Social Token Launches:

VR With Jasmine — $JAS

Jasmine is a VR content creator on YouTube and TikTok. Jasmine makes VR tutorials and XR product reviews. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, an MBA and has worked for the top tech companies. She is also the co-host of VRTK’s weekly live stream lessons.

NFT Spotlight:

The $BOT Coin Community’s Silver Badge NFT grants the holder a 2x $BOT Rewards multiplier for playing on Amazon Alexa, enabling holders to accumulate $BOT faster while playing the games they love. The NFT also unlocks access private to experiences, exclusive airdrops, and sneak peeks for future game releases. The $BOT social token can be used to make other purchases, trades, and withdrawals within the $BOT Rewards Program and the greater Rally ecosystem.

Project News:

The launch of $HBCU was featured in AfroTech.

Rally Director of Partnerships for Music, Bryce Carr, was quoted in a Billboard feature on doing music deals in the metaverse.

Creator Spotlight:

How I Built My Token Economy: Joe Pulizzi, $TILT

Rally Digest #66 (March 24, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome to the Rally Digest, a weekly round-up of everything that’s happening around the Rally project.

Social Token Launches

Luke Lawal Jr. — HBCU Buzz ($HBCU)

HBCU Buzz is a multimedia company focusing on amplifying the Black College community, delivers HBCU news, insights and editorials. Since 2011, HBCU Buzz has been a resource for prospective & current students and alumni. We are on a mission to amplify the Black college experience, articulate stories of HBCU achievement, challenges, opportunities, & developments and advocate for students, alumni and the legacy of these historic institutions.

Also launched last week: $AUTH, $EAZY, $GRIT, $HEART

NFT Spotlight

The Q.D. Dolls NFT Collection, created by Natalie Nichole ($DOVE), awards NFT holders with the opportunity to contribute to a charitable organization or fund their independent art initiative. Every time a Q.D. Edition sells out, one NFT holder will receive $1,000 as a donation to their organization of choice or as a stipend to support the marketing efforts for their independent art project, business, or initiative (if they identify as an independent artist).

Project News

Director of Music Partnership Bryce Carr outlines a path in Hypebot for the music industry and web3 to move forward together-where the laws of IP are respected and creators and communities are prioritized. He was also quoted in Hypebeast offering more future-looking observations around music NFTs. Rally Director of Strategic Partnerships Alex Hooven wrote a piece in Nasdaq about how DAOs could become a major component of the future of film finance.

Creator Stories

Dancer and choreographer Marissa Alma Nick is using the $REBEL Coin to strengthen her community of people exploring trauma, healing, and sensuality through dance. Catch our interview with Marissa on the Rally Blog.

Industry News

• Shuttered file-sharing site LimeWire announced plans to relaunch as an NFT marketplace. Rally VP of Product Chris Fortier published a contributed piece in TechCrunch back in January that highlights the overlap between the torrenting movement of the early 2000s and the web3 moment.
• The major venture-capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners has formed a DAO with the hope of creating an investment resource for Web3 firms, The Information reported. BessemerDAO will eventually manage early-stage investments for startups. The firm itself has $250 million to spend on crypto investments. It was founded over 100 years ago by a co-founder of Carnegie Steel.
• Twitter is moving into e-commerce for creators with Twitter Shops, The Information reported. Creators will have a “view shop” button on their profiles that leads to a virtual shop hosted by Twitter. Some creators and businesses have been invited to trial the feature so far.
• The maker of Bored Apes Yacht Club acquired the rights to CryptoPunks and Meebits for an undisclosed sum, Decrypt reported. Yuga Labs bought the rights and over 400 CryptoPunks and over 1,700 Meebits NFTs. Trading volumes and floor prices for Bored Apes, CryptoPunks and Meebits have surged since the announcement.
• The noted NFT artist Shl0ms is attracting attention with an experimental artwork called $CAR, Hypebeast reported. A Lamborghini sports car worth $250,000 will be blown up, with film of the detonation and resulting fragments turned into NFTs. The piece is a critique of materialism in crypto.
• Bonfire, the social token tooling firm, has launched a feature that lets communities grant access to content using assets from a combination of creators. Assets can also be on the Rally network or the Ethereum mainnet.
• Social tokens are gaining traction this year, CoinTelegraph found in a feature story. Social token communities are finding use-cases from non-crypto native sources such as non-profits, YouTubers, gamers, athletes and more. The piece features social token communities like the environmental non-profit Project Zero.

