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🍦SCOOPS OF THE WEEK

🍦SBF Arrested - Is it all theatre?

🍦Polygon NFTs having their own Bull run

🍦Celebrities Sued Following BAYC Endorsement

🍦China Arrests 63 People Following Crypto Laundering

🍦Binance Announces Ape Staking

🍦Swear London Unveils NFT Collection

Polygon NFT Ecosystem in its own kind of bull run.

Despite the bear.. There is always a bull run somewhere. With Polygon its adoption.

Stats from leading analytics tool Nansen show that NFTs on the Polygon chain are well.. 'off the chain' and adoption is far surpassing ETH & Solana-based NFT ecosystems thanks to Polygon's partnerships with big name brands such as Reddit.

The number of first-time buyers mooned from 1858 in October to 43K+ on Dec 11 and not only that returning buyers shot up from 8739 to 81,317.

As far as the total number of users per week we have seen a 5X. The Polygon NFT ecosystem has grown more than 500% since early august and between Dec 5 and Dec 12 the blockchain had over 240,000 users which is an all-time high for users per week.

To add, Polygon's NFT transactions for the past 4 weeks roughly totaled 24.36 Million with the majority coming from mints.

As far as trading volume goes the ecosystem has totaled nearly $305 Million across 2.27 Million wallets, though trading volume in recent months has tailed off suggesting most of the activity is from free mints or low-value purchases.

Is this what adoption looks like? Less mania & more tangible value from holding assets? Spikes in users & transaction suggests that the type of adoption curve we are witnessing combats the argument that NFTs are merely here for speculation, as users are seeing value outside of just flipping for profit.

Our tip: Keep a close eye on what's happening on Polygon, they are making serious efforts to target large-scale brands and help them onboard millions of users into the ecosystem. We witnessed what happened with Reddit Avatars, it's only a matter of time until the next trend is around the corner.

SBF Arrested

Judgment day has come.

The Amazon writers will be frothing at the mouth with fresh fuel and material for their planned series on the SBF & FTX saga.

Yes, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested last night in the Bahamas on the account of Wire Fraud, Securities Fraud & Money laundering and is likely facing extradition to the US. By the looks of Twitter, the crypto community is rejoicing.

But for some, the opinion is that 'this is all part of a show' SBF was due to testify in front of congress today and a vast majority of people think this is an attempt from officials who were embroiled in the sage to stop him from speaking out under oath on what actually happened.

What do you think? Something feels off here.

Celebrities Sued Following BAYC Endorsement

Normally at this time of the year, you would be expecting to receive Christmas cards, well, in this case, a lawsuit is what's been delivered.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court in California, naming a host of celebrities in the proceedings for promoting the Bored Ape Yacht Club. 

Famous names include and don't end with; Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, Serena Williams, Madonna, Stephen Curry, Snoop Dogg and Kevin Hart.

Details of the claim state that the celebrities promoted the project without disclosing their investment in them, accusing them of committing fraud "by convincing potential investors that the price of these assets would appreciate"

One of the most surprising details to find in the suit is that Justin Bieber publicly claimed he paid $1.3m for his Ape when he was actually given it in exchange for promotion.

Of course, the law of land is innocent until proven guilty but we have seen the Courts adopt a strict approach previously when Kim Kardashian was charged for touting Ethereum Max.

It's certainly one to keep your eyes on but whatever happens...DYOR.

China Arrests 63 People Following Crypto Laundering

Each week a new story comes out that seems to get the politician's tails wagging at how regulation is the only step forward.

This week's reason for regulation is brought to you by China.

The Chinese authorities have arrested a gang of 63 people for laundering 12bn Yuan which equates to $1.7bn using crypto.

Now, it's fairly obvious to say that China doesn't speak for the world and nor do the actions of individuals but as we have seen with FTX and plenty of other examples within the 4 corners of the globe, there is forever going to be a smear attached to Crypto following unregulated practice and crimes committed within the industry.

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Binance Announces Ape Staking

The largest exchange has teamed up with arguably the largest NFT project to bring the APE staking programme to its website.

Customers who BAYC & MAYC are the only eligible users who can stake their BAYC and MAYC NFTs to earn $APE tokens on the Binance website.

