Sports Giant Fanatics Sells Off Its Majority Stake in NFT Startup Candy Digital

Michael Rubin the CEO of sports merchandising giant Fanatics said:

“Over the past year, it has become clear that NFTs are unlikely to be sustainable or profitable as a standalone business” “Digital products will have more value and utility when connected to physical collectibles to create the best experience for collectors”

HUGE disagree

1.Investing $100m in Candy Digital @ a $1.5b valuation was insane
2.NFTs/digital goods can thrive in fully digital environments

I got invovled in bitcoin in 2013 Nov/Dec bubble

I was a tourist, not a 100% believer

In 2014, I sold all my BTC and "left" the space. Thought blockchain was the future while BTC was pure speculation

2016 I saw there had been a lot of building since 2014 and jumped back in During the 2017 ICO bubble, I saw a tonnn of new people enter the space attracted to the speculation, just as I was in 2013

When the market crashed in 2018, all the tourists of the 2017 bull cycle left, while the true believers stayed

Ok real 2022 NFT prediction thread

1. P2E is going to explode - many of our portfolio co’s implementing P2E. Ton of amazing stuff coming out

2. P2E will become more competitive - turn into a yield game. Axie rules P2E ATM but more games are coming out that offer great yields 3. Gaming customer acquisition will skyrocket

4. Gaming guilds will have to begin to specialize in certain games/game genres

5. Gaming defensibility will have to beef up (everyone can compete on yield but the real moat is from the “fun” factor”)

1/5 How do I explain the potential of NFTs to non-crypto folks?

Simply:

Via NFTs we just added property rights to the internet

A place with 4.6 billion people AND these ppl are connected through a global, uncensorable, 24/7 financial system 2/5 What are some past examples of a country adding property rights to its economic system?

China

In 1978, China enacted reforms to open its economy from a communist-style system to a more open capitalistic-based system

A mere ~40 years later, the growth has been staggering

Here is my slide deck from the Legends4Legends conference in Amsterdam

NFTs = unique digital assets

They enable digital property rights

Unlike Bitcoin, NFTs are unique and NOT interchangeable

Uniqueness on the internet can enable a TON of different use-cases The internet is currently communist. Users add value to a platform but get no value in return

NFTs change that and give users property rights in the digital world

The internet just went from communism to capitalism (HUGE!)

NFT Theses + Thoughts

1. NFTs = digital property rights

2. NFTs enable a metaverse to form becuz ppl actually own their digital stuff

3. NFTs will be larger than crypto (crypto = $ of metaverse, NFTs = all stuff in metaverse)

4. NFT art will eat the traditional art market 5. NFTs = most efficient means to display status

6. Screen time + technology constantly becoming more immersive (Telegraph > Telephone > Video Conferencing > Virtual Reality)+ NFTs = the metaverse is inevitable

7. Most NFTs will be worth nothing

🌈🛸📈 Fantasy Venture NFT Portfolio

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/-fantasy-ven…

I cover five companies, dive into their products, and explain why I think they are great.

These companies will join my fantasy venture capital portfolio, and I will reassess how they perform over the coming years 1) @opensea: The Amazon, and potentially the Facebook, of NFTs (but back when Facebook was cool)

- #1 NFT trading platform
- Amazing Y-combinator backed team
- They ship updates like crazy
- semi-decentralized infrastructure = accessible to anyone in the world
- Huge TAM

1) NFT & Metaverse Blog Thread!

Want to read about very odd NFT-related topics? Look no further as I come bearing gifts

My newsletter Zima Red allows me to learn and explore publicly, the future of NFTs

(Today I am only posting my blogs from 2019)

andrewsteinwold.substack.com 2) Oct 2019 - How to Value Virtual Assets?

- I attempt to give fair vaulations to a set of NFTs by performing comparable analysis on the assets.

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/how-to-value…

1) Digitizing collectibles as NFTs is going to go down as the singular event that caused the collectibles market to blow past $1 trillion in market size.

The physical collectibles market today is +$350B 2) The NFT markets encompass a wide variety of categories

- Collectibles
- Game assets
- Virtual worlds
- Art
- IP
- Loans
- Ticketing
and much more

Now why is digitizing collectibles so exciting?

1) I have recently seen a lot of celebrities speak about god and or reference religion

I think this is a trend because US society has increasingly become less religious 2) When I was growing up, believing in a higher power was not “cool” it was just the norm.

In addition to fewer people believing in God, US culture has an intense focus on individual vs collective. This means that the US “family unit” is not as strong as other cultures.

