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Roope Rainisto & "Life in West America"
It looks real and human yet you know it isn't. It is mind-blowing to realize that none of these are actual photos of people
The Metadata
February 17, 2023
GM. It's Friday Funday. You made it to the end of the week, so we're going to give you a big pat on the back. Why? Because you deserve it.
FYI, every Friday we throw the spotlight on an NFT artist we think is very talented and worth paying attention to. They could become cultural leaders in time. We have got a pretty exciting one this week for you today.
Today we cover:
Market Update: A PFP project about to get "Very Large Funding"?
Artist Spotlight: Roope Ranisto
Today's Coolest Tweets
New Project Corner
Market Update โ PFP Project About To Get "Very Large Funding"?
The NFT markets are recovering from their stupor after the Blur airdrop. While many of the top collections are still up from last week, they have fallen off their highs from yesterday. This includes Doodles, Cool Cats, Moonbirds and Clone X, all down about 10 - 20% from a day ago.
I usually have alpha on NFT projects. I'm not trading on this alpha FYI. What I can say is there's an unexpected NFT PFP project already on market (well 2) that are about to get very, very large funding. Likely larger than the doodles funding.
โ Jonah ๐ฎ (@RealJonahBlake)
5:53 PM โข Feb 16, 2023
The buzz right now is around this tweet by Jonah Blake, an NFT gaming influencer, who claims that a PFP project is going to get a very large funding, possibly larger than Doodles (which raised $54M last year). Who might it be? Perhaps it could be the pudgy penguins, Cool Cats or FLUF, but we don't have inside information on this unlike Jonah.
Before we move on, we want to quickly mention The Hype Report. It's a weekly newsletter delivering the latest news & stories at the intersection of sports x web3, and worth a subscribe if you're interested in this. Readers include hundreds of sports business professionals from companies such as the NBA, Boardroom, ESPN & Candy Digital.
Artist Spotlight โ Roope Rainisto
๐ฒ What to know: Roope Rainisto is a Finnish artist and photographer with 25 years of experience as a creative designer.
He recently released an AI generative collection called "Life in West America" which was beautifully evocative. It drew the attention of many, with each piece selling for a minimum of $20,000 now (12 ETH). Some are even calling it "the next Fidenza", though we think its an apples-to-oranges comparison.
โ๏ธ In the weeds: Life in West America delves into the complexities of the American landscape and draws its inspiration from early American color photography
Prior to this, few people had known about Roope. Take a look at some of the outputs, and you'll understand why everyone is talking about it. This is one of our favorites, titled "Foster Care":
It's the uncanny valley effect. It looks real and human yet you know it isn't. It is mind-blowing to realize that none of these are actual photos of people. They have been entirely generated by AI.
This pushes the limit of what we call photography today. Every piece in the collection resonates with different people, which is what makes it special.
To produce these unique outputs, it wasn't just about putting several words into Stable Diffusion. Roope used a custom-trained AI model using his own data set of photos. He generated 35,000 images and whittled them down to 500 which he edited by hand.
Roope is not your typical artist, coming from a product design background at Microsoft and Nokia. But it's this intersection of art and technology that is fascinating.
You can find Roope on Twitter and view the full "Life in West America" collection here. Photos above are from Roope's collection on OpenSea.
Today's Coolest Tweets
๐ฅ Recap on Dookey Dash and key statistics
Sewer Pass scores has been reviewed, we can now safely purchase the passes to participate in upcoming events.
Here's a quick recap on #DookeyDash, plus some insights on what is & will be happening in the @Bor@BoredApeYCsystem to help you get a head-start, a ๐งต:
โ Animoca Digital Research (@animocaresearch)
2:20 AM โข Feb 17, 2023
๐ฅ What's going on with the Blur airdrop
It has now been around 24 hours since the Blur airdrop.
Over 80,000 addresses claimed $BLUR, with almost 90% of the airdropped $BLUR already claimed.
