Squid game NFTs traded on Opensea; Bitcoin on a roll

Transcript

You guys watched Squid Game yet? If you don’t think it’s scary, I’m scared for you.

Welcome to The Daily Forkast October 12 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News, covering all things blockchain.

No matter where you go, you’re either talking about it or hearing about the wildly popular Netflix series Squid Game. And now a Squid Game NFT has appeared, inviting members of the crypto space to enter a metaverse game.

We’re going to take a look at that and a whole lot more coming up.

Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

First up, an unidentified squid game NFT is being traded on OpenSea.

Now if you don’t already know, the Netflix show is about a group of people invited to a mysterious space where they play games constructed by an unidentified man or group – kind of sounds like what we see in the metaverse, right? And, well on the show, bad things happen.

Well, this new NFT, not affiliated to the Netflix series, invites buyers to enter metaverse games that the developer claims to be both adventurous and mysterious, and hopefully not fatal.

But is it authorized? Well, that appears to be unlikely.

Forkast.News Danny Park has more.

Squid Game, the South Korean Netflix series has taken the TV world by storm, spinning off a variety of both officially licensed and fan made merchandise and content.

But now we’re seeing a Squid Game NFT – a replica of a card that appears on the show, inviting the protagonist into the game.

So far, the unnamed OpenSea user has created about 2000 cards. The NFTs themselves are free, buyers only need to pay for gas fees. However, some of these cards are already being traded for over one Ethereum, or about US$3,487.

The description of the NFT reads “the Squid Game cards are invitation to enter the adventurous and mysterious metaverse games.”

However, specifics on what kind of games there will be and on which metaverse is not revealed.

Furthermore, the developer’s OpenSea account does not show any affiliation with Netflix or the producers of Squid Game.

Back in June, the Korea Copyright Commission published a report on NFTs and copyright issues, saying infringement of copyright may occur in issuing NFTs that are created or owned offline by another person.

Nevertheless, there is not a law that specifically regulates copyright infringement and NFTs and digital artworks.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea says it will examine and specify such cases with experts and actively monitor the situation.

For Forkast.News, I’m Danny Park.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is on a roll.

Its price hit US$57,859 on October 12th and was hovering just under US$57,000 Tuesday morning Asia time. And that’s a level not seen since the crypto crash in May.

And with earnings season coming up, will we see the same upside this quarter as we saw in Q4 of 2020, where Bitcoin rallied 180%?

Forkast.News Michelle Lim takes a look at what’s driving Bitcoin’s rise.

Bitcoin is now sitting around 10% away from its all time high, and its dominance was back up at around 45% Tuesday morning Asia time.

One expert told Forkast.News a couple of factors are driving Bitcoin’s surge.

“One – all the talks about ETFs and the fact that it could lead to a lot of retail and institutional money flowing into the space. And then I think something people might not be thinking too much about the rising of the U.S. debt ceiling. So it’s something that’s happening in the macro space where the U.S. is essentially giving itself just a blank check or the ability to to take on more debt.”

D’Anethan is bullish about the outlook, saying bitcoin is showing a lot of strength.

“I think the value of Bitcoin as a decentralized, programmatically scarce asset is even more important now than it was before. If anything, we can go back to the all time high and definitely breach them if there’s, you know, if all the fundamentals align at the right time.”

As for altcoins, D’Anethan says for the moment, Bitcoin is leading the way. But, over time, he sees altcoins performing relatively well, with the possibility of eventually outperforming Bitcoin.

For Forkast.News, I’m Michelle Lim.

And finally, today, McDonald’s China has jumped into the NFT space.

The collection has been launched in cooperation with Conflux to mark the 31st anniversary of McDonald’s entering the Chinese market.

Now, the Big Mac Cube collection also marks the opening of the fast food giant’s new headquarters in Shanghai, a building whose architecture is reminiscent of a Rubik’s Cube puzzle game.

The 188 NFTs will be distributed to employees and customers as gifts, and can only be withdrawn via a Conflux wallet.

Now, McDonald’s was keen to state that the NFT website only allows users to display and extract the NFTs, not trade them, saying specifically that hype over the counter transactions and fraud are prohibited.

Why? Well, that could be because last month the Chinese state run media outlet the Securities Times published an article criticising the phenomenon of NFT speculation.

Seems a wise move to tread carefully there, McHappy Meal, anyone?

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia.

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Or you can always visit us at Forkast.News for even more in-depth coverage.

I’m Forkast Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.