Meta ‘powering through’ metaverse plans: Nifty Newsletter, Nov. 30–Dec. 6

Published at: Dec. 7, 2022

In this week’s newsletter, read about how the word “metaverse” placed second in Oxford’s Word of the Year. Check out how Meta is pushing forward its metaverse plans amid doubts and how the nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden announced a tool to enforce royalties. In other news, find out how the Opera Crypto Browser is integrating NFT minting. And, don’t forget this week’s Nifty News featuring a new all-time high for Reddit avatar minting.

Metaverse comes in second place as Oxford’s word of the year

The term “metaverse” have gotten second place in Oxford University’s Word of the Year 2022, coming after “goblin mode,” which depicted the mood of people who did not like the idea of coming back to normal life after the pandemic lockdowns.

According to Oxford’s data, the use of the word metaverse increased by four times in 2022, mostly due to Facebook’s rebrand to Meta in October 2021. Oxford highlighted that the word gained traction because of the crypto community.

Meta ‘powering through’ with metaverse plans despite doubts — Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, remains hopeful when it comes to the company's metaverse project, even though it costs the company billions of dollars. In an interview at the DealBook Summit, the Meta CEO highlighted that things will look different in a ten-year time horizon compared to just a few years coming ahead.

Zuckerberg believes that communicating in the 2030s will be vastly different from the way people communicate now. The Meta CEO highlighted that “someone has to build” and invest in it.

Magic Eden follows OpenSea with NFT royalty enforcement tool

Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has announced that it will be allowing creators to enforce royalties on their collections. This follows OpenSea's announcement of a similar tool back in November.

Jack Lu, the CEO of Magic Eden, previously floated the idea of enforcing royalties at a Solana conference, pointing out creators’ need for a more sustainable revenue model.

Opera Crypto Browser to enable instant NFT minting through launchpad

Meanwhile, Opera Crypto Browser has dived into NFTs through an integration with the Alteon LaunchPad. With a new tool, the browser will let anyone mint NFTs through a drag-and-drop interface.

Susie Batt, an executive at Opera, said that this integration allows users to explore and contribute to the Web3 ecosystem. In addition, the tool will not have platform usage fees to allow people to explore NFTs freely.

Nifty News: Reddit NFT mints reach all-time high, EU’s $400K metaverse party flops and more

Social forum Reddit's NFT collection hit an all-time high record of avatars minted in one day. On Dec. 3, the platform saw a new record of 255,000 minted avatars, surpassing the previous record of 200,000 avatars minted in a day back on Aug. 30. Meanwhile, watch manufacturer Timex has partnered with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) projects to create watches that match BAYC and MAYC NFTs.

Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.