Rally Digest #65 — (Mar 16, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome to the Rally Digest, a weekly round-up of everything that’s happening around the Rally project.

Social Token Launches

Hungrybox ($BOX) is one of the most successful Super Smash Bros. Melee players of all time and considered one of the “Five Gods of Melee.” He currently streams on Twitch to a dedicated fanbase, and utilizes $BOX to allow viewers to make him do things on-air (like make him exercise) and play 60-second video clips of the viewer’s choice during the stream.

NFT Spotlight

Shipbroman’s ($SHIPR) Discord NFT Membership Pass gives the NFT holder exclusive access to the Shipbroman community Discord NFT channel. The channel offers daily tips about the latest Blockchain NFT projects and each project’s promises, as well as access to varying DeFi Yield Farming opportunities (DEGENS unite!) and the latest stable APY opportunities from reputable platforms. NFT holders will also be prioritized in the future DAO that is being developed by the growing Shipbroman community.

Project News

FWB X Rally Hackathon: The hackathon had more than 100 participants across 25 teams building through the day. The three winning teams, chosen by a panel of judges including Brian Mark, Alex Hooven, and Mahesh Vellanki, have a month and a small budget to build a working prototype of their product, and have the opportunity to win huge cash prizes and $RLY bonuses for building on the sidechain.

Most Innovative Companies: We’re proud to be named one of the Top 5 Most Innovative Companies in the social media space by Fast Company. As of February 2022, 59% of our Creators (across 280+ social tokens!) owned economies worth >$100K USD and 10% owned economies worth >$1M USD. Congrats!

Creator Spotlight: Rapper Ben Miller of Mayday on Preparing for the Launch of the $MORSE Coin

With one Coin launch behind him, Miller says the $MORSE Coin will be full steam ahead from day one. We sat down with him to talk about the successes of his $WREK Coin, the lessons he’s learned along the way, and what to expect from $MORSE. Catch our interview with him on the Rally Blog.

Rally Digest #64 — (Mar 9, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social Token Launches

Roberto Carlos — $RC3

Roberto Carlos is a Brazilian former footballer who is widely considered one of the greatest left backs in history. As well as lifting the 2002 World Cup, Roberto Carlos also won three Champions League and four La Liga titles with Real Madrid in his career, which ended in 2015 after a spell in India as player/head coach with Delhi Dynamos. Fans who hold $RC3 will gain access to exclusive signed merch giveaways, private NFT drops, Zoom calls and other benefits and experiences on Rally.

Also launched last week: $T45, $IDEA, $LADDR

NFT Spotlight

A&R Block ($ANR) — a collective of entertainment industry professionals that helps people build their networks through demo submissions, NFT music/art, social media support, and entertainment industry networking/conventions — launched the Dynasty “Go Get It” NFT Collection, highlighting A&R member and musician Dynasty’s newest track “Go Get It.” NFT holders will receive a physical t-shirt with a DTG Print of the NFT, as well as special access to future events hosted by Dynasty.

Thought Leadership

Tam Gryn, Director of Fine Arts at Rally.io, brings deep arts experience to the Rally team. In “11 Reasons Why Artists Shouldn’t Be Afraid of NFTs”, she shares compelling perspectives on the upside that the NFT market can provide for artists, going beyond the money and into the doors that NFTs can help unlock.

Creator Spotlight

Learn how Bret Kinsella of $BOT used Rally NFTs as a bridge to Ethereum NFTs for his Niftorian NFT Project on the Rally Blog.

Industry News

LinkedIn is getting into podcasts in its latest effort to engage with the creator economy, The Information reported. The professional social-media platform will publish original shows by LinkedIn staff and distribute shows made by independent creators. LinkedIn’s other creator efforts include an accelerator program and $25 million pledged for investment.

OpenSea has hired another senior Meta executive, The Information reported. The largest NFT marketplace hired Chris Ackermann to head its developer experiences program. He was previously a senior director of partner engineering at Meta. OpenSea has also hired a Meta vice president of commerce, Shiva Rajaraman, as its vice president of product.

