Playboy to release tokenized bunnies into the wild

PLBY Group Inc, the owners of the raunchy lifestyle magazine Playboy, unveiled a new nonfungible token (NFT) project consisting of 11,953 unique 3D animated bunny avatars.

According to a Wednesday announcement, the number of NFTs pays homage to Playboy’s founding year of 1953, and the tokens will serve as “keys to a reimagined Playboy Club,” which gives the owners access to exclusive events, content and merchandise.

The launch of the Ethereum-based NFTs begins on Sunday, with a pre-sale for whitelisted investors until Tuesday. Two public sales launch the following day, one for United States dollars customers and the other for those paying with Ether (ETH).

The sales are being hosted on an official “Playboy Rabbitar” website, and the NFTs will be priced at 0.1953 ETH each or the fiat equivalent (currently $814). Jamal Dauda, vice president of blockchain innovation at PLBY Group, said:

“The Rabbitars mark the beginning of true blockchain-based membership for Playboy. Just as Playboy Club keys gave millions of members a chance to step into the sophisticated lifestyle that the Playboy brand represents, NFTs today can do the same and so much more.”

One CryptoPunk is not for sale

The owner of CryptoPunk #6046 recently turned down a bid of 2,500 ETH for their tokenized punk avatar.

That’s about $10.5 million, which would have represented the largest CryptoPunk sale to date if accepted. According to Larva Labs, CryptoPunk #3100 holds the record, having been sold for $7.58 million in March.

The CryptoPunk #6046 NFT depicts a person wearing 3D shades and smoking a cigarette and was initially purchased for $83,209 by its current owner, Twitter user Richerd.

Richerd recounted the bid came about after they’d publicly claimed that they would not sell their CryptoPunk, no matter what anyone offered. A startup dubbed “Poap” decided to test that theory, with Etherscan showing a bid of 2,500 ETH.

“Come on Richerd. Don’t you want to go down in history as the top CryptoPunk sale to date?” Poap teased.

While admitting that their “mid-tier punk” is most likely not worth 2,500 ETH, Richerd promptly declined the bid and went on to claim that they wouldn’t even accept a bid of $1 billion, as the NFT holds sentimental value.

“My identity along with the identity of other iconic Punks and apes have value beyond the NFT itself. We have our own brands similar to any other brand and that has value. Because I value my personal brand and identity, this was an easy rejection for me.”

If Martha Stewart launched NFTs and no one bid…

Martha Stewart, the famous TV personality and lifestyle entrepreneur, has taken the plunge into NFTs by launching her own platform and collection dubbed “Fresh Mint.”

While Fresh Mint hosts a collection of NFTs that were minted on Ethereum, it appears the platform is essentially a gallery, as the auctions and sales are hosted on the OpenSea marketplace.

Stewart’s first NFT drop consists of two Halloween-themed collections depicting “high resolution” JPEG files such as a set of pre-carved and custom carved pumpkins, as well as Stewart wearing a bunch of spooky Halloween costumes.

The starting price for the tokenized pumpkins is a hefty 2 ETH ($8,400) for the pre-carved ones and 3 ETH ($12,600) for custom-carved pumpkins. The highest bidder of the custom pumpkin NFTs can send in a photo and have it carved into a pumpkin and then tokenized into an additional NFT, along with having the physical pumpkin shipped to their door.

At the time of writing, not a single NFT has had a bid placed on them.

Coinbase’s first NFT collections

Coinbase has announced the first round of NFT creators it’s partnered with ahead of the launch of its upcoming NFT marketplace later this year.

The first four are Ponderware, creators of the popular MoonCats NFT project; Forgotten Runes Wizards Cult, the developers of Forgotten Runes; popular crypto-friendly DJ 3LAU; and digital artist GxngYxng.

Coinbase also posted an update on Thursday to address rumors of other partnered creators that are “floating around,” noting that if you don’t hear it directly from them, it’s “probably not true.”

The launch of Coinbase’s NFT marketplace appears to be a highly anticipated one, with Cointelegraph reporting on Oct. 14 nearly 1.1 million people signed up for the waitlist within 48 hours of it going live. It’s difficult to determine what the waitlist is now up to, as Coinbase no longer shows the number of new sign-ups.

Roundup

On Wednesday, NFT-game and virtual property developer Animoca Brands announced that it had doubled its valuation to $2.2 billion after closing a new $65-million funding round that included participation from Ubisoft Entertainment.

Cointelegraph also reported on Thursday that Chinese online retail giant JD.com is diving into the NFT sector by introducing a special NFT series for its annual JD Discovery conference. Using its proprietary blockchain platform, JD.com will be distributing commemorative NFT certificates to attendees of the JDD 2021 event in Beijing.