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Identity crisis: Cofounder of doodles says it’s not an NFT project

One of the co-founders of nonfungible token (NFT) project doodles says it is going to pivot away from being an “NFT project” to becoming a “leading media franchise.”

In a March 18 post on the project’s Discord, one of the doodle’s founders, Jordan Castro — who goes by the pseudonym “poopie” online — said it wanted to move away from financial speculators.

“We’re trying to go from a startup to a leading media franchise. We are no longer an ‘NFT project,’” said Castro.

Castro’s Discord post explaining doodles move to be a media franchise. Source: Discord

Doodles was launched in October 2021 and has grown to reach a $704 million valuation according to a September 2022 funding round. The collection also boasts iconic musician Pharrell Williams as its chief brand officer.

Going forward, Castro said doodles will focus on its “most loyal collectors” and it won’t spend resources “appeasing those with financial motivations.”

Many on Twitter took issue with the apparent shift in focus and pointed to other perceived problems with the project such as its recent lack of communication and a March 16 NFT sock drop.

Some were, however, supportive of the move with NFT startup founder, Daniel Tenner tweeting “the quicker we get rid of the term ‘NFT project’ the better,” adding such projects “are all startups/businesses.”

Castro later tweeted a response to the criticism and doubled down on its new focus but said it “will continue to use NFT tech as the connective tissue between everything we do.”

He added the aim was to “evolve beyond vicious speculative cycles” by “bringing in intrinsically motivated users,” solving real problems and releasing products with a market fit.

Playboy’s NFT endeavor strips down its crypto earnings

The parent company of famed porno magazine Playboy has disclosed significant losses on the Ether (ETH) holdings it earned from an NFT collection it launched in late 2021.

In a filing on March 18, PLBY Group said it took an impairment loss of $4.9 million in 2022 as crypto prices took a significant downturn over the year from the all-time highs seen the year before.

Playboy launched its Rabbitars NFTs in October 2021, just before the crypto market reached its peak. Since that time Ether’s price has dropped around 60% in line with the broader market decline.

Screenshot of Playboy’s Rabbitar NFT collection. Source: Opensea

As of Dec. 31, 2022, the value of Playboy’s crypto holdings sits at $327,000.

In the filing, it explained it counts the impairment losses as unrecoverable, even if the fair value of its digital asset holdings rises after recording the losses.

“The market price of one Ethereum in our principal market ranged from $964 – $3,813 during [2022],” the firm wrote. “But the carrying value of each Ethereum we held at the end of the reporting period reflects the lowest price of one Ethereum quoted on the active exchange at any time since its receipt.”

“Positive swings in the market price of Ethereum are not reflected in the carrying value of our digital assets and impact earnings only when the Ethereum is sold at a gain,” it explained.

Yuga Labs’ new collection mints over $10M

NFT conglomerate Yuga Labs has once again made millions on a new NFT collection it minted in the next step of its “Dookey Dash” web game.

On March 15 those who minted a “Sewer Pass” NFT which was originally needed to play Dookey Dash were invited to “The Summoning” to burn their passes in order to mint an NFT from a new collection titled HV-MTL, or Heavy Metal.

The new collection features 30,000 NFTs that resemble robotic-like cubes which will later reveal a “Mech” according to the collection’s OpenSea description.

The collection has rocketed on the secondary market since it dropped. OpenSea data shows the current floor price sitting at 2.3 ETH, around $4,000 and total trading volume has hit over 6,050 ETH, an equivalent of around $10.3 million.

With Yuga’s creator earnings set to 5%, the project has already earned the firm over $500,000.

Those who minted the collection early reported issues with the output of the process but Yuga identified and fixed the problem within a few hours by updating the collection.

Some early minters of the new NFTs reported issues with so-called “companion traits” not appearing on their HV-MTL initially, but Yuga Labs identified the issue and updated the collection.

Coinbase launches a ‘one-stop shop’ for NFT creators

The NFT marketplace arm of crypto exchange Coinbase has put out a new “Creator Hub” that provides a slew of tools for NFT creators to launch and market a collection.

Coinbase NFT tweeted the announcement on March 16 touting the hub as a “one-stop shop” and provided an overview of the new toys available to creators.

The capabilities of the tool can apparently launch an NFT collection in three steps, track sales on Discord and embed an NFT collection on a website.

Other features included the ability to create gated experiences only for NFT holders along with tools relating to the analysis of holder wallets.

It’s apparently the first time in a while that Coinbase NFT has released a significant update to its platform.

“Glad to see that you’re still alive and kicking, one user wrote responding to the announcement. “For a moment, we thought you were dead.”

Other Nifty News

NFT creator tools are evidently all the rage as software-as-a-service giant Salesforce also announced a platform called Salesforce Web3 to help companies sustainably create, manage, and deploy NFTs.

Without saying exactly why, Formfunction — a Solana-native NFT marketplace — said it’s going to shut up shop by the end of March after being in operation for just over a year. Its shuttering does come, however, as the price of Solana (SOL) and NFT trading volumes have taken a dive over the same period.