Let's look back on the first day of blazing market activity, and some of the biggest participants:
โ Arkham (@ArkhamIntel)
6:29 PM โข Feb 15, 2023
๐ฅ Bitcoin NFTs: same same but different
How Ordinals are evolving differently than Ethereum NFTs:
๐โ ๐โโ๏ธ
โ dotta (@dotta)
10:56 PM โข Feb 16, 2023
๐ฅ NFT lending is growing
NFT lending TVL is experiencing parabolic growth, but still so early at only $75M today.
ask yourself, where would you be today if you got into defi when there was only $75M of TVL? (hint - it would have been in 2018)
โ MetaStreet (@metastreetxyz)
9:58 PM โข Feb 15, 2023
๐ฅ Parallel game's closed Alpha starts on 28 Feb
๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐น
๐๐น๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐๐น๐ฝ๐ต๐ฎ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ฎ๐ด๐๐ต
๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐๐ถ๐ฎ ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฎ๐ถ๐น ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ด๐ถ๐ป๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ
โ Parallel (@ParallelTCG)
6:59 PM โข Feb 16, 2023
๐ฅ Square Enix (producer of Final Fantasy games) collaborate with Polygon for a new drop
๐ซ #onPolygon ๐ซ
Weโre proud to collaborate with Square Enix for their unique, #Web3 experience, @symbiogenesisPR.
Learn more: venturebeat.com/games/square-eโฆ
โ Polygon Labs (@0xPolygon)
2:54 PM โข Feb 15, 2023
New Projects Corner
๐ฟ (Art) Jeremy Booth does a thing
"Make Haste"
Edition of 100. Price, pre-mint, and snapshot date for the top 25 Boots holders will be announced next week.
โ jeremybooth (@jeremybooth)
7:30 PM โข Feb 15, 2023
๐ฟ(Utility) Collab.Land is launching a token
The Collab.Land Discord is open for business ๐ค
๐ The COLLAB token is around the corner
๐ The DAO is about to launch
๐ Devs are building Marketplace appsThereโs a lot going on! Come join the conversation and #COLABL
discord.com/invite/collablโฆ
โ ๐ฆพ Collab.Land ๐ค (@Collab_Land_)
10:30 PM โข Feb 16, 2023
๐ฟ (Collectible) Sappy Seals' Bitcoin NFT drop
โ๏ธ DIGITAL ARTIFACTS MINT โ๏ธ
The process begins tomorrow (17/2) at 3PM EST - full details will be available at that time.
Everybody will be able to participate for a chance to obtain a free ordinal through various challenges, non holders included.
$PIXL will also play a role.
โ Sappy Seals (@SappySealsNFT)
12:00 AM โข Feb 17, 2023
๐ฟ (Art) Hamily drops for those who vibe
HAMILY DROPS are back!
Here's a sneak peek of our next piece... ๐๐To be eligible you must:
1. Have a Hamily Asset
2. Use Hamily Asset as your PFP
3. Comment on this tweet with your wallet address that is holding your Hamily assets by Monday, 6pm EST to get whitelisted!โ The Hamily (@sailobots)
1:00 AM โข Feb 16, 2023
๐ฟ (Collectible) After Porsche, now we have Lamborghini doing an NFT drop
The road-legal @Lamborghini Huracรกn STO is the purest concentration of Squadra Corseโs motorsports prowess, drawn from Super Trofeo EVO and GT3 EVO race cars!
Four interactive digital collectibles drop in blind box format Sun, 19 Feb at 8 AM PT.
#LAMBOxVeVe
โ VeVe | Digital Collectibles (@veve_official)
5:00 PM โข Feb 15, 2023
That's it for today folks, see you tomorrow. If you want more, follow us on Twitter (@the_metadata). And if you aren't already a subscriber, join us now to get all the daily alpha you need.
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Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational purposes only. None of this is financial or investment advice. It is not a solicitation to buy or sell any assets. Minting and buying NFTs is risky. Please do your own research.