Nifty News: Blue chip NFT prices wobble, Credit Suisse tries tokens and more

‘Blue chip’ floor prices near two-year lows

The largest nonfungible token (NFT) collections by market capitalization are in a sea of red as the cheapest NFTs in their collections took dives over the past week with some hitting near two-year lows.

Yuga Labs’ flagship Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection — the second largest by market cap according to CoinGecko — hit a floor price of 27.7 Ether (ETH), or $54,200 on July 3, a level not seen since September 2021.

Other top collections including the Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Azuki, CryptoPunks and DeGods also saw their floor prices sink over the week.

However, the last 24 hours have given the NFT holders a small respite, with floor prices recovering across most of the top collections. The largest gainer was Azuki Elementals with a nearly 32% floor price increase.

Credit Suisse takes a shot at NFTs

Swiss-based bank Credit Suisse said on July 3 that it’s teaming up with the Swiss Football Association to fire off 756 Ethereum NFTs with 100% of the proceeds going to support women’s soccer in the country.

It’s the first time the bank has waded into NFTs, which will be made available through the bank’s CSX app that’s adding a new functionality for digital assets — no crypto or crypto wallet required.

Instead, Swiss francs will be used to purchase the NFT which will appear in the app. The bank said this “first step” was meant to be “simple and client-friendly” so a “broad client base” could access digital assets.

As for the NFTs, each one portrays a player from the Swiss Women’s National Team and come with varying levels of perks and benefits depending on their rarity.

There are three rarity levels with 690 of the least rare starting at around $170 while the 11 most rare are priced at over $11,000 (150 to 10,000 Swiss francs).

Slow sales for Melania Trump’s NFTs

Former First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, is seeing sluggish sales for her all-American Solana NFT collection, which was released ahead of the country’s Independence Day celebrations.

Of the 3,000 NFTs released June 29, only 586 have sold — which doesn’t include an additional 500 that are not yet revealed and held back from sale until July 4.

Of those revealed, the “1776 Collection” has six different designs emblazoned with patriotic symbols. Each design has 500 apiece and are being hawked off for $50 a pop.

“The 1776 Collection of artwork draws inspiration from several iconic landmarks of our Nation, which I had the privilege of visiting during the time I served as First Lady” #MelaniaTrump #The1776Collection exclusively at https://t.co/d2es7j6pwb #FoxNews: https://t.co/HSBeQj8QPc pic.twitter.com/Cu5ruzP4VH

— USAmemorabilia (@USAmemorabilia) June 29, 2023

A June 29 Fox News article reported the collection was to celebrate the “foundations of American ideals” according to Trump’s office.

A different audio track is embedded in each NFT design that blares patriotic tunes. One depicting the Statue of Liberty sounds off The Star-Spangled Banner, the U.S. national anthem.

It was reported a portion of proceeds from the collection will go to Trump’s “Fostering the Future” non-profit initiative aiming to grant scholarships in computer science to children leaving foster care.

Dior’s NFTs go quiet about the ‘NFT’ part

A new product from French luxury brand Dior will come with an NFT, but the brand is seemingly being coy about the term “NFT” in its launch announcement.

On June 30, Dior announced it would be shipping a new line of shoes — with one style offering a “digital twin.”

Dior describes the twin e-shoes as “a unique and secure digital creation on the Ethereum blockchain” — wordplay which seems to deliberately obscure that the “digital twin” is simply an Ethereum-based NFT.

Sneakers Alert.
Introducing ‘B33’ sneakers by Kim Jones, from the #DiorMenFall 2023 collection. Each pair is equipped with an encrypted key granting access to a secure platform and exclusive services. Sign up to be the first to shop them online from July 6.

— Dior (@Dior) June 29, 2023

The shoes are called the “B33 sneaker” and come in seven different styles. Only the most expensive, priced at $2,150, come with the NFT twin.

The others, starting at the bargain price of $1,600, come with an NFC chip in the sole of the right shoe granting access to a “platform” showing its “Digital Certificate of Authenticity.” It’s unclear if this certificate is also an NFT.

Other Nifty News

NFT thieves are often quick to offload phished tokens, with blockchain security firm PeckShield finding that half of stolen NFTs are sold within three hours on OpenSea and Blur.

Hermès, another French luxury brand, racked up another win in its infringement case against the “MetaBirkin” NFT artist Mason Rothschild with a U.S. judge ordering a permanent injunction on all sales of the NFT.

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