Pioneering social tokens data and news site Forefront has developed a new DAO framework that it’s calling “Vibez Infinity Flow”. It will implement the framework in its second season. The framework is supposed to help individual DAO members more easily get aligned with the DAO’s objectives as a whole. The idea was developed during Forefront’s “off season” as it took time out to plan the DAO’s future.

Musicians and artists, including a founder of Russian art and activism group Pussy Riot, formed UkraineDAO last week. The DAO would sell a single NFT of the Ukrainian flag, but also launched a PartyBid for the NFT that would allow anyone to buy a fractional slice of the token. The NFT has attracted $4.6 million in Ether in about three and a half days.

FWB treasury member and noted social token issuer Holyn updated her social token guide from 2020 to provide a map of today’s social token landscape. Check out her definitions of the three major social token types: personal, community and creator tokens.

Rally Digest #63 (Mar 1, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social Token Launches

Duncan Robinson — $DBO
“I am the host of the Long Shot Podcast and also a professional basketball player for the Miami Heat. When I am not recording episodes or draining threes on the court, I enjoy deep reddit dives into the crypto/NFT space and hope to integrate this knowledge into my business ecosystem.”

Also launched last week: $MOTV8.

NFT Spotlight

Transcending Dove Collection, Natalie Nichole, $DOVE

Natalie Nichole — best-selling author, singer/songwriter, actress, & entertainer — launched the Transcending Dove Collection, an NFT Collection linked to her #DoveNation Community. Her #DoveNation Discord functions like a game, where members can level up based on how many $DOVE coins they hold. As members level up, they unlock new rewards and access to exclusive benefits, events, and more. You can fast-track to a specific level by purchasing one of the Transcending Dove NFTs.

Project News

Rally Growth - As of February 2022, the collective economy holdings across all creator coins is nearly $110M USD across 280 creators. Of those, 59% have collective economy holdings of more than $100K USD and 10% have collective holdings of more than $1M USD.

Duncan Robinson Launch - On Friday, Duncan Robinson launched $DBO, a new social token focused on rewarding, growing and engaging with his community, spanning listeners of his podcast and more. Watch the announcement video and read press coverage in Business Insider, Sports Illustrated and Crypto Reporter.

Thought Leadership - Rally co-founder Mahesh Vellanki wrote a byline for A16Z’s Future blog highlighting why mass crypto adoption will start with web2 primitives. Rally’s Director of Music Partnerships Bryce Carr was quoted in BeInCrypto talking about the future of music and web3. The article highlights Portugal the Man’s recent presave/token campaign that accompanied their new single.

Creator Spotlight

Catch our interview with Omar Ismail from Temple on the Rally Blog. Temple is a membership platform built for web3. Creators can make content exclusively available to subscribers, and subscribers can pay for that content with social tokens and NFTs. Temple will integrate with other tools and platforms like Discord, WordPress, Shopify, in order to give creators a way to quickly and easily token-gate their membership. Read more here!

Industry News

The investing powerhouse known as SoftBank has invested more than $6 billion into creator economy firms in the last 12 months, The Information reported. Its portfolio includes blockchain metaverse play The Sandbox and creator-financing firm Spotter. The latter gives YouTube creators cash upfront to grow their businesses.

Social tokens could be used to form part of our digital identities, writes Coinvise head of community Eliot Couvat for Forefront. The social tokens one holds in one’s wallet are an indicator of digital reputation. This in turn can be used to beef up identities on crypto networks. But problems remain: wallets aren’t yet designed to make these tokens easily read, and tokens can also be acquired on the open market instead of earned through community contributions or other work.

JPMorgan published a comprehensive report on ‘opportunities in the metaverse’ as part of the work from its Onyx blockchain unit. Among the data it put together: $54 billion is currently spent on virtual goods annually; $80 million was paid to creators last year on Second Life alone; the market capitalization of all NFTs is about $41 billion, or about 2% of the total crypto market cap.

