Get your daily, bite-sized digest of NFT news today – investigating the stories flying under the radar among the latest NFT news.

NFT Market Data

Over the past 24 hours, the non-fungible token (NFT) sales volume has decreased 3.6% to $40,640,116.

Buyers are down nearly 5.6%, the number of sellers fell 10%, and transactions dropped 5.7%, according to CryptoSlam.

Among the top 10 collections by sales volume today, Pandora and Uncategorized Ordinals are the day’s main roles.

Unaspiringly, Pandora is still in first place overall. Though it’s down 13%, its sales volume of $4.3 million is still far away from any other collection on the list.

Uncategorized Ordinals are up 45% to 1.65 million, sitting in second place now.

This is also the top gainer today. Meanwhile, Pandora saw the highest decrease in this category.

Studio 369 Announces MetalCore’s Closed Beta with Rewards for NFT Holders

Studio 369, a game studio building the first-person shooter (FPS) MetalCore, has issued an official “Call to Arms” to players as the studio prepares for the game’s next milestone moment.

According to the press release, “Call to Arms” is an invite-only playtest that provides early fans a first-hand look at the updated game.

The “Call to Arms” MetalCore Closed Beta begins on February 26. It comes with a missions system, new rewards, and daily in-game quests with bonuses for top performers.

Moreover, players can get more in-game rewards and exclusive access by picking up a MetalCore Genesis Infantry NFT.

This is a collection of 10,000 unique and playable Infantry NFTs, built with a wide variety of traits and levels of rarity.

Players who get (and hold) their Genesis Infantry before February 29 will see the NFTs playable in the next Closed Beta cycle.

SECRET INTEL LEAKED

A Call to Arms Closed Beta begins FEB 26th

Hurry soldier! The next piece of intel is in our Discord.

Pre-register at https://t.co/sY2YwgdLWH and join our Discord to gain your battlefield advantage. pic.twitter.com/ichMMWaMq9

— METALCORE | Let’s #PlayMetalCore! (@playmetalcore) February 20, 2024

Created in July 2022, MetalCore Infantry is a genesis NFT collection of playable Infantry.

The OpenSea marketplace describes MetalCore as “a visually stunning, open world, mechanized combat FPS game built by veteran game developers and Hugo Award-winning artists.”

Per OpenSea, the collection’s total volume is 687 ETH. The floor price was 0.149 ETH at the time of writing.

Studio 369 CEO Matt Candler stated that the Closed Beta playtest “signifies an important development milestone for Studio 369 – it is really the first opportunity for us to introduce players to the MetalCore economy and deep and extensive mechanics we have been building.”

The announcement added that the “Call to Arms” is the first of several key moments players can expect from MetalCore in the coming months. Studio 369 is preparing for the game’s public open beta launch, which is currently set for Spring 2024.

In late January, MetalCore announced it would be one of the first games on Immutable zkEVM, powered by Polygon.

MetalCore will be one of the first games on Immutable zkEVM, powered by @0xPolygon

With zero gas fees for gamers, turnkey smart contract templates, and industry leading security, we couldn’t imagine building anywhere else

Proud to hold such a position in #Web3Gaming most… pic.twitter.com/109CEMEyZG

— METALCORE | Let’s #PlayMetalCore! (@playmetalcore) January 31, 2024

Following a $39M Airdrop, Optimism Says There is $2BN More to Come

Following the latest airdrop, Layer 2 network Optimism has told users not to worry: even if they missed this one, more is coming.

The announcement stated that more airdrops are in the pipeline.

“Optimism has committed to giving 19% of the total initial token supply to the community through Airdrops.  With the growing community of engaged users across the Superchain, there is plenty more to be given throughout the Superchain.”

Per the team, roughly 560 million OP remains for future airdrops, translating to $2.12 billion per the current price.

At the time of writing, the OP token was down 1% over the past 24 hours. Per CoinGecko, it trades at $3.78.

It’s up 1% in a week and 21% in a month. Over the past year, its price has appreciated 45%.

In May 2022, Optimism conducted Airdrop 1, giving over 200 million OP tokens to 250,000 early adopters and engaged users. The second and third airdrops followed in February and September 2023.

The latest airdrop 4 allocated a total of 10,343,757.81 OP to 22,998 addresses. This is worth $39,099,405.

According to the announcement, this is a thank you to the artists and “their ability to bring creativity onchain.”

1/ Create together, and benefit together. That’s the Superchain.

Today, @Optimism unveils Airdrop #4.

Allocating 10M+ OP to over 22k unique addresses.

Read more about how to claim here: https://t.co/smGLcc4yID pic.twitter.com/E8YUGFo8gW

— Optimism (@Optimism) February 20, 2024

Per the provided doc, the eligible creators were those who created NFT art from January 10, 2023, to January 10, 2024, on the Ethereum mainnet or Optimism’s Superchain, a chain of interconnected Layer 2 networks.

Users can claim the tokens until February 13, 2025.

Notably, the airdrop distributed the tokens based on how much gas users spent during the minting process or while trading NFTs. This means that the creator’s reward amount depended on their art’s popularity.

Source: community.optimism.io

Tezos-based NFT Cricket Game Surpasses 12,000 NFT Transaction

In the latest NFT news, Cricket Stars, India’s strategy-based NFT cricket game, hit a major milestone last month.

Per the announcement shared with Cryptonews, it surpassed 5,000 monthly active players and more than 12,000 NFT transactions on the Tezos blockchain.

Released in November 2023, free-to-play Cricket Stars is designed by GoLive Games Studio. It offers a mix of sports strategy and cricket gameplay.

Players collect cricket skills as tradable playing cards, enabling them to devise strategies and compete in real-time player-vs-player esports matches, the announcement said.

Source: Cricket Stars

Jeremy Foo, Head of Gaming at Trilitech, a London-based adoption team for the Tezos blockchain, commented that Cricket Stars’ achievement is “a testament to the growing interest blockchain technology has on games.”

The team attributes Cricket Stars’s success to GoLive Games Studio’s marketing campaigns, collaborations with influencers, participation in college festivals, and engagement with gaming networks like IndiGG and STAN.

Ravi Kiran, CEO of GoLive Games Studios, stated that,

“With the upcoming Indian Premier League Cricket tournament, we anticipate substantial growth, projecting a 2-3x increase month-on-month till April, and an overall 8-10x growth in just three months.”

The company also plans to scale the game’s tournament feature with bigger online tournaments and to add offline tournaments in various cities.

The post Here’s the Latest NFT News Today appeared first on Cryptonews.