Rug Radio Recap - February 19, 2023

gm! We've loved seeing all the color and PFPs on the timeline after our Faces of Web3 reveal and hope all of you are enjoying the art. 

In case you missed it, Faces of Web3 holders are eligible to sign up for our Rewards Program and earn $RUG by listening to shows, completing bounties, and more coming soon.

Here's what we've got in this week's recap...

• Rug Radio Updates

• Marketplace Wars: Blur vs OpenSea

• Yuga Labs announces the winner of Dookey Dash

Faces of Web3 Reveal

The timeline and Spaces were full of color this week as we revealed the Faces of Web3, and if you change your PFP on Twitter, you can also earn 22 $RUG through our rewards program by completing the bounty.

On Tuesday, we also paid $341,000 USD to Cory for all of the work that he put in over the past 6 months to make this happen, with the remaining $341,000 USD being sent to the RugDAO treasury.

Rug Radio Vibes in Paris

NFT Paris starts on Friday, and we'll be hosting a happy hour event on Friday, February 24 from 6pm to 9pm local time at Raspoutine, in partnership with Yuga Labs and Improbable.

If you would like to attend, there are 120 tickets that are going to raffled off to eligible Yuga Labs and Rug Radio holders. To enter the raffle, check out the steps on Tokenproof; the raffle will take place tomorrow, February 20 at 1pm EST.

Rug Radio Prop House

After the proposal passed on January 20, the first round of the Prop House is now live!

Anyone with an ETH address can submit a proposal to help grow the Rug Radio ecosystem, and $RDAO holders will be able to vote to choose the top 5 ideas with those proposals receiving funding to execute the idea.

The deadline for submissions is February 24 at 11:59pm EST.

Opportunities to Earn $RUG

Did you know that our Rewards Program has more opportunities to earn $RUG outside of listen-to-earn?

We also have a bounty system where you can earn $RUG by completing specific actions, and there are currently 10 of them available where you can earn up to 48 $RUG!

Marketplace Wars: Blur vs. OpenSea

The topic of royalties and their enforcement is back in the spotlight, but instead of the conversation being focused around personal beliefs, it's centered around two marketplaces - Blur and OpenSea - who are both competing for the largest share of the market.

On Wednesday, Blur published an article outlining the choices creators have for enforcing royalties on the platform, going as far as taking a shot at OpenSea and recommending to block the marketplace as one of the options. Let's break down these options...I'll admit, it's slightly confusing:

• No Block: If creators don't enforce a blocklist of marketplaces, OpenSea will not enforce royalties while Blur will enforce a minimum royalty of 0.5%.

• Block Blur: If creators block Blur, OpenSea will enforce full royalties while Blur will enforce a minimum royalty of 0.5%

• Block OpenSea: If creators block OpenSea, Blur will enforce full royalties while the asset won't be tradable/able to earn royalties on OpenSea.

• Don't Block: Blur suggests that OpenSea should remove the policy blocking Blur so that creators can earn full royalties on both platforms

Well, on Friday, OpenSea responded with a thread essentially giving into Blur's suggestions and stating that they would...

• Set their marketplace fees to 0% (for a limited time)

  • This is obviously unsustainable as it's how marketplaces generate revenue.

• Move to optional creator earnings (0.5% minimum) for collections don't use on-chain enforcement

  • This includes older collections who have relied on royalties, and don't have the ability to upgrade their contracts to include the on-chain filter.

• Unblock marketplaces that adopt the same strategy (i.e. unblock Blur)

Community Reactions

To put it simply, the community and creators are fed up. They're tired of being held at the mercy of marketplaces who are in a race to zero so that they can gain the most market share and raise funding all while creators are left behind if they don't abide by their rules...If that sounds very "web2" and centralized, that's because it is.

Yuga Labs announced the winner of Dookey Dash - Fortnite player Mongraal, updated Metadata showing scores, outlined what's next.

VeeFriends announced Burn Island, a deflationary mechanic that allows VeeFriends holders to burn NFTs for physical and virtual rewards.

Collab.Land revealed a governance token airdrop for the top 100 communities who use the tool, including Rug Radio.

Cozomo de’ Medici donated the largest collection of digital artworks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, including a Zombie Punk.

Napster acquired Mint Songs, an NFT marketplace that aims to help artists establish a Web3 presence, to "finally take Web3 music to the mainstream."

Context

• Blur and NFT collection volumes are significantly inflated as earnings from the airdrop were circulated back into top NFT collections and wash trading accelerated after Blur teased Season 2 rewards.

• Despite higher than expected macro economic data and regulatory fears, the major cryptocurrencies were up double digit percentages this week.

• In the week ahead, we'll see more macro economic data including PCE and minutes from the last FOMC that typically influence market movements; although, it seems like crypto is going rogue and decoupling from macro markets.