A Total Dick Move 👔
The best web3 news from this week, including Wemby cards, Nike NFTs, a new co-host at TFM, and a crypto rally.
By now you’ve heard the news.
The Toronto Raptors, my hometown team, drafted this man below with the 13th overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft.
His name: Gradey Dick, from the Kansas Jayhawks. And he’ll be joining the Raptors this Fall and (maybe) playing a key role on a revamped team.
And likely making some wild TikToks along the way.
It was a big night for the rest of the league too, as it saw the arrival of Victor Wembanyama and many others in what is considered a loaded draft.
I sure wish there was an NFT to help us celebrate it.
Yes, Top Shot had some kind of leaderboard thing going, and they also sent a few people to the draft.
But I think fans would go for something more immediate. More on the spot.
This is a good sentiment, and yes some were quick to point out to David that the recently released rookie legendary moments featured this exact highlight - I think he meant it with more immediacy.
The draft is special. And it’s really only kind of special while it’s happening.
We have the technology in Web 3 - after all, supply is really easy to create and distribute - and yet we’re still being lapped in this regard by cardboard.
I just don’t really understand.
Why make + sell Wemby in a suit when you could distribute the exact second his name is called instantly to millions.
This is the type that should be free and sent out to every single NBA.com account the moment it happens. Ridiculous that no one is even trying to do that?
Anyway.
Let’s get on to all the other goodies from this week.
Nike
https://twitter.com/liamherbst_/status/1671235476848783366
One really good one this week, and a optimistic one too.
🟥 FREE Zora Optimism Orb | 30 seconds
Zora launched on Optimism and is celebrating the event with a free NFT.
🍖 Slim Jim NFT MEATaverse | 5 minutes (U.S. Only)
Takes a while to play this flash game, but in the end you get a SLIM JIM nft. And every time you buy a Slim Jim, you can scan it to upgrade your NFTs. Sick!
🥊 Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg
The moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Move aside Conor McGregor, Jake Paul, and all other celebrity-level fighters.
Two of the richest dudes ever are gonna actually fight each other in what will easily be the best sporting event of the year.
This is incredible, even as just a concept.
Yes, billionaires are gross and insanely greedy, but if they’re going to exist, we should definitely get a chance to watch them fight each other.
In fact it should be a requirement!
🎙️ The First Mint get a new Co-Host
Temporary, of course.
Last night, the legend ChamberRekt was elected by the chat to be The First Mint’s guest co-host during the first two weeks of July.
The competition was fierce through the evening, as we went from 7 contestants, down to 3, and finally a chosen one.
In the end, Chamber has to fend off former-TFM producer Quadzilla as well as Swoops CEO David Goldberg.
Chamber’s episodes will air July 3rd and 10th.
🔥 Bitcoin Makes An Epic Return
Just last week, I titled the Saturday newsletter as The Fight of our Web3 Lives✊, as I detailed how crypto was under attack from the governement.
My how the turn tables.
As if on queue this week, many massive financial institutions announced new Bitcoin-based products, in what could (and already has) spark a massive crypto bull run.
Heck, even just yesterday the SEC - who is suing Coinbase and Binance - approved a Bitcoin futures ETF.
Outrageous.
Bitcoin is up +20% and Ethereum is up +15% this past week.
👟 Nike NFTs Land on Epic Games
This is a wild one.
As you may know, Nike has been making inroads on their .SWOOSH collection, and have now fully integrated with Epic Games (creators of Unreal Engine and Fortnite).
The integration is very simple and likely one of many to come for Nike as they go all-in on NFTs and the metaverse - something especially important as many brands back away from the space.
For a comprehensive write up, check out TPan’s piece here:
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Everyone is meme’ing about the Bitcoin rally this week, so lets do one non-BTC meme before we get started.
Excellent.
Ok now onto the Bitcoin memes.
**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
A web3 sports community. Collectibles, NFTs, and Metaverse.
Tweets and Newsletters are not endorsements.
The only thing worse then TopShot not doing something for the draft is them doing a Leaderboard Burn for “Rookie Moments” packs that say right on the pack “NBA Draft 2023” BUT the packs only contain moments from 2021 rookie class and nothing from 2023 rookies!!! What a freaking joke and totally deceiving if you ask me!!! If you don’t read the all the fine print they like to hide you’d think it has something to do with 2023 draft class!! I almost fell for it myself!! Like why put “NBA Draft 2023” on the packs??!! Plus the fact it’s almost 2 yrs later and TopShot still holds over 20k of these moments which is up to 30% supply for some players just shows you how a mess this company really is... they should just burn all the moments instead of even doing a pack drop!! even if they do manage to fix the issue with over supply going forward, i think the damage is already done and most collectors won’t be able to move past all the fails.
On a brighter note dotSwoosh launched their Fortnite partnership and it seems pretty seamless. The easter eggs in the dotSwoosh NFTs you can see they have- gaming, experiences, products- utility lined up in the future, I really like what they’ve done so far and the direction they are heading!