Hot Crafting Summer 🔥
Featuring Squad Goals Crafting Challenges, Net Neutral S4 Supply, Trade Ticket Talk, NBA Enters the Metaverse & More
Good Morning, NFT Squad! Hope you’ve had a great week — and greetings from the new Newsletter digs!
As you might’ve seen in LG’s post on Monday, we’re changing things up around here — and my newsletter is getting a bit of a makeover. Now called ‘Basketball & Blockchain’, I’ll be in your inboxes on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, talking all things Top Shot, hoops, and the broader sports NFT landscape!
Let’s get into all the action from the last few days:
Hot Crafting Summer 🔥
We had some major news in the NBA Top Shot crafting department this week, with the ‘Squad Goals’ team challenges kicking off on Monday:
First up is the newly crowned NBA champion Golden State Warriors, with Andre Iguodala as the challenge reward. The full list:
Is it worth it to complete these? — Current cost for the Warriors challenge is $166, with 108 completions so far. Will a rare Iggy moment be worth more than that… Outlook unclear! Specific Warriors moments have jumped on the inclusion, which could create some fun game theory on future team inclusions:
While the broader Top Shot community is often impatient and wants instant gratification, the long-term implications of crafting are important keep in mind — as well as the ‘net neutral’ moment goal for S4.
While net neutral (1:1 burn/new moment ratio for next series) sounds nice in theory, is it enough? An interesting thread from @jonboybeats:
‘Net-negative’ would be the goal everyone would probably like to see, BUT at least the moment count won’t be continuing to spiral out of control. The moment printer:
You’ve got until Friday to lock in the Warriors challenge, for those participating!
Ticket Talk 🎟
The next Series 1 Reserve Pack Drop is dropping on Thursday, with over 10,000 packs available to the poor souls eager collectors willing to fork over 350 trade tickets.
With S1 prices down across the board, 350 tickets is a steep price for what could be a pretty disastrous pack. A quick look at the market shows only 8 S1 Common Base moments with a low ask over $500 — so know what you’re getting yourself into if you do roll the dice!
That being said, the burning will be hot and heavy over the next few weeks:
The NBA Enters the Metaverse 🌎
The NBA announced a curious new venture on Tuesday, partnering with Niantic (Pokemon Go company) for an immersive metaverse project called NBA All World:
Details from the All World site:
NBA All-World unleashes the new era of Hoops. Get outside, step into the sneakers of today’s NBA stars & go 1v1 against the best players in the world. Explore your neighborhood while competing in mini-games to become King of the Court. Be on the lookout for sneaker & gear drops to flex your style & increase the performance of your squad. Represent where you’re from along with the best ballers in the world.
I have fond memories of that Pokemon Go summer (there was an Electabuzz in my neighborhood that I went searching for many times), so this is a very interesting partnership. And it’s clear that the NBA isn’t going to be shy about establishing a footprint in the web3/metaverse/NFT space.
Also, wen hardcourt!?
In case you were wondering, I did catch that Electabuzz eventually — and still have the receipts:
Around The First Mint 🗣
🎧 The Future of Intellectual Property (Feat. Tally Labs)
Web3 is changing rapidly, and pretty soon all our favorite shows, books, and songs will be native NFT projects. This renaissance is being led by two industry pioneers - SAFA and Valet Jones from Jenkins The Valet - and they're on to discuss the future they envision for everyone’s favorite story.
🎧 The New Boss In Top Shot (Feat. Jayne Peressini)
🎧 The Next 100,000,000 in NFTs
Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint
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Follow Zach on Twitter at @GhostOfGregOden.