of months later.

The Mob Experience’s decision to enter the NFT market was sparked by cryptocurrency investor Michael Evers. Evers talked up the rarity of having a museum-quality collection converted into NFTs.

“Never before has a museum quality collection been tied to the NFT market. The opportunity for Mob fans and collectors, as well as NFT owners, to be the only one in the world to own an extraordinary and unique, One of a Kind piece of history is an exciting new first for the NFT marketplace,” said Evers.

NFTs and the mob: When gangsters enter, is it time to leave?
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JumpNet, an innovative gas-free blockchain created by Enjin, has recorded more than 50 NFT projects launched in its ecosystem just two weeks after it launched. Enjin launched the early access version of the blockchain on April 6. According to developers Enjin, JumpNet is a fast Proof-of-Authority (PoA) blockchain leveraging the distribution and minting of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) with zero gas fees charges.
JumpNet Spells Blockchain Technology Prowess
Alongside Enjin’s partners, more than 50 NFT projects have signed up for the JumpNet blockchain project. Major players in the financial industry such as Binance, OKEx, and Microsoft have all acquired the services of the blockchain. Enjin’s VP of Developer Success Simon Kertonegoro gave his remarks on the newly released blockchain, stating that JumpNet has amped up the development pace of the company’s ecosystem. He said,

“Being able to mint and transact freely has unblocked nearly every project, and they’re moving over to JumpNet as fast as possible.”

Mr. Kertonegoro also said that since the company’s NFT interest is growing, the full integration of JumpNet into the NFT space will continue and users will cherish experiencing the blockchain’s prowess.

Offering Eco-friendly NFT Services
According to Enjin’s blog, the startup plans to launch carbon-neutral NFTs via the JumpNet network by 2030, enabling anyone interested to take advantage of eco-friendly NFT minting. Enjin is also developing Efinity, an NFT blockchain built on Polkadot, as another core piece of the transition to environmentally friendly tokens.

Built as a Proof of Authority (PoA) blockchain, JumpNet is an alternative to the Ethereum network’s Proof-of-Work validation method, which consumes high electricity levels that miners currently benefit from enormously. In contrast, JumpNet will consume about ~0.000002 of the electricity of the Ethereum blockchain.

As a first, earlier step toward alleviating environmental impact, Enjin also created the ERC-1155 token standard, which cut NFT minting gas fees by almost 90%.

Joining JumpNet
During the recent Global Azure 2021 event, Microsoft utilized JumpNet to transfer about 7,000 NFTs through Enjin Beam QR codes, to reward event attendees and participants as part of the Microsoft Azure Heroes program.

Ludena Protocol, Korea’s top gaming-based social media company, also launched and issued its first-ever token on the JumpNet network. Ludena plans to fully utilize the blockchain to issue NFTs to its millions of users across the globe, including its popular app GameTalkTalk. The CEO of the company Joshua Kim applauded the capabilities of JumpNet, confirming his company tested the eco-friendly NFT life cycle on the blockchain, whose results he termed ‘fastest in Korea.’

Cryptocurrency exchange Kriptomat is also partnering with Enjin to reward its users with NFTs via JumpNet. After purchasing Enjin Coin through the Kriptomat widget, users will gain an upgradable NFT on JumpNet whose level grows as they make more purchases. These NFT rewards are then usable in video games such as Minecraft..


Enjin’s New PoA Blockchain JumpNet Counts 50 NFT Projects Weeks After Launch
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