What is crypto art (sometimes called NFT art) and why is it exciting?

Crypto art is just art that has been tokenized on a blockchain.

It can take the form of:
- Image
- GIF
- Video
- Whatever you want it to be, its art! “Digital art isn't art, I can screenshot it and that means I own it”

Sure, I guess, you can download that file but that does not make it valuable. Value comes from a collective story we all tell ourselves.

Why is gold valuable? Well, cause we all think it is.

1)What is the end-goal for NFTs and what ultimately makes them so exciting?

They enable a true "metaverse" to form because they give us digital property rights

Metaverse: A virtual environment that people live, work, and play in 2)People will not dedicate a lot of time, money, and effort into a virtual world or game that is controlled by Facebook or even Epic Games

Sure those worlds will be successful but when users really feel confident about what they own, that's when magic happens and growth explodes

May's NFT PoW Art Edition looks at top crypto art market activity and a mini-Q&A with @blackboxdotart!

Read here > andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nft-proof-of…

Takeaway - Artists keep making the big bucks💰 and @blackboxdotart's background and body of work is 🔥🔥🔥 Notable sales from MakersPlace

🎨Artists
Javier Arrés - 14 ETH
Elephai - 7 ETH
Osinachi - 3.1 ETH

1/ With remote work all the rage and the emergence of a true metaverse on the horizon, will we see real estate developers create digital-first communities in states with low cost of living, low tax rates, and nice weather? 2/ Nevada, Texas, and Florida all have 0% state income tax, low cost of living, and great weather so it wouldn't surprise me to see real estate developments that are created to solely focus on digital-first citizens. Cheap housing, fast internet, amenities, etc

NFT Data Dump Sundays

A quick look at market, chain, and social data from different NFT projects. For full data and commentary, subscribe to the Zima Red newsletter ⬇️

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nft-data-dum…

(looking at 28 days from 3/29/2020 - 4/26/2020) GodsUnchained

3/29/2020 - 4/26/2020 (28 days)

Wallets: +366
Avg Price ETH: ~0.04
Average Price USD: ~$3.08
Total Sales: 62,186
Total Vol USD: $74,566
Followers: +0
Tweets: +22
Discord Members: -126

1/ Today's internet is essentially limitless. You can create unlimited Tweets, websites, images, etc.

The Scarce Web is an area on the web that is “physically” limited.

I was speaking with @pierskicks the other day about this idea. 2/ Imagine if when Facebook first launched there were a maximum of 10m profiles pages and people could purchase and own profiles.

No more than 10m profiles could be created because this artificial limit was hard-coded into the platform from the start.

April's NFT PoW Art Edition looks at a ton of amazing work from incredible artists + mini-Q&A with @LuchoPoletti

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nft-proof-of…

Takeaway - Market activity remains strong despite global macro situation and Lucho's bitcoin-focused messaging couldn't be more appropriate Notable sales from @AsyncArt -

Artists -
@muratpak
@rutgervandertas
@Prince_Jacon

NFT Data Dump Sundays - Feb 2020

Every month, we will be observing market, chain, and social data from different NFT projects.

To view the actual data + commentary, subscribe to my newsletter, Zima Red.

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nft-data-dum… @GodsUnchained

2/2/2020 - 2/23/2020 (22 days)

Wallets +2.01%
Avg Price ETH 0%
Avg Price USD -329%
Tx's (7day) -70%
Vol USD (7day) +28%
Followers +1.25%
Tweets +5.62%
Discord Members -0.25%
Chain TXs +1.10%

NFT Data Dump Sundays - Jan 2020

Every month, we will be observing market, chain, and social data from different NFT projects.

To view the actual data + commentary, subscribe to my newsletter, Zima Red.

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nft-data-dum… @GodsUnchained

12/29/2019 - 1/26/2020 (28 days)

Wallets +1.88%
Avg Price ETH -20%
Avg Price USD -66%
Tx's (7day) +103%
Vol USD (7day) -31%
Followers +1.72%
Tweets +6.04%
Discord Members -0.06%
Chain TXs +3.32%

I decided to condense more content in the @zima_red newsletter and send them out less often (don't want to fill up people's mailbox!)

Today we have a podcast, NFT events, and a blog post.

andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/are-non-fung… The podcast was with the legend himself, @Jihoz_Axie . We discussed a bunch of different topics but dived deep into @AxieInfinity and how focusing on the fundamentals is key. He is constantly pushing the boundaries and I am really excited to see what is next for Axies.