Photo: Bored Ape Yacht Club
The killer app for NFTs

Good morning! This Monday, how digital avatars are taking over the NFT world, how Elizabeth Holmes will defend herself in court, what the #AppleToo movement is all about, and why Chicago wants to curb delivery apps.
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CryptoPunks just became a billion-dollar business. The 10,000 low-res characters have now generated over $1.16 billion in total revenue and are being traded like precious art; in the time it took me to write this sentence, three bids were placed on three Punks for a total of about $1.5 million. And I'm pretty sure they all got outbid.
Punks are the biggest thing in NFTs, and NFTs just keep getting bigger. Games like Axie Infinity are proving that there's a hefty overlap between blockchain economics and video games, while NBA Top Shot continues to discover new ways to get people to spend money on sports. Is the market crazy? Of course it is. It's 2021. Everything's crazy.
But avatars are emerging as the killer app for NFTs.
If the metaverse is coming, everybody's going to need an avatar. And while some companies race to turn us all into ever-more-realistic digital versions of ourselves (all too often leaping right over the "is this cool or is this creepy" line), the NFT world is cashing in on the idea that actually, what everyone wants is to be a lion. Or an ape. But mostly they want to be part of a club, to have something that confers status and exclusivity, that is both totally recognizable and still one of one.
There are plenty of open questions here. What it means to "own" an NFT is very much up in the air, and there's nothing stopping me from using Steph Curry's ape as my Twitter avatar too. With Meebits, Larva Labs is also offering buyers the full 3D model of their character — all the better for uploading to digital worlds — but even that can be easily retrofitted. And there's still the fact that most NFTs are just files stored on somebody's server somewhere.
But NFTs are here to stay, and digital avatars are going to be a big business. (They already are, actually; just ask Epic, which makes a fortune selling skins to Fortnite players.) But the idea that your digital avatar can be uniquely yours without being uniquely you is a powerful one, and one that a lot of people are willing to spend money on. Why be yourself in the metaverse when you can be a pudgy penguin?
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Apple's App Store changes don't seem like a "major concession" to Tim Sweeney:
Mike Sievert feels sorry about the massive data breach on T-Mobile:
On Protocol | Workplace: Cher Scarlett said she went public with #AppleToo because internal processes failed employees:
Just Eat Takeaway's Jitse Groen doesn't agree with New York City's vote to permanently cap fees for delivery apps:
Coinbase is trying to build a "crypto forward" culture, Brian Armstrong says:
PIRATE Summit begins today. The virtual startup conference will include talks on issues like remote work, leadership and avoiding burnout.
Instagram is getting rid of its swipe-up feature starting today. People will be able to use link stickers instead.
Jury selection for Elizabeth Holmes' trial starts tomorrow in federal court in San Jose. The trial begins Sept. 8.
The BIG 5G Event starts tomorrow. The event kicks off virtually today, and in-person activities start tomorrow at the Colorado Convention Center.
Twitch streamers are boycotting the site on Wednesday. The #ADayOffTwitch campaign is in protest of hate raids on the site.
Transcribing is annoying and tedious, unless you let a website do it for you. Otter.ai could already transcribe meetings on Zoom for paying users, but now it can write out notes for meetings held on Teams, Meet and Webex.
All you need to do is add the Otter Assistant tool to your calendar, and it'll automatically join and jot down meetings. The best part is that you don't even need to be at the meeting for the tool to work — you can catch up afterward by reading through the transcription. Or don't, and just feverishly search through it when someone asks you what you thought.
The Blockchain.com Wallet is the easiest and most powerful crypto wallet, trusted by millions since 2011 with over $1 trillion in crypto transactions. Whether you want to trade, earn, custody, or access full-stack institutional solutions, Blockchain.com is a market leader in retail and institutional crypto products.
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