ICYMI Mondays: Jan. 24

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of waking up on a Monday and realizing you missed out on some incredible drops over the weekend.

It can be truly disheartening to find out that an awesome project launched, minted and sold out all while you were tied up with a wedding, camping trip, or multiday metaverse bender.

Don’t go FOMOing into anything just yet though, because every Monday, we’re bringing you a roundup of the art, collectibles, airdrops and more you missed while you were away.

X0R MEV Army Drop

On Sunday, influential artist X0R launched his first large-scale PFP collection, MEV Army. MEV, standing for Miner Extractable Value, is a collection of “shadowy super coders lurking in the Ethereum dark forest, ready to exploit transactions and extract profit.”

Although the drop hit a significant snag as those whitelisted ran into ever-irritating captcha problems, after a few hours of work X0R and his brother 3LAU were able to clear the way for the entirety of the 9,999 NFT project to sell out. With secondary sales continuing to heat up, X0R and 3LAU say they promise to “push this [the MEV Army project] forward to infinity and unlock all the incredible things that are planned for this collection in the future.”

Takashi Murakami Revives Murakami Flowers

Towards the end of last week, Takashi Murakami has announced the return of his Murakami Flowers project. Originally slated for release in March 2021, Murakami postponed the drop shortly after its initial unveiling to further expand his literacy on blockchain and NFT technology.

The past year seems to have been quite a wild ride for Takashi Murakami. While the celebrated artist’s entrance into the NFT space via CLONE X was a major success, he had yet to release a collection of his own. Not, Murakami has not only announced that his coveted flowers will be coming to the blockchain this spring, but also vowed to become more active on NFT Twitter.

Rolling Stone: How to Avoid NFT Scams

Although the NFT ecosystem has grown exponentially over the past year, scams are still an unfortunate and undeniable part of the space. Because we’ve seen countless developers, artists, and collectors get scammed in the most nefarious ways, it remains more important than ever that investors and collectors understand the tech they’re working with and how to keep their assets and information safe.

To help educate potential victims, Rolling Stone took a deep dive into how NFT scams work and how to avoid them. Citing crypto project manager Georgio Constantinou, GRAMMY Award-winning artist RAC, and NFT influencer Ragzy, the industry publication released a full guide on the topic which can be found here.

Kevin Hart Joins the Bored Ape Yacht Club

Over the weekend, superstar Comedian Kevin Hart joined the NFT ecosystem with a major purchase. On Sunday, Hart bought the propeller hat-wearing Bored Ape #9258 for 72.5 ETH ($200,000).

Similar to numerous other celebrities that have recently joined BAYC, this purchase seems to have been facilitated by MoonPay — as the news was announced via MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright’s Instagram story.

Kany West Talks About NFT Royalty Splits

Over the weekend, Kanye West was filmed outside of Miami International Airport and had a few things to say about NFTs and the paparazzi that caught up with him. Speaking to one of the individuals off-camera, West said he wants to take a percentage of profits that photographers make through selling pictures of celebrities.

“NFT people get paid in perpetuity on the product they put out,” says West. “My image is a part of something I should get paid off.” Watch the above video above for more.

Source: https://nftnow.com/lists/icymi-mondays-jan-24/