Nifty News: NFT restaurant crumbles, Binance NFT ends Polygon support and more

The restaurant was being built alongside a private members lounge that was only open to people who bought NFTs, but rising construction costs ultimately halted the project.

Bold plans for a non-fungible token linked restaurant and private members lounge in San Francisco have come to an abrupt end, after the company behind the project halted construction due to challenging macroeconomic factors.

The two venues were being built on Salesforce Park, and were going to be dubbed the “Sho Restaurant” and “Sho Club Sky Lounge.”

The latter was only going to be accessible to holders of the Sho Club NFTs, which cost anywhere from $7,500 to $300,000, and offered access to other future Sho Group hospitality offerings.

Speaking with San Francisco-focused news website SFGATE on Sept. 7, Sho Group CEO Joshua Sigel stated that it was no longer possible to build the project, and confirmed that the company ended its lease agreement in July.

The CEO noted that: “Despite a strong demand for the concept with millions of dollars in both pre-sold and reserved memberships […] we ultimately could not address the many concerns brought about by potential investors, most of which have been around the future of SF and the rising costs of constructing the restaurant.”

Sigel went on to highlight difficult macro factors that ended up making construction costs too expensive such as “labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty, and inflation.”

Sigel says Sho Group has refunded everyone who bought the NFTs.

Binance NFT ends support for Polygon

Binance’s NFT marketplace suddenly announced that it will soon wind down support for Polygon-based NFTs, but did not provide a clear explanation as to why.

In a Sept. 8 blog post, Binance NFT stated that it will be discontinuing its The Sandbox NFT Staking Program later this month, citing a decision to streamline product offerings on the platform.

The program allows users to stake their Polygon-based LAND NFTs from The Sandbox to earn SAND token rewards, however it will officially shut down as of Sept. 26.

Users will have their NFTs automatically unstaked and returned to the spot wallets.

As part of the closure of the program, Binance NFT also stated that support for the Polygon network will come to an end on the same day, with users being given until Dec. 31 to withdraw all their Polygon NFTs from the marketplace.

Explaining the move, all Binance NFT stated was that “more details will be provided to impacted users at a later date.”

Reddit launches NFL NFTs

To celebrate the new NFL season that kicked off this week, NFT-friendly social media platform Reddit launched NFL-themed NFT avatar collectibles.

TODAY IS THE DAY Introducing NFL #RedditCollectibles for all 32 @NFL teams (limited to 500 units per team). Draft yours now! #NFLxReddit #2023NFLKickoff https://t.co/e43sIHl9oW pic.twitter.com/WOjRagyJmv

— Reddit (@Reddit) September 6, 2023

The collection was launched on Sept. 7 and covers all 32 teams. The NFTs are being sold for $25 a pop and the artwork depicts the Reddit Snoo mascot wearing the various uniforms.

There are 500 tokens available per team, however at the time of writing it appears that many of the sets have more than 400 NFTs still available, suggesting there hasn’t been any rush to snap them up yet.

Rumble Kong League x Stance

As part of a partnership with NBA star Paul George and popular sock, underwear and T-Shirt brand Stance, NFT project Rumble Kong League has dropped phygital basketball socks.

The drop is part of a broader collaborative project dubbed Hyper Socks, which will eventually see the launch of a 3v3 basketball game with play-to-earn features.

Related: NFT startup Rario loses founders after $120M funding last year: Report

The first stage of the project saw the sale of tokenized socks that can be used in the upcoming game.

In a Sept. 8 announcement, the Rumble Kong League team kicked off stage two by opening up the sale of 250 boxes of physical Stance sox, that are themed with the cartoon gorilla avatars from the project.

Two legends in their field, joining forces to create greatness.

The RKL x @Stance HyperSocks are live!

Top performance rare fur quality that’ll create a spark on any basketball court.

Only 250 available!

Grab your box before they’re gone! pic.twitter.com/3rQXtTtciI

— Rumble Kong League (@RumbleKongs) September 8, 2023

The partnership marks a significant mainstream partnership for the project, considering Stance’s ties to the NBA and other pro sports leagues. 

Other Nifty News:

The team behind NFT project OnChainMonkey is shifting its entire collection of 10,000 NFTs from Ethereum to Bitcoin, in a massive undertaking expected to take several months.

The Base network’s “Onchain Summer” promotion in August resulted in over 700,000 NFTs minted by over 268,000 unique wallets, according to a Sept. 6 announcement from the team.

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