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DYOR 🔬

MadLads mayhem 🎒

A few weeks ago, the Solana blockchain was dealt a blow when DeGods — the chain’s best-performing project — left it for a new life on Ethereum. But this week, Solana’s back in the headlines thanks to a Peaky Blinders-inspired profile picture (PFP) collection called MadLads and the novel technology it’s brought to life with it: xNFTs.

See, MadLads is much more than just another PFP on Solana. Key to its launch was a non-custodial wallet service (like Metamask) called Backpack, which supports a new variety of non-fungible tokens called an executable NFT (or xNFT for short).

As my colleague Wilfred Odero explains in a blog post, “Backpack and xNFTs bring an unprecedented level of interactivity and decentralized user interfaces, allowing developers to build dynamic and interactive NFTs with native UI components. This feature surpasses the static nature of NFTs found in Metaplex standards and goes beyond ERC-20 tokens, opening up a world of possibilities for developers and users.”

What does that mean? Well, for instance, during the MadLad’s mint, users could zoom in on the image below, which was made of thousands of pixel-like blocks, and see the NFT that corresponded to their minted MadLad’s ID number. The truly remarkable thing, though, was that the whole process was done in-wallet.

Backpack has opened xNFTs to other developers (you can see the open-source repository here), which is expected to bring rapid innovation to what’s already a revolutionary model.

There are already over 1 million wallets on Backpack, and an enthusiastic user base. This, in part, explains why MadLad’s mint was massively oversubscribed and why they’ve outperformed every blue chip NFT in volume over the last week.

As the first major xNFT project, MadLads hasn’t simply guaranteed itself a spot in the NFT history books, it’s also going to be the project that showcases early innovations in xNFTs. And thanks to xNFTs’ user-friendliness, they could bring Web3 closer to the mass adoption it so badly craves. Lads (and Lasses), you’d be mad to sleep on them.

To the moon 🌙

• Proof Collective is partnering with 3D world-creation service Mona to create what they’re calling the “Moonbird Monaverse.”

• Convenience store QuikTrip released 1,000 free NFTs to celebrate opening its 1,000th store. The NFTs were all claimed in less than 24 hours, despite QuikTrip saying there’s nothing more to them: no utility, no roadmap, nada.

• Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs was awarded a summary judgment against perennial provocateur/professional grifter Ryder Ripps over trademark infringement. It also celebrated its second anniversary and put out a set of branded Bicycle playing cards to commemorate the milestone:

• Doodles announced The Stoodio, which opens in beta today and lets Doodles2 holders customize their NFTs with various traits.

• RTFKT’s forging event is ongoing, allowing holders of its RTFKT x Nike Air Force 1 NFTs to claim one of 10 corresponding physical sneakers, some of which feature exclusive designs by Takashi Murakami:

• The Ethereum Name Service updated its ENS manager app with a new user interface and a slew of new features, including the ability to create sub-domains.

• Ledger released a Deadfellaz branded hardware wallet:

• Actor, one-time space tourist, and April 25 fanboy William Shatner has released a new collection of 3,500 NFTs called “Infinite Connections,” priced between $99 and $499.

Thread of the Week 🧵

Connect for more 🔌

You can find Metaversal on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

Metaversal’s content director, Craig Wilson, compiled this week’s edition.

Patrick Lawler designed this week’s Badge commemorating Consensus in Austin.

Until next time, see you in the metaverse… or at the hot sauce shop.

Not in Austin, Texas, for Consensus this week? No Matter, you can still claim this week’s out-of-this-world Metaversal Badge. It could lead to strange encounters of the best kind, pioneering merch, or exclusive access to a secret saloon. Yee-haw! 🤠