Binance's program went live on the 12th of December and has allocated up to 10,000 $APE tokens to reward customers that sell the NFT from the BAYC ecosystem within the exchange's platform.

Two important things to remember:

1. ApeCoin staking is restricted in several countries, including the US where the majority of BAYC NFT holders reside.

2. If you sell your BAYC or MAYC NFT then you will lose the staked $APE. Your NFT is the key to the lock of the staked/earned $APE, so if you sell the NFT, the new buyer will be able to claim the earned $APE token.

Make sure to check out our newsletter on the 25th of November where we covered the issues surrounding Geoblocking.

Swear London Unveils NFT Collection

The Metaverse offers every company a huge opportunity to be part of the future so we love when another company announces it's taking the plunge.

This time it's Swear London, a luxury footwear brand that has partnered with game studio, Darewise, and new-age tech platform, Skinvaders, with the aim of bringing digital fashion to the Metaverse.

The collection, due to launch in Q1 2023, will be available in the Life Beyond Metaverse which will offer a AAA science fiction multiplayer online game built to give users a unique off-world experience and digital ownership of their game assets.

The game itself will be based on an alien planet with users being able to wear fashion goods within the planet.

Both, fashion and games have a more straightforward avenue into the Metaverse compared with other sectors. It's great to see the two merge into what could be the start of the new normal.

🏆SCOOP'S WEEKLY WINNER

Our words to you a couple of weeks back "it can't be ignored that they are looking to tackle a market with huge growth potential (Gaming) & Esports, with all this in mind, we would imagine this project has a high potential for the long term & could be worth a pick-up on the secondary once minted".

As always, this isn't financial advice, but if you DYOR and agreed with our analysis then you'd have made yourself a tidy Christmas bonus.

Valhalla welcome to the weekly winner section.

The mint price was a hefty 0.5 ETH and over the last 7 days, the project did drop below that price to 0.45 ETH.

That being said, the cream always rises to the top and following 4170 ETH traded on the project over the last 7 days the floor price has now shot up to 0.95 ETH.

Maintaining a high volume with a rising floor price, this decision was a no-brainer.

THE REKT SECTION 😡

We despise rug-pulls but what we hate even more is when the individual carries on about their life as if nothing has happened.

Vanessa Sierra...WELCOME TO REKT

The only fans model was revealed to have scammed investors with a fake NFT project called SmolBoyz Land and withdrew the 127 ETH invested before shutting down the Twitter account.

Ever since this came to light she has been receiving (rightly so) thousands of questions and pressure from the Twitter community demanding answers.

Vanessa's reaction....block and ignore.

We are pretty disgusted with what has happened and just want to remind everyone to keep DYOR to prevent ever falling into a trap like this.

WHERE WOULD WE BLOW $ETH THIS WEEK💰

Not financial advice you know the drill!

The Legend of Cockpunch - 0.73 ETH Floor

As believers in builders with long-term vision & execution, it doesn't come much clearer than Cockpunch. Created by successful entrepreneur - Tim Ferris, who has the resource and patience needed to see a project through to success.

The long-term success and floor price of the project will depend on how Tim is able to captivate his audience with the story 'The Legend of Cockpunch' which emerges over time via Podcast & Blog format.

If the initial trailer is anything to go by then the future is bright for Cockpunch.

Potatoz by Memeland - 2.18 ETH Floor

The little spuds are back in the spotlight. If you've paid attention to Scoop for any length of time, you'll know we have been bullish on these guys since inception given their clear execution and the team's previous success outside of Web3. The Floor has steadily crept up due to the anticipated launch of 'The Captains' in which owning a Potatoz NFT grants you the access code to mint.

🔥HOT TRENDS

NFT Lending

Over the last 2 years, Defi has exploded and a promising area for growth in the NFT markets is NFT lending. NFT lending allows individuals to borrow & lend NFT assets using smart contracts on the blockchain, opening new opportunities for users to use NFTs as collateral for loans, similar to how car loans, art loans & mortgages in the traditional finance world work.

The total addressable market for NFT lending is big and could include anything from collectibles, PFPs, In-game assets & virtual real estate. As this area continues to develop expect to see new protocols launch & further growth of protocols that already facilitate NFT lending.

Some protocols to check out now:

NFTY Finance

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🤡 WHOEVER CONTROLS THE MEME CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE

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.