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The Simpsons roasts NFTs, Yuga Labs exec departs after antisemitic tweets, and more

7 November 2023
in Meta News
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The Simpsons roasts NFTs, Yuga Labs exec departs after antisemitic tweets, and more
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The Simpsons roasts NFTs in new Halloween special

The animated television series The Simpsons spent an entire segment mocking nonfungible tokens (NFTs) during the latest 34th annual “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween special, in a segment called “Wild Barts Can’t Be Token.”

In the special, Homer accidentally mints Bart on the blockchain, and in the ensuing scenes, the creators poke fun at NFTs, all while referencing collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Doodles as well as viral digital artist Beeple.

The special revolved around poking fun at the speculative nature of NFTs and how the market is largely fueled by the fear of missing out, FOMO.

Once Marge discovers that Bart has become trapped on-chain, she too digitizes herself as an NFT. She battles her way through carriages on a virtual train — which is literally powered by FOMO — to rescue Bart, fighting NFT-themed characters all the while. 

The final joke lands when Homer finally gives into FOMO and mints himself as NFT. The second he does so, the train runs out of steam, and the prices of all the NFTs plunge to near-zero, ending the episode with his iconic catchphrase, “Doh!”

Despite essentially being the punchline of an episode-long joke, the NFT community on Crypto Twitter reacted with delight, with Beeple saying that his work appearing on the show was a “bucket list moment” for him as an artist.

Notably, The Simpsons’ creators even parodied their own NFT collection, Golden Moments, which was first offered in conjunction with Disney+ by the NFT platform VeVe in November 2021.

“We saw that,” wrote the official account for Veve.

Degens cash in on The Simpsons’ NFT episode

NFT enthusiasts certainly didn’t let The Simpsons’ roast go to waste, with creators rushing to capitalize on the newfound publicity for NFTs.

Just hours after the episode first aired, Italian parody artist Rino Russo launched a Simpsons-derived NFT project, which combined the likeness of Simpsons characters with CryptoPunks.

The collection, dubbed Springfield Punks, was launched as a free mint and quickly sold out as NFT fans raced to jump in on the action. 

At the time of publication, the Simpsons Punks collection has witnessed a whopping 1,377 Ether (ETH) — worth $2.6 million at current prices — in trading volume, making it the third most traded collection on OpenSea in the last 24 hours.

Yuga Labs social lead steps down after antisemitic tweets resurface

Shpend Sahilu, the social lead for NFT company Yuga Labs, announced that he would be stepping down after antisemitic tweets he posted years ago resurfaced on social media.

Sahilu, better known by the pseudonym NGBxShpend on X (formerly Twitter), explained that he would be leaving his role at the company due to his past antisemitic tweets becoming “a distraction” from the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

“I want to apologize to anyone who I may have let down with tweets I made in poor taste,” he wrote in a Nov. 5 post on X.

One user attached a screenshot of one of the offending tweets from 2016 in the comments section of the original post, showing him making a joke about Nazi leader Adolph Hitler.

Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, has been accused of perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes in its artwork by controversial artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen. These accusations, which took the form of a knock-off NFT collection, led to a more than yearlong legal battle.

However, Yuga Labs recently notched a legal victory against the provocative duo, with a court ordering Ripps and Cahen to pay $1.6 million in damages to Yuga Labs for copyright infringement.

NFT sales show signs of strength after yearlong downturn

After a prolonged and continuous decline in NFT sales, the market seems to be finally showing signs of a recovery, with monthly trading volumes growing for the first time in a year, according to a report from crypto data firm DappRadar.

“The year-long downward trend in NFT trading has been broken. Trading volume is up by 32% from $306 to $405 million, returning almost to levels seen in August,” the report reads.

DappRadar found that NFT trading volume grew by $99 million in October compared with September, bringing overall trading activity back to levels slightly below that of August. 

NFT sales volumes increased by nearly $100 million in October. Source: DappRadar

Despite the seemingly significant increase month-over-month, it’s worth noting that October’s $340 million sum pales in comparison to the $1.98 billion in volume witnessed seven months prior in March.

Regarding trading volume, Ethereum-based NFTs still dominated the market, growing more than 50% in October. Meanwhile, other networks such as Polygon, StarkWare and Flow saw their sales volume drop 48%, 42% and 32%, respectively.

The report made special note of NFT activity on the Solana ecosystem, which — after being plagued by the FTX downfall — showed signs of strength, notching a 15% uptick in overall trading volume.

Other Nifty News:

Attendees of the Yuga Labs’ ApeFest event on Nov. 4 in Hong Kong have reported burns, damaged vision and “extreme pain” in their eyes, which they attribute to the use of improper lighting.

NFT marketplace OpenSea announced on Nov. 3 that it would be laying off 50% of its total staff. Co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer broke the news on X, saying the company was launching OpenSea 2.0 with a smaller team. 

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