From the Super Bowl with Love

February 15, 2023

Welcome to another edition of The Scoop. The Scoop is that feeling you get when you log on to Twitter and realize that you DON’T need to get your eyes checked because Rihanna definitely did her half time Super Bowl show while PREGNANT.👶

The Big Scoop

It’s a BIG WEEK for special days of the week. The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles to win the Super Bowl on Sunday and Tuesday was Valentine’s Day🏆♥.

Last year, big money crypto brands were throwing around satoshis on Super Bowl commercials like it was going out of style. This year saw a gloomier crypto environment during the big game but Scoopy says things will be back to normal next year!... A bit on that and so much more in this week’s edition of The Scoop.

PS. There is some low-key huge news about Shopify in the Final Scoop this week.

The News

Crypto Sponsorship and Advertising Vastly Different at This Year’s Super Bowl

Last year's Super Bowl saw the emergence of cryptocurrencies on the biggest stage of American sports. The NFL's final game saw numerous advertisements from major crypto exchanges, including the now-bankrupt FTX, Coinbase, and Crypto.com. The commercials showed the mass audience of over 112 million viewers that crypto was a budding industry with various opportunities.

The commercials from FTX and Coinbase even came with Bitcoin giveaways, which caught the attention of the viewers. FTX's ad was notable for its celebrity endorsement, featuring "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star Larry David as the central figure in the spot, responding with his trademark "Ehh..." when shown the exchange's app.

Etoro also advertised itself as a premier venue for trading stocks and crypto, while Budweiser paid homage to the Nouns DAO NFT collection. These commercials aimed to showcase the iconic glasses overlaying a classical painted portrait.

Even though the crypto industry was growing and expanding, it hit a rough patch last summer following the implosion of the Terra ecosystem. As a result, both Coinbase and Crypto.com slimmed down their rosters, while FTX didn't trim its headcount prior to the exchange's collapse.

While crypto prices have drawn down drastically since Bitcoin clung to around $42,000 during the last Super Bowl, a couple of companies represented the digital assets space as the Kansas City Chiefs crushed Philadelphia Eagles in the last minute on Sunday!

Limit Break, a Web3 company, ran an advertisement during the big game's first commercial break, showcasing its free-to-own NFT model designed for gaming. The company is giving away thousands of its Dragon series NFTs to viewers who took action. The interactive advertisement featured a QR code that serves as part of viewers' introduction to the DigiDaigaku universe.

It's worth noting that Limit Break's spot was classified as a gaming advertisement, despite the firm being oriented around blockchain technology. Limit Break's CEO, Gabriel Leydon, was previously the CEO of Machine Zone in 2016, when it sponsored an ad for its Mobile Strike game featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In Canada, crypto exchange Bitbuy will return for the second year in a row, but the company is changing its tune. While the company said that its central focus last year was missed opportunities, this time it's basing its message around trust. To get its point across, the company is doubling the length of its commercial, extending the ad to a full minute. It's also swapping the NBA's Kyle Lowry for Toronto Raptor Scottie Barnes, the league's most recent Rookie of the Year.

Turbotax, a tax preparation software company, again referenced crypto in its upcoming commercial. Last year's ad included a crypto trader as one of its prospective customers, and it did it again this Super Bowl, this time with the addition of a Jason Sudeikis cameo!

Fox Sports, the official broadcaster of the Super Bowl, confirmed that there were no crypto sponsors at this year’s Super Bowl... (although there definitely were!). Let's see what happens next year!

Yuga Labs Dookey Dash Game Sees Whopping 26,000 Users Accumulate 80 Years’ Worth of Playing Time

Yuga Labs is currently verifying the leaderboard scores for Dookey Dash. However, preliminary results from the game's skill-based mint demonstrate its considerable popularity among the Bored Ape Yacht Club community. Approximately 26,000 Sewer Pass NFT holders were eligible to play the game from Jan. 19 to Feb. 8. During this period, the average playtime for each Dookey Dash player was nearly 28 hours, and the cumulative number of runs played was 7.5 million.

As of writing, around 8,000 players have used ApeCoin, the governance token for the ApeCoin DAO, to buy in-game power-ups, spending roughly 425,000 ApeCoin or $2.2 million.

Yuga Labs introduced its skill-based mint in January, offering Bored Ape and Mutant Ape holders the chance to mint a Sewer Pass NFT.

The mint, which opened a week later and featured four tiers based on NFT holdings, generated $6 million in secondary sales just hours after its free mint began. Since Dookey Dash's launch on Jan. 19, the value of ApeCoin has risen by more than 11%!

Chart.

Gaming tokens are kicking butt and taking pseudonyms in 2023. Don’t take our word for it, just take a look at the chart below courtesy of CryptoSlate⏬

The Chart section of The Scoop is for everyone who prefers to listen to audiobooks or fill-in colouring books over text-based reading. Feast your eyes🍗👀

Fundraising In Web3.

Here’s a breakdown of the money bags that got poured into Web3 over the past week or so🧀💵💸💰:

Education.

Ready for a quick study break?!📙

Have you been hearing the word Metaverse a lot lately? What about the word multi-verse? It’s easy to get the two confused even if you know what they are. Since the Study Space is meant to offer you clarity, this week’s study material explains the difference between the two🔽

Scoop Meme

This week’s meme is dedicated to those that partied a little bit too hard BEFORE they got to their friend’s house for the big game😋

The Final Scoop

As usual, no matter what the current vibe is in the Web3 space, we always look at the positive here at The Scoop. Not only is Yuga Labs crushing it as per the news story above, e-commerce giant Shopify is also making strides as it continues to build.

The platform now has a blockchain development section on its website that store owners and developers alike can take advantage of two build out loyalty programs and token gated opportunities for their customers. That’s right!

One of the biggest and most popular e-commerce platforms in the world is using NFT technology in a way that is sure to foster mass adoption. Check out the company’s blockchain site here.

The Web3 world forges ahead no matter what, and we thank you as usual for being part of the movement.

#Web34ever #Cirus

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Thanks again for reading and see you again next week! Sending lots of love your way💘♥💜