We’re dropping another special weekend edition.

• Pudgy Penguins Under Attack

• Matt Kane stirs up some controversy with his RarePass drop

• The best NFT alpha on Friend tech.

Enjoy!

Pudgy Penguins…Under Attack?

Barely a week after Pudgy Penguins dropped its mega news about its Walmart partnership, it’s back in the news again. This time, in a… less positive way.

okHOTSHOT, an anonymous on-chain analyst, dropped an expose piece on Luca (CEO of Pudgy Penguins), alleging that he was involved in several NFT scams in the past. Luca came on Twitter Spaces for a while to give his side of the story, basically saying that he only invested in or was minimally involved with the mentioned projects and had no control over what happened. Luca’s response:

In situations like these, the truth is often somewhere in between. It’s likely that Luca probably had at least some knowledge of what was happening in those scam projects, the question is how deep his involvement was. And it’s up to the Pudgy Penguins community to decide if this history matters to them since it doesn’t impact its existing business in any way.

Brings back memories of the Zagabond situation and Azuki. Is there an NFT founder that doesn’t have a shady past? 🤔

The Matt Kane & SuperRare Tussle

SuperRare, a marketplace for unique NFT art, has come into the spotlight again. Its RarePass initiative offered 250 exclusive passes for artwork drops from a select group of artists, including notables like XCOPY and Matt Kane. While the passes were auctioned off for 17 ETH each, the project has not been without its detractors. Some critics have framed the RarePass as a last-ditch effort to revitalize a platform that they believe has lost its luster.

Amid this backdrop, artist Matt Kane has shaken the table with his RarePass drop, named "Contractual Obligations." The collection serves as a critique of not just SuperRare, but also the broader NFT and crypto art space. Matt contends that SuperRare altered the terms of their initial agreement, accusing the platform of breaching its commitment to the artists.

The tension reached a boiling point during a Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by SuperRare. Matt used the platform to argue that while crypto and NFTs were designed to eliminate middlemen, they've ironically created new ones—platforms like SuperRare that extract value from artists without adding much in return. Inspired by the comedian Andy Kaufmann, Kane also hinted that "Contractual Obligations" is just the first act in a broader piece of performance art.

The debate escalated further when Pindar Van Arman, another RarePass artist, accused Matt of undermining SuperRare and disappointing its community of collectors. Matt, however, stood his ground, suggesting that the controversy could serve as a catalyst for positive change within the platform. As other artists weighed in—some echoing Matt’s sentiments and others siding with Van Arman—it became clear that this is a defining moment for SuperRare and perhaps the NFT community at large.

So, in a world where the value and role of digital art are continually being redefined, Matt Kane's "Contractual Obligations" serves as both a critique and a challenge, urging platforms like SuperRare to reconsider their relationship with artists and collectors alike.

The Best Friend Tech NFT Alpha (2 Oct - 8 Oct)

Before we dive in, just 2 quick notes:

• None of this is financial advice. Please do your own research

• We have attributed and linked all of the quotes below to the original sources. Please consider buying their key on Friend Tech to support them.

LinusCaldwell.eth on Winds of Yawanawa by Refik Anadol and Yawanawa

Looking through wallets that bought, most are "diamond handers." 51% own 2 or less. Top 2 wallets are HOFA DAO distribution wallets so those are singles. 2 of the 3 collectors who have 10 are LT. Searching artacle by total profit, very little stock left for sellers. Searching by total spent, looking for listings/sales and not finding it.

There aren't many art collections that have multi-month (let alone multi-day) pre-reveal periods. This collection dropped in the heart of the bear, using your logic, how many speculators were buying above 6e for flips to 10? I know one of the 10n accounts is not selling any. My mental models think that distribution is very healthy at the moment. What is more concerning is the additional 300 supply and lack of additional volume at these prices. I think it’s more likely we dip over the next 9-10 days as those accounts attack a 6eth payday. Even the trad collectors and especially digital HOFA DAO members, for your exact reasoning. Post-reveal now has a wrench being that reveal is over a 6-7 day period. Historically (off the top of my head, I could be wrong), poor or mediocre received collections get rekt in this reveal style. Good collections get pumped hard as no supply hits initially driving psychological price higher.

sparkc on Fableborne, a mobile RPG & Base Builder game

The game

I'm a huge fan of the game and think there's a lot of potential there. It's probably my favourite concept of any web3 mobile game.

They have an experienced, quality team, including in UA and liveops. They have the $$ to soft-launch the game and perform paid UA - i.e, they have the money to test whether the game has pmf.

The NFTs

I'm very wary of ambiguous utility by ex-web2 teams. I think more often than not they're not incentivized (or so they believe) to provide real value accrual.

You're ultimately having to make a judgement call on whether you believe the team is going to drive real value to the NFTs. My tldr; after speaking to the team I think the goal is for the value of the NFTs to scale accordingly with the games success. I wish I felt MORE strongly about this, but I feel strongly enough, if only marginally so.

Supply is low @ ~2k

Price is low but varied. Likely to average out at sub 0.02.

When to buy

This ones hard. There's been some people buying presale at large discounts, there's T1's selling at $28 and T2's at $30. The large majority of supply, as I understand, is in T1.

How many people mint at which stage at what price will determine what price I want to buy off secondary at. This is going to be a fluid process and I'll update ppl here live (provided I'm still awake).

I do want to get my hands on something like 20 of them and I do want to do it sooner rather than later as they're heading into soft launch early next year.

Teng Yan on Mantle

Had coffee with a friend who's heading up BD at Mantle yesterday. Jotted down some personal notes:

- Value prop: Mainnet launched 3 months ago. transaction fees 40-70% cheaper than other L2s, large ecosystem fund, tie ups with eigenlayer

- Thoughtful with strategy for NFTs: organic growth + working with web2 brands: need better UX + verticalised marketplaces eg phygital marketplace

- Nothing really exciting in the NFT ecosystem at the moment: mostly PFPs/games with <100 active users

- Citizens of Mantle launching in the next 1 - 2 weeks. This is the official NFT collection by the Mantle team, could be the equivalent of punks for the chain. Purely art + identity, no roadmap

That's it for today folks. If you want more, follow us on Twitter (@the_metadata). If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe with just one-click:

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.