FWB and BanklessDAO contributor 0xJustice published a guide to thinking about contributors and users within a DAO. They define four levels in the “DAO contributor funnel” from user to teams of contributors. They also run through the current state of the art in DAO tooling for each of the levels, from Collab Land to Cal.com.

Social token accelerator Seed Club announced its fourth cohort, comprising 21 projects. This includes Metalabel, a project that will allow others to create “cultural labels” for their collaborative work, that’s started by Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler.

Rally Digest #62 (Feb 23, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social Token Launches

ZsONAMACO Fair Platforms includes Art, Design, Photography & Antiques and supports and promotes creators through $ARTE coin.

Also launched last week: $HYDRA, $MASHI, and $BP4.

NFT Spotlight

ZsONAMACO, $ARTE — Alonso Cedillo’s “Still Life with Smartphones in a Fishpond”

Alonso Cedillo’s (Mexico City, 1988) work explores our post-internet world dissolving the limits between reality and fiction. Since 2018, the artist has focused entirely on working with images which are native to screens through different protocols like painting, sculpture, post-photography, programming, and video. This series takes the idea of still life as a starting point to explore the way in which we relate to technology, its fragility, and its presence in daily life.

Project News

Rally is excited to participate in ETHDenver this year! ETHDenver is the largest Web3 #BUIDLathon in the world (fka hackathon) for Ethereum and other blockchain protocol enthusiasts, designers and developers. This year’s event features simultaneous virtual and in-person events, and kicked off on Friday, February 11th in Denver, CO. Learn more about our bounties here.

Rally is now the home of a Super Bowl champion! Los Angeles Rams return specialist Brandon Powell launched $BP4 on Thursday to establish a digital community for financial literacy. Coinholders will also have access to behind-the-scenes Super Bowl footage. You can read more about Brandon’s launch and motivations in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Falcoholic, a popular Atlanta Falcons blog.

Creator Spotlight

We interviewed Nicholena Moon ($MOON) and discussed community building, token utility, and her extensive gaming background. She’s launched innovative projects with $MOON, including token-gated Hearthstone tournaments.

Industry News

Forbes is going Web3, thanks to Binance buying a $200 million stake in the century-old business publisher, CNBC reported. Binance reportedly did the deal because it thinks the intersection of content, media and Web3 is going to be critical in the coming years. Specifically, there’s a belief that Web3 media tooling is going to grow rapidly, enabling new types of content creation — and profit generation.

Twitter is putting creator products high on its agenda, The Information reported. The social media site’s new chief executive, Parag Agrawal, said on his first earnings calls that its Spaces, newsletter tools and Super Follows products have been gaining favor among creators. The firm’s chief financial officer echoed the sentiment, although specific metrics or product plans were not revealed.

Cameo’s NFTs are launching soon. The app, which lets users pay for celebrities to make personalized shoutouts on video, is dropping a utility NFT called Cameo Pass, The Information reported. Each token costs 2 ETH and gives holders access to events, merch drops and more. The tokens will drop on Feb. 17 on OpenSea.

YouTube is eyeing Web3 integrations and an NFT drop, Decrypt reported. The platform’s chief product officer published a blog post saying that the technology represented an “incredible opportunity” and that NFTs could be coming to help creators “build deeper relationships with their fans.”

CoinDesk ran an op-ed on social tokens from Wachsman staffer Aziz Alangari. Alangari argues that social tokens will take Web3 mainstream quicker than other concepts, like DeFi, because people just get it.

Rally Digest #61 (February 15, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social Token Launches

Crescendo! Podcast — $CRNDO

Crescendo! is a new seasonal podcast from award-winning podcast host and author Greg Bresnitz, which explores the intersection of food and music. Each episode, Bresnitz interviews a chef, who guides listeners through an imaginary menu where each dish is paired with a song. The guests share personal stories and insights about their selections, examining the convergence between these savory, sweet, and sonic moments as they build towards each episode’s Crescendo!

