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

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 will be working 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.

Get ready to party on the beach, pick up cute collectibles and explore my newest tropical Parisland metaverse! I'm launching a new experience in @TheSandboxGame on February 13th https://t.co/roREhkM4LF pic.twitter.com/cdSY5OEC2o

— ParisHilton (@ParisHilton) February 9, 2023

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 Mar. 13 and players will also complete quests to win nonfungible tokens (NFTs) or SAND prizes and memorabilia.

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

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 has made its way onto BTC called Ordinal Punks which currently 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 or around $215,000 at the time.

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

Other sales from the past 48 hours show one Ordinal Punk selling for 6 BTC, around $130,000 and others selling for around 4.5 BTC, or around $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 put up for offer 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 Deputy 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.”

sold out in a few minutes on the allowlist saleour community is absolutely amazing without you guys this would never have been possible▪️ our upcoming pipeline of music drops is absolutely amazing rest assured▪️ the 16th of feb our first holders will receive the first payout pic.twitter.com/pCPSOopvsV

— anotherblock ◼️ (@anotherblock_io) February 9, 2023

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 much royalty share in the song Deputy 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 the 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.

Catalina Whales 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.”

Introducing The Whales, an avatar music group created with you and for you. Penetration has begun. @defjam @UMG @solana 1/ pic.twitter.com/u7mobGxY9J

— THE CATALINA WHALE MIXER | POW POW (@catalinawhales) February 8, 2023

The musicians behind the project are yet to be confirmed by Def Jam but it reportedly said it will 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.”