Key Takeaways

• Upstart NFT marketplace LooksRare challenges OpenSea’s dominance, transacting over $1B in sales volume within a week after debuting. It aims to compete with OpenSea by offering trading rewards to incentivise customers. However, reports suggest that some traders are manipulating LooksRare’s token-based rewards system via wash trading. This brings the long-term sustainability of its model to question

• Celebrity American boxer Mike Tyson goes 'all in on NFTs' on Solana. In a tweet, the legendary boxer also attached a Catalina Whale NFT issued on top of the Solana blockchain.

• Gap jumps into NFTs with an exclusive physical hoodie available. The collection, dubbed ‘Gap Threads’, will be powered by Tezos. 

• OpenSea's record-high daily volume is $261M on 16 January 2022. The platform surpassed $3.5B in monthly Ether trading volume, setting new all-time high. OpenSea recorded a +150% increase in sales and a -2% increase in transactions. NBA Top Shot recorded a -2% increase in sales and a +36% increase in transactions.

Crypto.com NFT in the Spotlight

• Lega Serie A is the first football league entering the NFT world on the occasion of the TIMVision Cup 2021. It presents another historical drop, celebrating the 2022 ‘Supercoppa FRECCIAROSSA’, played between FC Inter and Juventus Football Club on 12 January 2022.

• William Black is known for his music which transports the listener into a world of emotional nostalgia. His character, the ‘Shadow Boy’, is meant to be a generic placeholder for each of us, one who goes through many different visual and auditory representations of our strongest feelings.

• Gian Galang is an NYC–based artist and illustrator, who created artwork for clients including the UFC, Nike, Reebok, ESPN, HBO, etc. ‘Flying Sword’ is Gian Galang's genesis NFT collection showcasing the martial art of Wushu, featuring three ‘moving paintings’ and three traditional full-color paintings.

Highlights

• Walmart is quietly preparing to enter the metaverse

• Microsoft's massive metaverse move: buying activision for $69B

• The media giant Associated Press chooses Polygon for new NFT marketplace

• Mercedes partners with NFT artists to celebrate G-class series

• A 22-year-old Indonesian boy makes $1M by selling NFT selfies on OpenSea

• Wrestling legend Bret Hart announces a new cartoon related NFTs venture

• Comic legend Rob Liefeld creates a new superhero universe as NFTs

• Animal concerts partners with Korea’s Klaytn: k-pop in the metaverse?

• Singapore warns people on NFT, metaverse investments

• LÜM to launch ‘access pass’ NFTs for 25 globally known musicians

• Dapper labs becomes first NFT company to register to lobby with U.S. government

• China aims to separate NFTs from crypto via new blockchain infrastructure

• Wikipedia editors vote against classifying NFTs as art

• NYC restaurant claims it will open for NFT holders only

• Frosties NFT investors rug pulled, loses over $1 million

• China to launch state-backed, crypto-less NFT platform

• TooNFT To launch on South Korea’s biggest webtoon’s ecosystem Toomics

• Nike-owned NFT studio to release self-updating clones in 2022: details

• Propy rallies 227% as real estate NFTs become reality and PRO lists at Coinbase

* OpenSea and NBA Top Shot data from DappRadar

* MakersPlace data from NonFungible.com

* Solanart data from Solanart.io

* Nifty Gateway data from data mining in Cryptoartpulse.com

* LooksRare data from Dune Analytics

* Collectibles data from CryptoSlam.io

The following chart shows selected top NFTs and their historical floor prices.

Top Artists

The following table shows selected top artists (by sales volume on each platform) and a sample of their art.

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