Milan, 16 January 2023 – The Bennet NFT Club, the first loyalty project created by a company in the large-scale retail sector based on blockchain technology and Non Fungible tokens, has been officially launched. A system entirely made in Italy by Smiling, a Milan-based Innovation Company specializing in blockchain for marketing.

Who the Bennet NFT Club is aimed at

Bennet NFT Club is a loyalty platform dedicated to tech-savvy customers of any age, with a special focus on millennials and “customers of the future” who will drive new buying trends, with new and experimental initiatives.

This is an initiative that has no precedent in Italy in the retail sector, and very few internationally, and is part of a trend of extremely innovative Web 3.0 / Blockchain projects pioneered today only by multinationals active in the world of sports and entertainment.

From Bennet’s headquarters they stated:

“We are very proud of our loyalty project based on a community token created thanks to blockchain and NFT technology, which is already enjoying considerable success. The Bennet NFT Club was announced in December 2022 in a teaser phase with a landing page on the Bennet.com eCommerce website, and in just a few weeks, the number of registrants exceeds the NFTs available for this first launch phase (2,700 in total). Bennet invested in this project first to experiment, but the first response from the public is extremely encouraging. We are curious to enter the future (digital and blockchain) together with our customers and very motivated to add a new stage in that development path that has made our company a reference point for digital innovation in Italy and abroad.”

How the Bennet NFT Club works: packages available

The Bennet NFT Club is an initiative open to everyone, both registered customers (there are more than 2 million in Italy) and non-members: anyone can access the dedicated web page https://nft.bennet.com/ and sign up by providing their personal data and connecting their blockchain wallet (MetaMask or others).

The user is offered three collections of Non-Fungible Tokens for a total of 2,700 different digital objects offered, whose basic design takes its cue from Bennet’s new shopping bags made by IED-Istituto Europeo di Design in 2022 (https://www.bennet.com/shopper-bennet-ied). 

The three NFTs by Bennet collections have three different cost ranges and, correspondingly, three different benefit packages, and all offer the chance to participate in a contest that is unprecedented to date: the prizes up for grabs are in fact six listed NFTs, minted on the blockchain by leading brands such as Gucci, Nike, Adidas, and The Sandbox (one of the most well-known metaverse).

The packages currently available to access the Bennet NFT Club today are: 

1. NFT Platinum, costing 30 euros including the following benefits: 

• 25 euros in shopping vouchers at any Bennet supermarket, 
• An exclusive NFT from the new Bennet Shopper Collection in collaboration with IED Milano,
• The New Bennet Shopping bag 2023 designed by IED, 
• the chance to enter the contest for the drawing of an NFT from The Sandbox, worth €1,900, and an NFT “RTFKT x Nike Dunk Genesis HMN Cryptokicks,” worth €970.

1. NFT Gold, at a cost of 25 euros including the following benefits: 

• 20 euro shopping vouchers at any Bennet supermarket.
• An exclusive NFT from the new Bennet Shopper Collection in collaboration with IED Milano,
• The New Bennet Shopping bag 2023 designed by IED,
• the chance to enter the contest for the drawing of two NFTs from the 10 KTF Gucci Grail line, one worth €960 the other worth €810.

1. NFT Silver, at a cost of 20 euros including the following benefits: 

• 15 euro shopping vouchers at any Bennet supermarket, 
• An exclusive NFT from the new Bennet Shopper Collection in collaboration with IED Milano.
• The New Bennet Shopping bag 2023 designed by IED,
• the chance to participate in the contest for the drawing of an NFT “RTFKT x Nike Dunk Genesis HMN Cryptokicks” worth €740 and an NFT from the “Adidas Originals” line worth €700.

With this innovative loyalty project, Bennet begins a multi-stage journey that aims to guarantee its customers new services and exclusive benefits through the different kind of interaction between the physical and virtual worlds made available by the metaverse. An interaction that will also take different forms with respect to the brand and bring added value for the customer and the community. By 2026, Gartner forecasts say that 25% of the population will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse between work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment.

An unprecedented contest

Moreover, all NFTs by Bennet offer the opportunity to participate (for the first time) in a contest that puts up for grabs 6 NFTs whose latest market value is between €700 and €1,900 based on a public price: each individual NFT has a history of multiple purchases and sales tracked on Opensea, on which they were purchased specifically to be put up for grabs. 

These 6 NFTs were originally “minted” (i.e., “produced on the blockchain”) and then auctioned on OpenSea by prestigious International brands such as Adidas, Nike, Gucci, and The Sandbox. 

In fact, the 6 NFTs are individual pieces part of the well-known Adidas Originals, RTFKT-Nike Dunk Genesis Cryptokicks, 10 KTFGucci Grail as well as from the well-known Metaverse The Sandbox collections; all 6 NFTs are currently visible, but unavailable, on the Opensea page of Smiling https://opensea.io/smiling-blockchain from which they will then be transferred to the winners who can re-list and list them on the market and/or dispose of them through their wallet in another way.