Freestyle Trampoline Association — $FLIPR

By purchasing the FLIPR Coin you are supporting the grass-roots community of Freestyle Trampoline. The coin will unlock NFTs from the Freestyle community in the form of videos of World’s First Skills, Greatest Moments, Influencers, Amazing Athletes and Brand in the community where you can trade and collect the NFTs from the community and be part of the future of the sport of Trampoline. Your investments will fuel the next generation of “Flippers” to take the next step for the global Movement! #FLIPPERcoin

NFT Spotlight

Auggie Velarde’s NFT Clanger recreates organic audio sourced from natural environments with code. The Peru-based musician blends modern sound with algorithmic rhythms, inspired by philosophical perspectives on what the future of audio and our natural environments may look (and sound) like.

Creator Spotlight

Rally creator Nicholena Moon explains how she uses her $MOON coin to host Hearthstone tournaments, provide access to exclusive merch, and more. Our new interview with her gets into how she got started, how it’s going, and what she’s planning for the future.

Industry News

Snapchat’s TikTok competitor, Spotlight, is gaining users, signalling a successful shift by the video platform to retain users, and it’s good news for creators, The Information reported. The Spotlight feature focuses on short-form video and it helped Snap’s stock surge by 60% after it released an earnings report showing its first ever quarterly profit.

Meanwhile, Meta’s TikTok competitor, the Reels feature in Instagram, is also showing signs of traction, The Information reported. During earnings calls, Meta top brass said the feature was its “fastest growing format.” How this translates to revenue for creators isn’t certain yet.

Buzzy creator incubator Launch House has raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz to build “an institution for the new Silicon Valley,” a co-founder told The Information. Creators pay a fee to live in an actual house managed by Launch House, plus an annual membership fee, but don’t have to give up any equity, unlike traditional Valley incubators.

Venerable entertainment title Variety published an opinion piece talking up the potential for DAOs to create a new relationship between artists and fans. “Think of DAOs like artist fan clubs with omnidirectional capability,” writes Infiniteworld’s Jeremy Gilbertson.

Another venerable title, The New Yorker, also published a piece on DAOs recently. It’s a snapshot of the current DAO zeitgeist by regular contributor Kyle Chayka, who himself runs DirtDAO, which features writing by him and others, gated by the DIRT social token.

Coachella is dropping a collection of utility NFTs and partnering with FTX to do it, NFT Now reported. The tokens will grant 10 holders lifetime access to the festival. Two more collections feature iconic festival photos and digital Coachella poster art.

Rally Digest #60 (February 8, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social Token Launches

Banzai Bowls — $BNZI

We are Banzai Bowls, a family owned business named after the famous wave Pipeline which is located on the North Shore of Oahu. Our passion is delivering you with the best hand crafted Acai bowl experience. Our background of surf and skate culture has driven our passion since 2008, and we are always ‘Living life in the bowl’. Excited for this next journey into the crypto space!

NFT Spotlight

Jeremiah Owyang’s “Web Strategy: 2022” NFT grants access to Owayng’s premium Web Strategy group on Discord, providing valuable insights and discussions on digital trends across Web3, Digital Marketing, Corporate Innovating, Tech Wellness, and other related news. Jeremiah provides ongoing links to important news articles for the Discord group to discuss in private, as well as other occasional perks.

Jeff Pulver’s “Oh Dear” NFT — featuring art by Joyce Brian — benefits the WhyHunger foundation, an initiative co-founded by Harry Chapin to feed people in need.

Project News

Creator Mentorship Program Launch — Rally’s Organic Mentorship Program connects newly minted creators to veteran members of our community. Over the course of six weeks, mentors guide their mentees through the launch process & beyond. Read more and sign up to participate on our Wiki!

At the ecosystem level, the RLY Network Association and SuperLayer announced that the network is expanding to Solana. Read more about this move in Decrypt and Coindesk. Meanwhile at Rally.io, we’re building a multi-chain infrastructure for digital economies — including social tokens and NFTs — that is mainnet compatible. We are in the process of determining how and when this will be implemented but are excited at the prospect of launching and building directly on chains like Solana.

Rally executives were busy this week opining on the future of Web3. Check out Rally VP of Product Chris Fortier’s byline in TechCrunch that discusses the ethos of music NFTs and compares the movement to the torrenting boom in the early 2000s, as well as our CEO Bremner Morris’ piece in Rolling Stone that highlights how developers and creators can partner to build creator-first, Web3 tools on top of NFTs and social tokens to give way to a new middle class of creators and artists. VP of Creator Success Stephanie Pereira served as a panelist on the “Bridging Web3 & the Creator Economy” session as well as “The New Creator Distribution Model: Company Ownership” at the Web3 Virtual Conference.

