NFT marketplace wars 🪖

Dear Bankless Nation,

LooksRare no longer supports NFT creator royalties by default.

The move comes as a bid to keep up with other exchanges, like X2Y2 and sudoswap, that have already moved to opt-in royalties.

This race to the bottom is one symptom of how NFT marketplaces are starting to feel the pressure from market saturation via increased competition.

Indeed, speaking of X2Y2, this week the exchange blocked new NFT aggregator Blur from using its API in what boiled down to competitive shielding.

Blur sidestepped the block by using the API of Gem, another NFT marketplace aggregator owned by OpenSea, to pull in X2Y2 trades.

All that said, everyone is competing with OpenSea, including DeFi giant Uniswap, which acquired its own NFT aggregator in Genie earlier this year to enter and get competitive in this sector.

Long story short? The NFT marketplace wars have heated up considerably this year, and right now there’s no slowing down in sight. Look for more struggles for positioning accordingly!

In the meantime, thanks for reading everyone. Time to get you caught up on the other big headlines from this week ✌️

-WMP

📣 General NFT News

• Lens Protocol temporarily stalled due to issues with Polygon gas limits + relaying, though the issue is now resolved.
• LooksRare became the latest NFT marketplace to no longer support creator royalties by default.
• ORB, a social media network built on Lens, added mobile notifications.
• Quix launched an NFT Bridging Quest in collaboration with Layer3.
• Twitter is testing out NFT Tweet Tiles:

• TokenTerminal indicates that 5 of the top 10 most profitable protocols over the last year have been NFT projects OpenSea, Ethereum Name Service, Decentral Games, and Foundation.
• X2Y2, an NFT marketplace, blocked NFT aggregator Blur from directly accessing its API.

🏆 Digital Collectibles

• Genesis Mooncat #1103 resold for 35Ξ.
• RTFKT endured a loopable transaction exploit during its RIMOWA Cabin Luggage mint event:

🎨 Cryptoart

• Art Blocks launched its new and improved website.
• Jimmy Edgar unveiled PLASTICS, a series created using the new Drops tool by Foundation:

• Matt Kane, a cryptoart OG, saw his Gazers series hit a new ATH of 18Ξ:

• objkt, the most popular NFT marketplace on Tezos, added support for collections from fx(hash), a popular generative art platform.

🎮 Decentralized Gaming

• Axie Infinity rolled out a patch that introduced various bugfixes and seasonal Axieween UI updates:

• Aavegotchi announced 10k in $GHOST prizes for its Gotchiverse Halloween Contest festivities.
• web3 gaming as a sector has fielded $6.9B worth of investments over the last year.

💽 Music NFTs

• Catalog announced its second cycle of curators.
• Showtime, a platform for free digital collectibles, introduced Music Drops.
• sound.xyz unveiled the Sound Market:

🌐 Virtual Worlds

• DAPPCRAFT is hosting a 5-day Halloween Treasure Hunt event in Decentraland.

💎 DeFi x NFTs

• DeFiLlama rolled out llamalend, a straightforward protocol for borrowing and lending NFTs.

Action steps