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Nifty News: Zilliqa teases Web3 gaming console, Funko teams up with Warner Bros. and more

Specifications on Zilliqa’s “user-friendly” console are yet to be revealed, but a prototype design resembling an Xbox console has been released.

Blockchain company Zilliqa is launching a Web3-focused console with a cryptocurrency wallet and mining capabilities, along with featuring gaming titles from the company.

On Friday, prototype images were released showing an array of ports including HDMI, ethernet and USB connections, although full hardware specifications and the price of the unit remain guarded. The console itself looks similar to something from Xbox but has two green panels on the top.

Zilliqa has said the console is geared toward user-friendliness and similar to conventional gaming titles will incentivize users to complete gaming missions, quests and tasks to mine its native token ZIL as a reward.

Beta testing on the console starts in October, with units expected to be available for pre-order in the first quarter of 2023. Zilliqa is a layer-1 blockchain designed for creating smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps), it has 15 gaming projects, according to its website.

In July, Web3 gaming startup Polium announced its similar console, Polium One, supporting gaming nonfungible tokens (NFT) across eight blockchains, although the Polium One isn’t set for release until Q3 2024.

Funko and Warner Bros. collab on Walmart exclusive NFTs

Pop culture brand Funko has partnered with entertainment company Warner Bros. to offer bundled physical and NFT collectibles exclusively through American retail giant Walmart.

The bundle includes a physical comic book cover and Funko figurine for DC Comics The Brave and the Bold, known among fans for introducing the concept of the popular Justice League superhero team, along with a matching Funko Digital Pop! NFT.

Funko’s Brave and the Bold physical bundle.

The collection is limited to 30,000 units and will debut during Walmart’s Collector Con in October, the NFTs will be minted on the WAX blockchain.

Funko has continued to expand the NFT counterpart of its flagship Pop! figurine line, which started in August 2021 with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection. Funko CEO Andrew Perlmutter has stated the company is creating NFTs to meet demand from younger collectors who value digital goods and assets.

New England Patriots get Web3 partner in Chain

Web3 software company Chain has become the official blockchain and Web3 sponsor of the National Football League (NFL) team New England Patriots, professional soccer team New England Revolution and both teams’ home ground, Gillette Stadium.

Related: NFTs ‘biggest on-ramp’ to crypto in Central, Southern Asia and Oceania: Report

Chain has partnered in a multi-year deal with Kraft Sports + Entertainment, the owner of both professional teams and the stadium, to develop what it calls “state-of-the-art Web3 experiences,” using Chain’s product suite but didn’t provide exact details on its plans.

Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal did state, however, that the company is aiming to “build cutting edge experiences for stadium visitors” as part of Chain’s product lineup includes support for NFTs.

Christina Aguilera files for NFT and Metaverse trademarks

Filings shared by trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis show singer Christina Aguilera has filed trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for multiple NFTs, metaverse and crypto-related products.

The filings reveal plans for the star to create audio, video and music files “authenticated by NFTs” along with “blockchain based non-fungible assets” such as virtual avatars, clothing, beauty products, other virtual merchandise and “crypto collectibles.”

Part of the application also mentions Aguilera providing musical performances, concerts and games “in the Metaverse and other virtual environments.”

More Nifty News:

NFT marketplace OpenSea announced the implementation of OpenRarity on Thursday, a protocol that provides verifiable rarity calculations for NFTs within its platform. The protocol uses a transparent mathematical approach to calculating rarity.

Web3 tech firm nameless is set to launch an NFT software product that enables developers to test their NFT smart contracts on fully private test nets.

Nifty News: Rumors of new Yuga Labs collection quashed, Budweiser celebrates the Merge and more

Yuga Labs was said to be looking at raising around $50 million from the sale of 100,000 tokenized land plots, but the firm’s co-founder says it’s all “fake news.”

Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solana, or Garga, has shot down rumors that the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creators have plans to launch a new nonfungible token (NFT) collection dubbed Mecha Apes by the end of the year.

The rumors started swirling after Protos claimed to have obtained leaked documents detailing that Yuga Labs was looking at raising around $50 million from the sale of 100,000 tokenized land plots.

After the news was reported via various outlets online, Garga.eth noted it was all “fake news” via Twitter on Friday.

While the rumors have been quashed, given that Yuga Labs has hit the ball out of the park with each project it’s launched so far, and that it has outlined a broad vision for its metaverse, another NFT project from them in the future doesn’t seem like such a stretch.

Ultimately, Yuga Labs hopes to create an interoperable metaverse ecosystem in the Otherside that includes a virtual place for people to socialize, a host of game modes with play-to-earn aspects and a hub for users to receive key education on blockchain, NFTs and the Metaverse.

Yuga Labs is valued at around a whopping $4 billion, and to date, the BAYC NFTs have generated more than $2.4 billion worth of sales, while Otherdeed NFTs for the Otherside metaverse has fetched more than $1 billion.

Budweiser shares a toast to the Merge

Beloved beer manufacturer Budweiser has teased a limited run of beer cans featuring the firm’s Beer.eth Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain name following the Merge.

Sharing a photo of a Budweiser can featuring “Beer.eth, king of NFTs” in the center on Friday, the firm tweeted that “This Bud’s for the Merge.”

While the firm didn’t provide any further details on the cans, it initially created a select number for its NFT Beer Fest event in March.

Questioned by people how they could get their hands on the special cans, the beer maker teased that they “might just make another appearance.”

The firm initially purchased the Beer.eth domain for almost $100,000 in August 2021 and has continued to stay involved with the sector since, teaming up with NFT horse racing game Zed Run earlier this year to create Budweiser brands race tracks and horses.

NFT minted on last Ethereum PoW block

According to data from Etherscan, someone managed to mint an NFT on the final Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) block before the network switched over to proof-of-stake (PoS).

The NFT in question was a VanityBlock token in which the user paid 30.2 Ether (ETH) and a 1.3 ETH gas fee to mint, worth roughly $46,500 at the time of writing.

The NFT has since been put up for sale on OpenSea, and currently has the highest offer of 10 Wrapped Ether (wETH), worth around $14,700.

VanityBlocks offers buyers a chance to own a full tokenized block on Ethereum, as it publishes transactional data onto an entire block. There are just 18 of these NFTs listed on OpenSea, with prices starting at around 1.1 ETH.

Despite the current bear market, the lack of bidding action seems surprising given the rarity of this specific NFT which caps off the end of Ethereum’s PoW history.

Related: Ethereum community wastes no time minting PoS NFTs right after the Merge

Funko utilizing to NFTs to make revenue pop: CEO

Andrew Perlmutter, CEO of collectible figure behemoth Funko, has outlined that the firm has gotten behind NFTs to meet demand from younger collectors who value digital goods and assets.

So far, the firm has released several Funko Pop NFT drops featuring beloved characters from franchises such as Avatar, Hey Arnold and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

While Perlmutter admitted to Investors.com on Thursday that he’s not well versed in NFTs and blockchain, he understands that the youth is fully engulfed in the digital sphere.

“My kids always want the latest Fortnite avatar skin or gun,” he said, adding that “so the way they view digital assets is different from how we dinosaurs view them.”

“We knew that it just made sense for our brand to be in the NFT business… It’s people collecting digital assets,” Perlmutter concluded.

Other Nifty News

On Tuesday, popular NFT project Doodles announced that it had raised $54 million at a $704 million valuation in a funding round led by Seven Seven Six, with participation from 10T Holdings, Acrew Capital and FTX Ventures.

Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has fended off some community backlash following the launch of MetaShield, its new enforcement tool aimed at deterring NFT buyers who bypass creator royalties.