Creator Spotlight

Mark Schaefer takes the stage to share his experience of turning his audience into a vibrant community who are building and learning together thanks to his $RISE token.

Check out our case study of Jaylen Clark’s $JROCK airdrop. His team used a Bonfire social token airdrop to bring some of his large social following to his new token on Rally.

Industry News

“Creator economy app store” Koji has raised $20 million in funding to go after Web3 opportunities, The Information reported. The startup has already unveiled an NFT gallery feature, and the fresh funding includes luminaries of the Web3 space, including a VP of product at OpenSea.

The creator economy IPO pipeline is starting up, with Impact first in line, The Information reported. The firm, which makes marketing software for TikTokkers, YouTubers and more, plans to file to go public later this year.

Twitch takes half of all subscription revenue from creators, followed by YouTube at 30% and OnlyFans at 20%, according to data on take rates analyzed by The Information. Facebook and Instagram take nothing from creator subscriptions. The analysis also notes that subscription revenues can be tiny on certain platforms; YouTube generates mainly ad revenue for creators, and takes 45% of that.

Social token news and data site Forefront has published a resource hub for all things Web3. Its Digital Economy Canon contains hand-picked recommendations for the best podcasts, newsletters, tokenized communities and Web3 tools out there.

Prada and Adidas collaborated on user-generated NFTs, Vogue Business reported. The team-up allows users to submit a selfie that gets scrambled by an algorithm and a filter, and the selected to be minted as an NFT. This is Prada’s first foray into non-fungibles.

Nas’ first NFT collection sold out in minutes and generated $560,000 in sales, NFT Now reported. The hip-hop star minted his tokens on Royal, a platform developed by DJ and longtime Web3 denizen 3LAU. It was the first live NFT drop on the platform.

Rally Digest #59 (February 1, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome to the Rally Digest, a weekly round-up of everything that’s happening around the Rally project.

NFT Spotlight

Cat Crate by alliestrasza $ALLIE

alliestrasza’s Cat Crate NFT grants the holder a random Allie Cat NFT — 1 of 500 unique cats based on Allie’s real life animals Willow, Po, Tai, and Mika. Holding an Allie Cat NFT grants access to play-to-earn games exclusive to the Allie Cat community.

Fountain by TMFA $ART

“Fountain” is one of Duchamp’s most famous works and is seen as an icon of twentieth-century art. TMFA’s work is a 2021 replica of “Fountain” made in Blender to resemble the original porcelain object.

Creator Spotlight

Catch our interview with Emery’s Devin Shelton, and learn how the indie hard rock band became a “digital-first band,” launched its $WALLS Creator Coin, and changed its business model after 20 years of making music.

Industry News

NFTs are coming to Instagram and Facebook. That’s according to reporting from the Financial Times, which says users of those platforms will soon be able to display their NFTs as their profile pictures. The platforms are also working on longer term plans to create NFT marketplaces where users can trade and mint tokens.

Speaking of NFTs as profile pics, Twitter’s long awaited NFT verification feature is now live, Decrypt reported. Users who pay for Twitter Blue, a subscription service that’s available in some markets, can link NFTs in their Ethereum wallets to their profile pictures. These linked images appear in a hexagonal frame on Twitter.

Tom Brady’s NFT marketplace Autograph has raised $170 million in funding from a cast of top investors, including former a16z partner Katie Haun’s new firm, The Information reported. The platform counts top athletes like Tiger Woods, Naomi Osaka, Derek Jeter and Tony Hawk among those who have issued collections there.

Meanwhile, the NFT fantasy football (that’s ‘soccer’ to some) giant Sorare announced that Serena Williams is joining its board, Fortune reported. The tennis great will be advising the firm on building relationships with top athletes, and to increase diversity in Web3.

NFT marketplaces are so hot right now. Coinbase is partnering with Mastercard on its new NFT platform so that users can use their credit or debit cards to buy NFTs directly, The Verge reported. That means users won’t have to go through cumbersome account opening processes on a crypto exchange before getting the funds to buy NFTs elsewhere. Super-fast fiat onboarding ramps: Priceless.

