Nifty News: FTX and Wildcats' basketball NFTs, WeMeta’s $1.1M funding, Zed Run’s Netflix tie-in

FTX's latest sports sponsorship

The University of Kentucky has entered into a sponsorship agreement with FTX.US for the men’s Wildcats basketball team to act as brand ambassadors.

Players will receive a monthly USD stipend from FTX.US paid in FTX debit cards and will also be able to create their own NFTs on the FTX NFT platform and keep a portion of the revenue.

A recent decision by the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) to allow athletes to monetize their likenesses and names made the NFT deal possible. 

It’s the latest in a series of partnerships between FTX and American sports brands including the NBA’s Miami Heat and MLB.

Activist fights the power with NFTs

New York artist and activist Drue Kataoka has announced an NFT auction for her audio-visual NFT artwork with all proceeds to be donated to civil rights activist groups The King Center and stopaapihate.org.

A partnership with Lucasfilm's ILMxLAB, “Will Your Heart Pass the Test” is a multimedia NFT featuring symbolism from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and taking inspiration from a myth in which a person’s heart is weighed against a feather to work out if the soul is ready to move on to the afterlife. Each frame took 20 minutes to render, resulting in a total of 23 days to render the full NFT.

5 Influential Women Team Up To Bring Soul To #NFTs & Fight Racism

So excited 2 announce my collab w/ #LucasFilm’s @ILMxLAB
100% Proceeds Benefit @TheKingCenter & @StopAAPIHate@phillipsauction

✊✊@BerniceKing @cynthiachoi1 @rebekah_bowling @MeiMeiFoxhttps://t.co/ehoMrgcICz

— Drue Kataoka (@DrueKataoka) November 3, 2021

According to the official announcement, the NFT was made in response to the “missed opportunities to confront an exhausted, suffering world plagued by the social ills of racism and sexism” on the internet and within the NFT ecosystem. Kataoka is an artist-technologist-activist who serves some of the world’s top art collectors across 30 different countries.

Traditional auction house Phillips will handle the auction starting on December 8th, and ending on December 15th.

WeMeta closes first funding round worth $1.1M

NFT land marketplace WeMeta announced that it has raised $1.1 million in its first funding round with support from seven strategic partners and six angel investors.

All in for the Metaverse! We're stoked to announce the closing of our 1st funding round: https://t.co/NgzkFk1tne

— WeMeta (@WeMetaTweets) November 3, 2021

WeMeta will use the investment to continue building out its multi-chain NFT land marketplace that offers transparent pricing for Metaverse land on The Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium Space.

Participants in this funding round included Delphi Digital, DeFi Alliance, Digital Currency Group, Galaxy Interactive, Hashed, SkyVision Capital and Tribe Capital with angel support from Andy Chorlian (Fractional), Darren Lau (The Daily Ape), John Fiorelli (Kenetic), and Navi Singh (Antler).

Tom Shaughnessy from Delphi Digital commented:

“WeMeta is positioning to become the dominant digital real estate aggregator and analytics platform for the Metaverse.”

NFT horse racing game Zed Run’s tie in with Netflix film

Digital horse racing and breeding platform Zed Run has announced a partnership with the newly-released Netflix film The Harder They Fall on Netflix, which was made in collaboration with Virtually Human Studio (VHS).

Zed Run gives users the ability to buy, sell, breed, and race digital racehorse NFTs online. Users can also bet on the outcome of races, which they can view in real-time via the live stream on the Zed Run website or on Twitch.

Related: Asia-Pacific leads the world in NFT searches on Google

The Harder They Fall is a new type of western about rival gun-slinging, horse-riding outlaw gangs. The film features scenes at the Redwood City Classic race. It is a story of revenge with a few twists and turns along the way starring Idris Elba, Regina King and Damon Wayans Jr.

The partnership will bring "The Redwood City Classic" to Zed Run. This new event will see Zed Run’s top 12 NFT racehorses race against each other in a themed, single high-stakes race on November 14th.

Other NFT News

Popular NFT Metaverse The Sandbox announced on November 2nd that it had completed a $93 million Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The funds will be used to improve scalability by adding new games and experiences to the ecosystem.

Crypto trading platform Crypto.com debuted its UFC NFT series. These NFT are the first to be authorized by UFC. The series will feature collectible moments from fight nights, event posters, championship belts, and fighter avatars.