November 2022 Issue
Get the inside scoop on the latest news, trends, and happenings in the Solverse.
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Infinity Labs Newsletter!
We're pleased to introduce our inaugural edition of the Infinity Labs Newsletter and we’re so happy you're here. We aim to bring you the latest updates, news, and happenings in the Solverse - straight to your inbox.
We know it can be difficult to catch up with Discord and extrapolate all the highlights. So, we created a newsletter so you can have a sneak peek of the historical happenings and other related content in the Solverse.
We hope you enjoy this new way of staying up to date on the latest news and happenings in the Infinity Labs ecosystem.
Thank you for being on this ride with us!
To Infinity. 🚀
A Message from Eve, CEO & Co-Founder of Infinity Labs
Hi everyone!
Eve here, thank you for taking time to read our inaugural newsletter. It’s so nice to see you. It’s been a wild year for many, and we’re excited to launch this initiative based on feedback from the community. [Special shoutout to one of our community members, Aldous Dakota for suggesting we run this via Substack instead of Klaviyo!].
Think of this newsletter like a transmission of light from the depths of the Solverse straight to your inbox.
Since this is our first newsletter, you might see us play around with the format and cadence from time to time. The intent is for us to experiment and try iterating on a better experience. For now, we’ll start with a monthly cadence containing Infinity Labs updates and some relevant ecosystem news. This issue includes a range of highlights from our recent IRL presence at Breakpoint to our 1 year anniversary, merging & infrastructure updates, infinity quests, open community grants, and broader ecosystem involvement.
If you know anyone who would be interested in these updates, feel free to share the newsletter with a friend!
I also wanted to give a big thank you to infinity community members that I was able to meet in person recently at Solana Breakpoint. Feeling your energy meant the absolute world to me. Thanks for being with us on this journey, and I look forward to meeting more of our community members in the future!
To Infinity,
Eve
Infinity Labs Celebrated Its First Year Anniversary
September 28th marks the one-year anniversary of Infinity Labs, the first “collect & merge” collection to unlock animated NFTs on the Solana blockchain. Our Scenes from the Solverse Collection was a record-breaking sold-out collection and also became the #1 traded collection on Solana for a time.
In our anniversary post, we look back on how it all started and drool over the important events and happenings in the ecosystem. It’s just like yesterday when it all started. We have explored a long way and still navigating in space.
Take a look at our one-year anniversary video with easter eggs where keen seekers were able to claim a Rahma creature, in a special collaboration with Project Eluüne.
Newly-Revamped Solverse Wiki
Since last year, we've received thousands of lore entries submitted by explorers across the world and now we brought them all together in one place.
The wiki is now live and it’s been updated with everyone’s lore. Currently, there are 1,143 pages with over 3,000 edits and still counting.
Got a piece of lore entry to a specific scene? You can now add it directly to the wiki.
Here’s a 3-step guide on how you can get started.
Check out the newly revamped Solverse Wiki and see thousands of stories submitted by explorers all over the world.
First-Ever Infinity Creator Grants
We've noticed that there are many brilliant and talented folks in our community. Through this, it ignited us to initiate the first-ever "Infinity Grants" which aims to further support those in our community who want to build things within our ecosystem.
We introduced this initiative to our community last July and we’re proud to say that we’ve received some outstanding grant applications. The first 3 awardees are the following (including their proposal):
Koen ‘Guess the Scene - web3 game’
Edward ‘Infinity IRL Gallery’
Aaron ‘Solverse audio adventure’
Each award recipient gets up to $1000 USDC to assist them in developing their proposal.
In case you missed our medium blog post about the Infinity Grants, you can read it here.
Grant applications are still open and are reviewed on a rolling basis. If you have an interesting idea, you can submit your application.
Infinity Labs Quest: Search For The Nova Elixir
Last July, we kicked off our very first online scavenger hunt and we dared our community to take the journey. For this inaugural quest, Explorers set off on a quest to search for the missing artifact in the Solverse - The Nova Elixir.
This is no ordinary adventure and we really set it to the next level. Overall, those who participated enjoyed the hunt and many of them successfully found the correct path and solved the quest. As a reward, the collectible mystical 3D artifact is intended to be airdropped to those who completed the quest by end of the year.
Thanks also to those who provided feedback on the quest in the #quest-feedback channel on Discord, we appreciate everyone who took the time!
Infinity Labs Rebranding: New Logo
Say hello to Infinity Labs’ new logo!
Infinity Labs unveiled its new logo as part of the continued development of its brand. The purpose of rebranding is to create a fresh and distinct brand identity in the NFT space.
It has often been said that the old logo is too generic and commonly used (but it was iconic!). So, we decided it was time to rebrand our logo and take on a more unique and identifiable look.
In the new logo, the "I" and "L" obviously represent the initials of Infinity Labs.
We hope you like it as much as we do!
8-Timeline Merging Update
As you likely already know, we have released the 2-timeline merging with 1111 handmade animations, one for each of the unique scenes.
For full merging: The art is finished and the tech is ready to deploy to enable up to 8-timeline merging. However, internal issues have created some blockers for official release, taking longer than expected to resolve. More details coming soon, though we intend to release full merging as soon as we can. We’re excited.
In the meantime, we thought you might be interested in checking our latest infrastructure updates in the Solverse and we recommend you give it a read.
Infinity Labs at Solana’s Breakpoint Conference
Infinity Labs attended this year’s Solana Breakpoint Conference in Lisbon, Portugal!
The team met with many builders in the Solana ecosystem and forged some new connections/ potential partners throughout the conference. The team was also happy to have met so many community members and supporters IRL at various events throughout the week.
Our Founder, Eve, was selected as one of the speakers at the conference (over 800+ applied!), and spoke in front of attendees about Infinity Labs and the journey so far, among other exciting things.
It was lovely to meet Infinity community members in person and we hope to have more IRL presence at events like this in the future.
BROADER ECOSYSTEM NEWS
Magic Eden Adopts Optional Royalties, Infinity Leadership In Royalties Conversations
Magic Eden, Solana's largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens, announced that creator royalties will be optional and will also be waiving all platform fees for the foreseeable future.
“This is not a decision we take lightly. We understand this move has serious implications for the ecosystem,” Magic Eden said on Twitter. “We also hope it is not a permanent decision. Today, royalties are not enforceable on-chain. We welcome and hope to see new standards that protect royalties.”
On the other hand, Magic Eden stated that they are contributing $1M in funds to further develop better royalty enforcement and alternative monetization tools.
Magic Eden, one of the biggest Solana NFT Marketplaces has launched a hackathon with a million-dollar prize pool after a recent massive controversy on their implementation of making creator royalties optional.
Several judges have signed up for the event and we’re pleased to announce that our Founder, Eve, accepted Magic Eden’s invitation to be one of the judges and aid with their hackathon.
Instagram and Facebook to become Social NFT Marketplace
Meta recently announced that creators on Instagram can make their own digital art and sell them on its platform. Creators will now have access to a toolbox that will enable them to produce, market, and sell NFTs.
The introduction of NFTs on Instagram is part of Meta's larger aim to create revenue-generating capabilities for creators in its apps.
The Solana blockchain has recently announced NFT integration with Facebook and Instagram to allow users to showcase their digital art. In addition, Solana has worked with leading NFT ecosystem marketplaces, creators, and infrastructure projects.
Nice Newsletter :)
really appreciate it ! ;)