Minecraft Torpedoes NFTs While Final Fantasy Forges Ahead

It’s no secret that gamers have it in for NFTs.

But yesterday, Microsoft-owned Minecraft gave the NFT space a reason to fire back.

The team behind the game released a statement that essentially bans NFTs from integrating with its platform, going on to say that it has “no plans of implementing blockchain technology into Minecraft right now.”

A variety of NFT projects have been developing virtual worlds and accessories that are compatible with Minecraft, with plans to integrate with the actual game in the future. Chief among them is NFT Worlds, a collection of 10,000 metaverse lands.

Minted for free in October 2021, the NFTs surged to a floor price of nearly 18 ETH in February at the height of GameFi fever. Following the news, prices crashed by over 80% from 3 ETH to 0.5 ETH. The project’s WRLD token dived more than 60%.

Curiously, Minecraft explains NFTs as digital tokens “often purchased with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin”. While Bitcoin can certainly be used to purchase some NFTs like Rare Pepes, the vast majority of NFT sales are conducted in ETH.

Meanwhile, other gaming companies continue to keep an open mind about the metaverse.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney affirmed that his company doesn’t plan to reject blockchain technology. “I believe stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely won’t.”

Final Fantasy NFTs

Square Enix, the Japanese conglomerate behind the popular gaming franchises Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, plans to launch a digital collection of Final Fantasy VII 25th Anniversary cards and figures. The NFTs will be available to those who purchase items from the physical collection that is expected to launch in 2023.

The NFTs will launch on Efinity, a blockchain tailored towards NFTs in the Polkadot ecosystem, being developed by Enjin.

A $150,000 NFT Blunder

An NFT whale lost just under 100 ETH when a marketing ploy backfired on July 20.

Here’s how it happened. Franklin placed a bid of 100 ETH on an aptly-named ENS domain that he owned in an alternate wallet, in an attempt to generate market interest.

His plan seemed to work, as he received an offer of 1.9 ETH, which he accepted. Unfortunately, he forgot to cancel his original bid of 100 ETH as he rushed to tweet about the successful trade.

Fifteen minutes passed before the mystery buyer turned around and sold it back to Franklin, netting a profit of 95.6 ETH ($150,000). According to his Twitter bio, Franklin is the seventh largest Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT holder with 58 apes, so the loss probably won’t bother him too much.

As for the buyer? They’ve gone on a shopping spree, having rebuffed Franklin’s request to undo the transaction, delivered via NFT.

They did, however, send Franklin a Milady NFT.

Oddities Revealed

Moonbirds, the NFT collection that shattered OpenSea volume records when it launched in April, revealed the art for its Oddities collection on July 20.

Oddities were airdropped to “nested” Moonbirds holders two months ago and have remained unrevealed since. The art by Cryptoadz creator gremplin has received mixed reviews from the community.

The traits of the Oddities are apparently tied to the Moonbirds’, meaning that holders of rare birds received rare Oddities. Some community members voiced their displeasure at the lack of randomness.

The floor price of the collection has dropped 40% to 1.8 ETH post-reveal.

State Of The Market

Sales volume ticked up to $196M in the week ending July 18. Volume was $13M higher than the prior week while the number of transactions dropped by 24,000.