​​Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s Nifty Newsletter. Keep reading to stay up-to-date with the latest stories on nonfungible tokens. Every Wednesday, the Nifty Newsletter informs and inspires you to dig deeper into the latest NFT trends and insights.

Read about how NASA uses virtual reality (VR) technology and the metaverse to train its astronauts in this week’s newsletter. What’s behind the decline in the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs? And Cointelegraph has exclusive updates from Paris Blockchain Week, including Ubisoft’s blockchain gaming plans.

NASA created a VR metaverse to prep astronauts for life on the lunar space station

While most of us spend our time in the metaverse trading assets or bopping around in virtual reality on legless avatars, astronauts working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX are using the metaverse to prepare for life aboard a lunar space station that has yet to be built.

The first humans to make their homes in deep space, according to NASA, will be the team tasked with operating a space station currently under development called “Gateway.”

Continue reading

Ubisoft teases new blockchain game at Paris Blockchain Week

AAA game studio Ubisoft is edging closer to releasing its first blockchain-based game after releasing the first gameplay trailer for Champions Tactics Grimoria during Paris Blockchain Week.

The tactical player-vs-player role-playing game’s lead developers gave Cointelegraph an exclusive playthrough at the conference. The RPG allows players to craft blockchain-based figurines with unique features and characteristics that can be combined into a team of three for the turn-based game.

Continue reading

Bored Ape NFT floor price hits lowest point in over two and a half years

The floor price of BAYC NFTs has fallen over 90% from its peak to 11.1 Ether (ETH) — its lowest point since August 2021.

BAYC is now approaching a sub-10 ETH floor price after a 50% fall since March 1 alone, according to NFT Price Floor.

The NFT collection’s fall from a peak of 128 ETH set on May 1, 2022, is part of an industry-wide decline in popularity for digital art NFTs.

However, it should be noted that a few BAYC NFTs have continued to sell significantly above their floor price, which is calculated by taking the lowest-priced NFT in a given collection.

Continue reading

VeChain announces tokenized gloves in partnership with UFC

According to an April 12 blog post from VeChain, gloves worn by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters will soon be tokenized, and their identities will be tracked on the VeChainThor network.

The gloves will contain VeChain near-field communication chips that record fight data, proving the authenticity of each pair, the post stated. After the fight, the athletes will “donate and give away” their gloves, making them into collectors’ items.

The chips inside each pair will allow a buyer to check the item’s authenticity via a VeChainThor network smart contract. Fighters began wearing the gloves at UFC 300 on April 13.

Continue reading

Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.