On a bright note, NFT sales have been higher during the month of November, as there were $568.19 million in digital collectible sales last month, which is roughly 22.37% more than the month prior. However, the number of NFT buyers is down 12.83%, and the quantity of NFT transactions slipped 27.09% lower than last month’s number of NFT transactions.

Out of the $568.19 million in NFT sales, $443.55 million worth of those sales were Ethereum-based NFTs. The biggest month-over-month NFT sales increase stemmed from Arbitrum blockchain NFT sales as Arbitrum NFT sales rose by 46.83%. Below Ethereum and Arbitrum-based NFT sales, Fantom sales were 43.58% higher than the month before.

During the last seven days, NFT sales are up 5.13% higher than the week before. Additionally, over the last two days, the floor value of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs managed to jump above the floor value of Cryptopunks NFTs by more than four ETH.

Ripple’s XRP Ledger blockchain has recorded a new record NFT sale, with an XPUNK NFT — a clone of the popular Ethereum-native CryptoPunk NFTs — selling for 108,900 XRP, about $44,000 at the time of sale on Nov. 25.

Pearpop, a celebrity-focused social media startup, has raised $18 million in the second tranche of a Series A round.  The company is now valued at $300 million after previously raising $16 million in the first tranche.

Pearpop allows creators and brands to market their products by collaborating with celebrities and influencers. These celebrities use their social media platforms like TikTok to promote the brands they collaborate with, with Pearpop providing insights and a compensation mechanism. It has attracted leading brands including Amazon, Netflix, Chipotle, and Rakuten, while Doja Cat, The Weeknd, and Madonna are some of the celebrities using the platform.

The company plans to use this funding to expand and launch two new products called Ovation and Passport. Passport is a blockchain-based solution designed to enhance creator insights, giving them access to data related to audience engagement across multiple platforms.

The company is working on a blockchain-based product, Pearproof, which allows celebrities to mint NFTs from their social media posts. The Viral NFT platform allows NFTs to gain in value based on the popularity of the underlying social media posts.

In other headlines,

• OpenSea Opens to BNB Chain NFT. Read More
• Gary Vee-Backed NFT Startup Candy Digital Cuts Staff in Mass Layoffs. Read More
• Deadmau5’s Pixelynx Unveils NFT Scavenger Hunt: ‘Rock Band Meets Pokémon Go’. Read More
• Bored & Hungry restaurant runs pop-up at Phillippine blockchain week. Read More

Our sister brand, LOCGame is holding a CYBER WEEK sale! 🛒🚀

Until Friday, LOCGame’s NFT card packs from the Apollo and Awakening collections are -50% off! 🤑

Sales are already LIVE via our in-game store: http://earlyaccess.locgame.io

Web3 gaming DAO, Game7, has launched a $100 million grant program to enable game developers to build the tools needed to make Web3 gaming better and more accessible.

Deployed over the next five years at $20 million per year, the $100 million grant is intended to be distributed to projects across technology, events, diversity, education, and research. Game7 believes that Web3 gaming and metaverse infrastructures should be public, open-source, and interoperable and its milestone-based grants are a foundational funding mechanism for the ecosystem.

“Improving smart contract standards, tooling, interoperable wallets, and scaling solutions will be crucial on the path to global adoption of Web3 games,” said Game7 core contributor Ronen Kirsh, in a statement. “We have allocated 20% of our committed treasury to fund each of these crucial components so the gaming industry can focus on building sustainable game economies.”

In other news,

• Aeria Studio Canada and Ready Games Partner to Bring Web3 Gaming to Android. Read More
• Web3 Games Company Midnight Emerges From Stealth with $7.5M Seed Funding. Read More
• A16z Leads Roboto Games’ $15M Round. Read More

Sotheby’s Institute has announced the launch of The Metaversity for Creative Business Leaders, an 8-week virtual program dedicated to upskilling cultural and creative business professionals on the fundamentals of Web3 technology.

The program signals Sotheby’s desire to establish itself as a destination for web3 education and thought leadership. Drawing on the research of Sotheby’s Institute faculty, the program offers case studies from global brand leaders such as Sotheby’s, Tiffany, Nike, Gucci, and more, as well as insight from crypto and blockchain experts who examine web3 technology through a cultural and creative lens.

“The accelerating developments in blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and the metaverse continue to reinvent our understanding of material culture and how cultural objects and consumer goods are produced, consumed and transacted,” says Sotheby’s Institute faculty member and Metaversity program designer, Gareth Fletcher, whose current research explores the integration of traditional market processes within web3.

In other news,

• Sony Launches Motion-Tracking Metaverse Wearables. Read More
• Blockchain group Animoca to form a metaverse fund. Read More
• Gucci Enters The Metaverse. Read More