The different applications of NFTs in the distribution sector

NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens, which originated as tools to digitize collectible items generating $41 billion in spending in 2021 (source: Metav.rs, https://metav.rs/blog/nft-market-statistics-2021-2022/), are becoming a particularly interesting tool for brand enhancement and value creation. 

Giorgio D’amore, CEO of the Innovation Company, added:

“Smiling has been among the pioneers in Italy in the realization of applications for NFTs, launching one of the very first projects in the world applied to e-commerce: the ‘EATABLE TOKENS’ of Italiaregina.it, the largest vertical online shop for the sale abroad of Italian food excellence. Together with Bennet we now want to change the future of loyalty. At this point in the market where many companies are acting with extreme fear, Bennet instead is launching with us into a new adventure which users have shown they like even before it has begun. It is worth noting that this is only a first step; we have other open sites in this area that we will launch in the near future.”

About Bennet

Bennet was born in the early 1960s from a vision of Enzo Ratti. Since then its expansion has been continuous, transforming it over the past 60 years into a market leader in hypermarkets and shopping centers, with locations throughout northern Italy.

Bennet has 69 hypermarkets and superstores and 59 active bennetdrive pickup points, with a total sales area of about 350,000 sq. m., more than 7,000 employees, 50 shopping malls of its own and more than 1,350 stores inside.

Expertise, experience and professionalism have enabled Bennet to stay ahead of the curve and anticipate customers’ needs so as to ensure an ever-improving offer in value for money, breadth of assortment and service.

Through a business policy in step with the times, targeted expansion programs and the creation of an unmistakable image and style, Bennet has succeeded in gaining and always maintaining market leadership in the areas in which it operates.

About Smiling

Smiling is one of the 2000 Innovative SMEs recognized by the Italian state and has raised more than 1 million euros from professional and institutional investors. As an Innovation Company, it began its activity by developing and launching on the market several proprietary platforms in the AdTech (advertising technologies) sector.

During the Covid years, the company invested in R&D by filing a new patent and creating new Blockchain applications for the Martech sector (technologies for marketing) with focus on the creation and management of NFTs for large companies, dedicated NFT marketplaces, new cryptoloyalty® applications (loyalty software based on blockchain).

*Bags and physical products are not shipped

Yesterday, Bored Ape Yacht Club alerted users of a hacker breach of their Instagram and Discord accounts. 

In the process, a fraudulent link was circulating in the chats and the scammers managed to compromise some wallets, stealing NFTs. 

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs stolen by hackers

The team behind the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection have issued an alert to their users, warning them not to mint anything.

There is no mint going on today. It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022

“There is no mint going on today. It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything”.

Basically, the hackers apparently broke into BAYC’s Instagram account, forwarding fraudulent links to users inviting them to mint OthersideMeta “land”, which will be launched on 30 April. 

Users who fell into the hackers’ trap and clicked on the link saw their wallets compromised and some NFTs stolen. 

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT and the fake launch of OthersideMeta

A real phishing scam that seems to have led to the theft of BAYC, MAYC, BACK and other NFTs, as claimed by the following Twitter account:

Damn the BAYC Instagram hacker stole 4 BAYC, 7 MAYC, 3 BAKC, 1 CloneX, & more ( 91 NFTs in total)

Hacker Address:https://t.co/0ngJ4SKV4G pic.twitter.com/9U2OGPKMmP

— zachxbt (@zachxbt) April 25, 2022

“Damn the BAYC Instagram hacker stole 4 BAYC, 7 MAYC, 3 BAKC, 1 CloneX, & more ( 91 NFTs in total)”.

The deception was executed in honour of OthersideMeta who, just hours ago, with a roundup of tweets described how the launch scheduled for Saturday will work, noting as follows:

“Safety tips:

• Nothing will be announced or cross-posted anywhere else. NO ONE involved in Otherside will be posting on Instagram.

• No contests or giveaways. No surprise/early drops. Everything will happen on 4/30, and only on http://otherside.xyz.

• Don’t reply to or click on anything from any other accounts, tags, DMs, or emails.

• Animoca, Otherside, BAYC, Yuga Labs, founders, and mods will not tag nor DM you first.

• Never share or type your seed phrase”.

OthesideMeta: the metaverse of BAYC and ApeCoin (APE)

OthersideMeta was already foreshadowed by Yuga Labs last month, and is the metaverse of BAYC and ApeCoin (APE). 

The new metaverse also involves Animoca Brands, the online gaming giant, possibly linking the NFT and gaming sectors. 

The rationale behind this decision appears to have been to give the APE governance token a new use case, as its price performance has been rather turbulent. 

Starting with its launch in March 2022, APE saw an 80% collapse in its first few hours of trading, dropping from $39.40 to $6.48. 

