GM Scoop Family. You've been missed. Now let's dive in.

🍦STATE OF THE MARKET

The NFT market sentiment remains in the cool zone this week. But Christmas is over and we have a feeling things are gonna heat up soon.

Hang tight.

 🍯 INTRODUCING THE MELTING POT

2023 is well underway, you're back in the gym, eating salad, and quitting drinking. bad habits are out the window.. until this weekend.

But seriously,... Real talk. This time, make that lasting change.

Given the tough year crypto & NFTs have had, this is a perfect time to get a head start on the rest of those who have left, those who gave up when it got tough. But not you.

Right now, it couldn't be a better perfect time to assess the market, the dead wood is gone, and the playing field is set. Web3 & NFTs aren't going anywhere, this is just the beginning. So this year, improve your skills, attend those spaces, read those threads & understand the market trends.

The NFT Scoop will also be taking on a new habit, one we will be held accountable for twice a week.

Introducing The 'Virtual' Melting Pot, a basket of NFTs we have selected at a combined test budget of 5ETH. Each week we will track the virtual gains or losses of this basket & let you know when we virtually sell NFTs, switch them up and when Profit is banked.

We will run this experiment for 3 months, this is a test for us and it's new, but it gives you guys an inside transparent track on our thought process to NFT purchases & when/why we would go about taking profits.

Following a successful 3-month test we will look to implement a live Melting Pot Treasury for you guys to follow.

So enjoy. Watch us ride to Valhalla, or burn to the ground (Just kidding) we will always be here.

LFG!

At a total cost of 5.01 ETH (Price of ETH $1252) on the 5th of January, We introduce the starting lineup of 'The Virtual Melting Pot'

The Plague - Type OG 1x Floor - Cost 1.45 ETH

The Plague is a long-time friend of ours, having interviewed their Founder Pons right before the launch we know them well. Not only that, these guys have risen out of a bear market like a phoenix.. err we mean frog. The Plague has a relentlessly active community & dedicated Founder with true business acumen, making The Plague a perfect candidate for The Melting Pot.

Lil Pudgy x 1 Floor - Cost 0.8 ETH

Lil Pudgy's are the second project of the Pudgy Penguins...the baby cousin. Think of them as mutants to a Bored Ape. Entrepreneur Luca Netz took over the project early last year & it has since gone from strength to strength, with the team having gotten serious about their brand & community-building activities. We believe the Pudgy Penguins will have a fruitful 2023 and the Lil Pudgys offer a cheaper entry point to the ecosystem.

Wonky Stonks x 2 Floor - Cost 0.58 ETH

Wonky Stonks is the brainchild of crypto trader Kaleo. They are a generative art project that launched stealth in October. What is the Art? Well.. STONKS.. an internet meme for (Stocks). The community has gone from strength to strength & the project has recently enjoyed a rally in floor price. Given the success of Crypto Kaleo in trading around the world we back this guy to have the resource & patience to see the project through. We decided to add two Floor Wonky Stonk NFTs to the pot. Why? Cause Memes go along way. 'STONKS'

Check out the thread below to learn more about 'Wonky Stonks'

Sappy Seal x1 Floor - Cost 1.673 ETH

We are bullish on Sappy Seals for a number of reasons, but as discussed in our earlier newsletters, these guys understand the meme is the message. Not only that..more of the same. They have a well-respected leader & highly active community. Are you noticing a pattern here?

Sappy Seals have been around since the beginning, their community has stuck by through thick & thin & now stronger than ever. The project also has a number of strong social alliances with other active projects & influencers. Welcome to the melting pot Sappy's, do us good.

Friendship bracelets x1 Floor - Cost 0.51 ETH

Where would we be without some fine art to through into the mix? As the saying goes in NFT land, art has value because well.. it's art, it doesn't need an additional utility, a community, or a token to deliver value. The value is in the eye of the beholder.

Friendship Bracelets sit under the Art Blocks umbrella - a collective dedicated to bringing compelling works of contemporary generative art to life. They unite artists, collectors, and blockchain technology in service of groundbreaking artwork and remarkable experiences. There has been a number of famous NFTs coming out of Art Blocks, including Fidenzas by Tyler Hobbs.

The Friendship bracelets have held a strong floor price since we wrote about them a few issues back, they offer an affordable entry point into The 'Art Blocks' collection & best of all they add some style & sophistication to The Melting Pot.

So there you have it, our starting lineup for The Melting Pot experiment, we think it's a near-perfect selection. What do you think?

State of the Pot

Current Melting Pot Value- 4.79 ETH - Profit/Loss = (-4.79%)

Starting Melting Pot Value - 5.01 ETH

We never said it would be up only.. 😉

On to the news...

