NFTs Crash 'The Simpsons' & Bored Apes Go Blind
The biggest stories in Web3, as sourced from Coinage's community
GM! Coinage is back to regular non-SBF programming to highlight the top news in Web3 this week: The Simpsons caused a ruckus by turning Bart into an NFT in their Halloween episode. People attending a conference for one of the largest NFT projects were temporarily blinded. And we caught up with one of the leading crypto projects with a real use case (LONG LIVE UTILITY!) You can watch us exploring all of these topics and more on our YouTube as well:
In The Simpsons…
Non-crypto fans were treated to the horror of NFTs taking over the Simpson’s “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween episode this year. In the episode, Homer turns Bart into an NFT much to the chagrin of Marge, and hilarity ensues. The writers poked fun at NFTs not having utility (just like the writers of South Park last year) as Homer explains why he did it. More, from CoinDesk:
In the episode, Marge battles through the blockchain to rescue Bart, now a living NFT, while the city’s mayor declares that Springfield’s art gallery will be digitized. There are also plenty of appearances by blue chip NFTs, like the Beeple, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and second-tier PFPs being shown as nearly worthless.
In Real NFT Pain…
Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the largest NFT projects by market cap, hosted their community for a conference this past weekend at ApeFest in Hong Kong. But some in the BAYC community, famous for monkey JPEGs with lasers coming out of their eyes, were taken down by real life beams of light with more than a dozen heading to the hospital with eye pain.
According to reporting from Decrypt, concentrated UV light emitted from the stage was powerful enough to cause temporary damage for about 1% of ApeFest goers, requiring medical attention and eye drops. Crypto critic Molly White joked she thought the Bored Apes with laser eyes always emitted lasers from their eyes — not the other way around.
In Real NFT Utility…
Let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot of Web3/NFT projects offering a whole bunch of utility these days — much less raising money at multimillion-dollar valuations. But both things are true for Web3 restaurant app Blackbird, which was founded by the co-founder of reservations platform Resy and online food publication Eater.
The company recently raised $24 million dollars to help restaurants sell memberships as NFTs to their favorite diners (but interestingly, don’t really like referring to themselves as a Web3 company.) Card-carrying members are already unlocking perks like free drinks and apps across a number of eateries in NYC.
Coinage caught up with Blackbird founder Ben Leventhal for a deep dive on how it all works in our latest interview. Our NFT holders can unlock the full convo at Coinage.Media. We are so back.
In other headlines…
Celsius Winner Proof Group Is in Running to Relaunch FTX, Sources Say
Elon Musk Announces ChatGPT Competitor Grok. Here Come ‘Grok’ Scam Coins
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