Hope You’re Hungry – NFTs are on the Menu | 1.12.22

GM Ser,

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Hope You’re Hungry – NFTs are on the Menu

NFT wizard Gary Vaynerchuk sat down with Grub Street to talk about the new NFT-needed restaurant slated for an NYC debut in 2023. 

What does an NFT-needed restaurant even mean? Well, the NFT is basically your ticket into the restaurant. They may as well tack on a sign that reads, “No shoes, no shirt, no NFT, no service.” 

For added clarification, the access-giving NFT will be purchased with crypto. The food will be paid for with regular ol’ money. Sorry, the drinks aren’t free. 

There are two tiers of entry for this new age eatery. One pass gets you access to the restaurant and the cocktail lounge. The second, far more lucrative pass, gets you all the above as well as into the 14-seat omakase room where a sushi chef will prepare your meal right before your eyes.

You might be thinking, well gee, this sounds pretty snazzy. How much? At original auction, the first level entry went for just under $8,000. The full pass had a price tag of about $13,400. 

Rats! Just barely out of my price range… Yours too, huh?

For those still interested, some passes have been available for resale through OpenSea with the standard membership going for about $11,500. 

Here’s to being able to afford an 11 grand meal ticket in 2023!

Gap on the Comeback 

The clothing retailer Gap has been on a downhill slope the last few years. But is it time for a resurrection? They’re at least sure going to try. 

Their new venture: NFTs. Illustrated by Frank Ape creator Brandon Sines, the NFTs will include a variety of pieces ranging within different ranks. Common, rare, epic, and one-of-a-kind. 

Gap has said the collection will be a “gamified experience,” and are encouraging participants to collect as many common and rare pieces as they can so that they might be able purchase the epic NFT. The epic will include a hoodie and original art from Brandon Sines. 

Oseary Gives Boost to World of Women NFT

Guy Oseary, the music industry guru, is adding NFTs to his resume. Having previously backed Bored Ape Yacht Club, he is now partnering with DCA to bring the popular project World of Women to new heights. 

WoW creator Yam Karkai couldn’t be more excited to be starting off the new year with this kind of deal with Oseary at the helm. 

“The World of Women team is thrilled to be working with Guy Oseary — his expertise is truly generational, and we cannot imagine a better partner to help maximize the project’s potential and achieve our goals. Everything we do begins and ends with our wonderfully supportive community and we’re so excited to bring the WoW collective to another level with Guy’s help, starting with the fully decentralized licensing rights,” said Karkai in an interview with Variety. 

Mirroring the formula of BAYC, the WoW holders own 100% of their piece along with IP rights. The WoW project itself still holds master licensing over the entire 10,000 piece collection. 

Already well equipped in the crypto community, Oseary, along with longtime partner Ashton Kutcher, have already invested in OpenSea, DapperLabs, and SuperRare, among others. 

Are NFTs Here to Stay?

Since gaining more and more popularity since 2020, the NFT market has seen its highest pay day to date. According to DappRadar and TradingPlatforms.com, NFT sales soared above the $4 million mark just last month. 

But even though they’ve had such a warm welcome, the current state of the financial market is left to wonder if the new age artform has reached its day in the sun. 

Mason Nystrom, senior research analyst from Messari says that the NFT and crypto space are in a better position than people think to survive this economic downturn.

“The cryptomarkets are fairly correlated – the market tends to rise and fall with Bitcoin… This has made it surprisingly interesting over the recent downturn as the NFT market has continued to increase in volumes. OpenSea has recorded $2.3 billion in NFT volume in January so far, on pace to break its monthly volume record if volumes continue” he said to Yahoo! Finance. 

In addition to the overall positive note, Nystrom noted that NFTs are a very diverse investment type. Sales could rise in one genre when they could fall in another.