🍦SCOOPS OF THE WEEK

🍦Huge Scam Sees $300k Worth of CryptoPunks Stolen

🍦Magic Eden Refund Following Exploit

🍦NFT 2022 Stats Revealed

🍦Ownership Rule Handed Down in Celsius Case

Huge Scam Sees $300k Worth of CryptoPunks Stolen

The year isn't even a week old and we have already witnessed a horrendous scam that saw numerous blue-chip NFTs worth over $300,000 stolen.

The victim is CryptoNovo, who took to his Twitter on the 4th of January to announce that he had been hacked.

The items stolen include 2 CryptoPunks, Meebits, CloneX, Mutant Ape and a Bored Ape. 

The two Punks were immediately sold by the thief, the first for 70 ETH and the 2nd for 199 ETH.

So how did this happen?

An eagle-eyed Twitter user identified that CryptoNovo had made several authorizations to an unknown smart contract. The same contract was exploited to take the NFTs from CryptoNovo's possession.

You may think we are boring you with the advice, but this story shows that anyone can be on the wrong end of these transactions, so please ensure you are taking all safety precautions.

Magic Eden Refund Following Exploit

The largest Solana NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, has been left with no choice but to refund users who were tricked into purchasing fake NFTs on their website following an exploit.

The exploit derived from a newly deployed "activity indexer" which allowed fake NFTs to skip verification and be listed alongside genuine NFTS.

As a result of the exploit, 25 fake NFTs had been sold across four collections which include ABC and y00ts.

To the marketplace's credit, they managed to quickly shut down the error and gave users guidance on how to ensure the unverified NFTs no longer appear. They have also stated they will refund all users who mistakenly bought unverified NFTs.

NFT 2022 Stats Revealed

We all know that the majority of 2022 was spent navigating the bear but what do the stats tell us about the year we have just left?

It has been revealed that the total number of NFT sales in 2022 nearly matched the 2021 bull run.

In terms of volume, the year 2022 saw $24.7bn worth of trading compared to $25.1bn in 2021.

To nobody's surprise, the project with the most amount of trading volume went to the Bored Ape Yacht Club which raked in $1.6bn of volume.

What the stats tell us is even in times of a market low, mass adoption is certainly coming. As we have started to see with Starbucks for example, we will see a mass rollout of NFTs with everyday life in the short to medium future.

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Ownership Rule Handed Down in Celsius Case

We were really not sure what precedents would be set by the courts regarding decentralized finance but we may have just got a huge hint.

The Bankruptcy case has been ongoing and a ruling has been handed down which can only be described as a disaster for investors.

The judge concluded that the investor's deposits in the earn accounts belong to Celsius and not the investors accounts.

The main issue from this is that Celsius had over 600,000 accounts in the earning program which held roughly $4.2bn worth of assets.

Investors are now left in limbo as to whether they will be able to recoup any of their investment whilst Celsius remains free to trade the stablecoins within the list of assets.

We believe self-custody has never been so vital at this point so make sure you are familiar with the terms and conditions of the exchanges you wish to trade on.

🏆SCOOP'S WEEKLY WINNER

They featured in our projects to watch section earlier in the week. Our analysis was that they survived the harsh bear market and came out thriving with the founder setting bullish goals for the upcoming year.

Well at the time of that, you could have picked up an OG for 1 ETH and an army for 0.5 ETH but this does not tell the full story.

Back in April, you could have picked one up for 0.004, in September you could have picked up one for 0.099 ETH and this time last month you could have picked one up for 0.25 ETH.

Well, over the last 7 days, the frogs have had an almighty rally with 283 ETH of volume and 401 sales tied together with a bullish community who will back the frogs to the ends of the earth leading to a rise in the floor price which now reflects 0.8 ETH for an army and 1.5 ETH for an OG.

This could certainly be the year of the frog.

Congratulations to The Plague

THE REKT SECTION 😡

We are sure you are all aware but one of the things we hate the most is a rug-pull.

Well, that's this edition's introduction out the way with a spoiler.

The developer of the Mutant Ape Planet NFT, which was a knock-off of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Aurelien Michel, has been arrested and charged with fraud for allegedly carrying out a $2.9m rug pull.

Michel, who lives in the UAE was taken into custody on the evening of the 4th of January at JFK Airport following a flight and is set to face the courts this week.

This may not be the last you hear of this story as other project developers are accused of making vague promises before disappearing with the earnings made from the project.

Disclaimer

The NFT Scoop newsletter or podcast is not financial advice, it is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only.

NFT’s can be highly illiquid markets, causing sharp drops in prices due to changes in narratives and trends.