A Free Agent Frenzy 🌪
A Free Agent Frenzy 🌪
Featuring NBA's Free Agency Opening Day, Burning Questions, The W Heats Up & More
Good Morning, B&B Squad! Hope you all had an excellent week — and a very happy Canada Day and 4th of July Weekend to all you North American readers!
It’s been a frenzied end of the week in the NBA, with the free agency period opening midday on Thursday. And we’ve got some big time Fresh Threads coming up, with some major names playing in new places next season!
But the biggest domino is still yet to fall, with Kevin Durant pouring gas on the fire with a trade request — and blowing up the Nets in the process. With Kyrie Irving now trying to force his way to the Lakers, these next few moves will be fascinating to watch — and have major implications for the rest of the league.
A nice little graphic highlighting the movement so far:
Let’s get into all the action from the last few days:
Burning Questions 🔥
The first ‘Squad Goals’ challenge is in the books, with 490 collectors earning the Andre Iguodala reward by burning the required moments. Some additional data:
The cost to complete topped out at around $160, and the moment currently sits at $137 on the market as of this writing.
Next up is the Atlanta Hawks, with a John Collins moment up for grabs. The requirements are… Not exactly what you’d probably expect to be burning:
I’m all for burning any and every moment, but I feel like the broader community expected 60k moments, S3 fodder, etc. — not S1 and Rare moments! As Veerman eloquently puts:
It’s a delicate balance — you want the reward moment to have value, and having to put some skin in the game theoretically might help with that. However, you’re also putting users in a place where they might have to break up a team set or burn a moment they ‘love’ (Series 1, rares, etc.). We’ll see how requirements adjust from team to team, but it’s a tricky scenario for Top Shot — and one that could ultimately limit the effectiveness of this new feature.
Speaking of tricky scenarios:
The W Heats Up ☄️
The burning hasn’t been limited to just the NBA side of the platform, with the WNBA seeing a new crafting challenge featuring a Diana Taurasi Archive reward. Current cost to complete — $43.
The W also has the next pack drop on the schedule, with a Base Set release #2 on the books for next Thursday.
Full details here.
Speaking of the W, can we also talk about how Britney Griner is somehow STILL being detained in Russia?!? One of the best players in the world has been basically held hostage for five months now, and it still feels like it isn’t getting the headlines it deserves.
Imagine if A LeBron James or Kevin Durant were currently missing the season for being detained for having a vape pen in an airport overseas! Just pure insanity.
Here’s hoping for some good news for Britney soon 🙏
TFM + Flowty 🤝
The First Mint is excited to announce our new partnership with Flowty, a peer-to-peer NFT loan and rental platform on the Flow Blockchain founded by Michael Levy (fondly known as MBL throughout the Top Shot community):
Are you an NBA Top Shot collector / investor? Did you know that you can do a LOT more with moments than just buy and sell them?
Need help completing a Top Shot challenge? Rent on Flowty.
Have extra moments for a challenge and want to generate income in a safe way? Rent out your moments on Flowty.
Need liquidity but don’t want to sell your moments? Use moments as collateral to take out a loan on Flowty.
Looking for an alternative way to invest in Top Shot? Generate passive income by lending (funding loans) on Flowty.
Flowty’s rental and loan marketplace allows renters, owners, borrowers and lenders to transact in a safe and easy way!
Want to learn more? Join the Flowty Discord and follow along on Twitter at @flowty_io.
Around The First Mint 🗣
🎧 The Future of Intellectual Property (Feat. Tally Labs)
🎧 The New Boss In Top Shot (Feat. Jayne Peressini)
🎧 The Next 100,000,000 in NFTs
Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint
Follow Zach on Twitter at @GhostOfGregOden.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
About The First Mint
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