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Find love in Paris Hilton’s metaverse, BTC CryptoPunks soar and more

02/11/2023
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Swiping right in the metaverse

Famous New York socialite Paris Hilton thinks the metaverse may be the perfect place to find one’s true love.

In a Feb. 9 tweet, the celebrity and reality TV star said she would work with The Sandbox (SAND) to bring “Parisland” to life.

The idea is essentially a Virtual Reality (VR) dating experience crossed with a reality dating show and is slated for a Feb. 13 release in time for Valentine’s Day.

According to a Feb. 9 statement, players will participate in an “in-game dating reality show” hosted by Hilton, where they will virtually meet with five potential lovers.

The experience will run until March 13, with players completing quests to win nonfungible tokens (NFTs) or SAND prizes and memorabilia.

Such quests include choosing a wedding outfit and ring, “rescuing a castaway and flirting with other contestants.”

Nothing shows true love to someone you just met online like NFT “interlaced love rings.” Image: Parisland

Once players complete all the quests and find the love of their life, they’ll have a virtual wedding and Hilton herself will spin the decks for their first dance together.

The event is hosted in conjunction with the Hilton-founded entertainment firm 11:11 Media. The company’s Web3 and metaverse strategy lead, Cynthia Miller, said it was on “a mission to help people find love” with the experience.

Ordinals CryptoPunk knockoffs make bank

Bitcoin (BTC) NFTs enabled by the Ordinals protocol have caused quite a stir in the community, but that hasn’t been enough to stop some from paying thousands of dollars for select collections.

A knockoff of the Ethereum-based CryptoPunks NFT collection called Ordinal Punks has made its way onto Ordinals and has a total supply of 100, according to the project’s website.

According to a price feed in the projects Discord, on Feb. 8, Punk 94 sold for 9.5 BTC ($215,000) at the time.

It’s the most someone has paid for a BTC-clone Punk from the collection, and it’s around double the price of the last CryptoPunk sold from the original Ethereum collection — which sold for 70 Ether (ETH) ($110,000), according to OpenSea data.

Screenshot shows sales from between 9.5 to 4 BTC in the past 48 hours. Source: Ordinal Punks Discord

Other sales from the past 48 hours show one Ordinal Punk selling for six BTC, around $130,000, with others selling for around 4.5 BTC ($100,000).

It’s a significant price jump from the end of last week, where some Ordinal Punks sold for as low as 0.07 BTC ($2,200) on Feb. 2, according to sale data.

RhiRhi’s royalties sell out through NFTs

Royalty rights from Rhianna’s hit 2015 song, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” has just been offered as part of a collection of 300 NFTs.

Jamil “Deputy” Pierre was one of the song’s producers who has now sold roughly 1% of his stake in streaming royalties through 300 NFTs that give the holder a 0.0033% lifetime share in royalties for the record when it’s streamed digitally on platforms like Spotify.

The collection, sold by Pierre in partnership with music royalty NFT platform anotherblock, was put up on Feb. 9 for 0.128 ETH each, or roughly $210.

The same day, anotherblock tweeted the collection had sold out “in a few minutes.”

Anotherblock predicts one NFT to give a “probable” first-year return of 6.5%, which would yield $13.65 a year. At that rate, it would take a holder about 15 years to break even on their investment.

It’s unclear how many royalty shares in the song Pierre has retained after the NFT sale.

Def Jam launches virtual band with Solana NFT collection

Def Jam Recordings, a subsidiary record label of Universal Music Group, is trying its hand at building a Web3-native band through a partnership with Solana (SOL) NFT collection, The Catalina Whale Mixer.

Announced through a Feb. 8 Billboard report, the band, called The Whales, will be comprised of the cartoon whale characters that make up the collection, similar to the virtual band the Gorillaz.

The Catalina Whale Mixer later revealed in a tweet that the band would be a “gamified music group” and holders of an NFT in the collection could “land a role for [their] whale.”

Def Jam has yet to confirm the musicians behind the project, but it reportedly said it would involve a “who’s who” of talent, and The Whales will release a full-length album but did not disclose a timeline.

Def Jam boasts signed artists such as Justin Beiber, LL Cool J, Rihanna and Nas.

In 2021, another universal subsidiary label, 10:22PM, signed a similar NFT-backed virtual band called Kingship, made up of four apes from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection.

Other Nifty News:

Luxury fashion brand Hermès won a trademark infringement case against NFT artist Mason Rothschild over his use of the Birkin trademark for his MetaBirkins NFT collection. The firm was awarded $133,000 in damages.

YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, baited mixed martial artist Dillon Danis into promoting a fake NFT collection which, according to Findeisen, “literally spells out S.C.A.M.”