Rally Digest #58 (January 26, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Welcome to the Rally Digest, a weekly round-up of everything that’s happening around the Rally project.

New Creators:

Natasha May-Thomas/ $NMT

Natasha May-Thomas is a professional performer based in London.

The British actress and dancer has shared the stage with iconic industry stars including Camila Cabello, performing as a backup dancer at The 2020 Global Awards. She has also played the role of ‘Louise’ in the world famous musical ‘Carousel’ at the renowned Regents Park Open Air Theatre & more recently has been cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella in London’s West End.

May-Thomas was recently awarded two awards at the prestigious Black British Theatre Awards for Best Recent Graduate and Best Supporting Female Actor in a musical.

Mitch Rossell/ $MITCH

Artist/Songwriter based in Nashville, TN with over 27 Million Streams worldwide. Also written hit songs for Garth Brooks including “Ask Me How I Know” and “Dive Bar” feat. Blake Shelton.

Dane/ $DANE

Streamer and Youtuber focused on the game Hearthstone, finding creative ways to help waste your time.

Raw/ $KICK

Set up in 2016, at first, RAW was an organization composed by international booking agents working for talents coming from all over the world.

Over the years and always seeking for innovation in the scene, the collective gradually created a large network, activities, and roster including some of the most iconic faces of the techno scene.

Now as a label, events producer, booking and management agency, studio RAW is becoming one of the most interesting techno groups in Europe to follow.

NFT Spotlight:

Geoff Measy’s Crystal Ball NFT grants the holder a 1x 60 min psychic reading by celebrity psychic Yankee, as well as a whitelist entry into an upcoming NFT launch from the $LFG coin community. Amongst all whitelisted Crystal Ball NFT holders, one person will win a free NFT from the $LFG collection.

David Berkowitz’s (The Serial Marketer) Premier Member Coin NFT will be distributed to premier-level members of the Serial Marketers community in January 2022, adding onto the benefits of premier members of the community alongside Slack access, professional support and mentorship in marketing, and event invitations.

Project News:

2022 Priorities

On Thursday, Rally CEO Bremner Morris shared a blog post that highlights the key wins for 2021 and the top priorities for 2022 and created a thread in the RLY forums for comments and questions.

Creator Spotlight:

Learn more about Naomi and Mar ($WAO) and how they leverage their token economy to give back to their community while traveling the globe.

Industry News:

Creators are becoming hot tickets as investors. Startup founders are increasingly reserving allocations in their funding rounds for creators, The Information reported. Creators are seen as valuable investors because they can provide insightful feedback and help grow a startup’s user-base. Examples are fashion influencer Danielle Bernstein, YouTuber Casey Neistat and TikTokker Kris Collins.

The intersection of payments, crypt0 and creators is growing. A publicly listed Canadian firm called BBTV Holdings is letting creators get paid in Bitcoin and Ether, The Information reported. Meanwhile, a startup called Lumanu is helping creators set the percentage of their revenues they would like to keep in cryptocurrencies. It’s as simple as a slider, Lumanu’s founder told The Information.

World of Women NFTs are surging. The NFT collection signed celebrity agent Guy Oseary to represent it last week, leading to a boost in trading volume, Decrypt reported. Oseary also represents the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and has managed Madonna and U2. World of Women already counts actress Reese Witherspoon and investor Gary Vaynerchuk among its fans.

Budweiser is launching its next NFT project, Budweiser Royalty, NFT Now reported. The beer brand will work with 22 emerging artists to release a collection of 11,000 NFTs. The NFTs have three tiers, with each one unlocking more special experiences for its holders. The brand is working with VaynerNFT on the project.

Vinyl toy studio Superplastic is planning its second NFT drop, this time with a massive cast of celebrities and brands, NFT Now reported. The firm has roped in Gucci, Paris Hilton and more for a collection called Episode 2: Headtripz. The studio will release 10,000 programmatically generated NFTs on Jan. 18. Superplastic previously dropped its first NFT collection with Christie’s in July.

Rally Digest #57 (January 18, 2022) was originally published in Rally.io — Social Tokens + NFTs for Creators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.