At the time of writing, APE is in the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, priced at $18, recording a pump of 7.60% in the last 24 hours and 42% in the last week. 

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OVR, the metaverse on blockchain renamed OVER, has announced a new partnership with Wine Bottle Club, an NFT club of fine wines. 

To celebrate the partnership, OVER will be giving away 1 NFT, 3 whitelisted spots for the next NFT drop and 350 OVR to 1 lucky participant!

OVR and Wine Bottle Club to bring wine NFTs to the OVER Metaverse

OVR announced on its social channels that it has just closed a partnership with Wine Bottle Club. 

2) To participate:

Like and Retweet Follow

Follow @WineBottleClub + @OVRtheReality

Tag 3 friends

Join the discord: https://t.co/4wMsxlLbOc
Time limit: 24hrs #OVRtheReality #WineBottleClub

— Over – Official (@OVRtheReality) April 12, 2022

“We’re excited to partner with @winebottleclub, the exclusive fine wine NFT Club. To celebrate, we’re going to be giving away 1 NFT, 3 whitelist spots for the upcoming #nft drop, and 350 OVR tokens to 1 lucky participant!

To participate:

Like and Retweet Follow

Follow @WineBottleClub + @OVRtheReality

Tag 3 friends

Join the discord: http://discord.gg/winebottleclub

Time limit: 24hrs”.

In short, Wine Bottle Club is a project that aims to disrupt the distribution of fine wine, creating a lasting global ecosystem. Their services are of different types, such as NFTs, bottle tasting and VIP club memberships, but also immersive experiences in the Metaverse. 

At the moment, Wine Bottle Club will replicate its physical cellar in a virtual shop in the OVR Metaverse. 

OVR renamed OVER The Reality

Last week, OVR made its name change official: from OVR to OVER, which stands for “OVER The Reality”. 

In fact, OVR had already launched the Over Platform to the public 16 months ago, and this desire to rename it OVER is intended to give priority to this platform for anyone who wants to augment the physical world with geolocalized AR. 

A marketing move that best meets the company’s current vision of wanting to build a persistent, decentralized digital layer on top of the physical world.

Changing Blockchain. From Ethereum to Polygon

Late last year, OVR also announced to its followers that it had decided to switch from the Ethereum Blockchain to the Polygon Blockchain. 

The Polygon network was thus chosen by OVR, not only to overcome the scalability and transaction cost barriers proposed by Ethereum, but also with respect to its Optimistic and ZK Rollups alternatives. 

Not surprisingly, Polygon is very close to the Ethereum ecosystem, with which it shares the same values, albeit with massive scalability and adoption. 

Recently, Polygon also published its Green Manifesto as a commitment to become carbon-negative by 2022.

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After extensive research, BuzzFeed News reveals the real names of two of the founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the multi-million dollar NFT collection. 

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, the true identity of its founders

According to a report on BuzzFeed News, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) celebrated million-dollar NFT collection now has two real names out of 4 of its anonymous founders. Here’s the tweet from Katie Notopoulus, author of the revealing article:

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the biggest NFT group (the ones Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow own). Reported the company is raising money at a $5B valuation. But the founders are all pseudonymous. Which is, confusing. My story: https://t.co/fA61yOHHWL

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) February 5, 2022

“The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the biggest NFT group (the ones Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow own). Reported the company is raising money at a $5B valuation. But the founders are all pseudonymous. Which is, confusing. My story:”

So two of BAYC’s main founders are Greg Solano (pseudonym: “Gargamel”), a 32-year-old writer and editor, and Wylie Aronow (pseudonym: “Gordon Goner”), a 35-year-old Florida native.

Basically, Yuga Labs, the company that produces BAYC, and its CEO, Nicole Muniz, confirmed the identities of both men to the magazine, and so it’s finally possible to know the true identity of at least two founders of the most popular NFT collection of the moment. 

The other two identities of BAYC’s co-founding engineers, under the pseudonyms “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” and “No Sass”, remain unknown. 

The pseudonyms of Web3

Notopoulus herself in her article raises the question of how it could be possible that a 10,000 NFT collection of “bored monkeys”, which has become so expensive (the floor price to buy the cheapest BAYCs is now over $280,000), could have founders with identities made up of pseudonyms. 

The data exposed speak that the collection currently has a market cap of about $2.8 billion, while Yuga Labs is reportedly in talks with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for an investment that would value it at $5 billion. 

Staggering numbers that, in the traditional market, could not even be named without the first and last name, the identity, of the founders of the startup or project. 

Apparently, however, pseudonyms are typical when it comes to Web3, of which blockchain technology is also a part. In this regard, Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and owner of two Bored Apes, responding to the question of whether or not blockchain heralds a new and better form of transparency, said:

“Yes, there can be accountability. The reason is that all transactions are based on smart contracts and written to the blockchain, which is the antithesis of traditional business. What other collectibles business publishes all their sales and business processes?”

The explosive success of BAYC’s NFT collection

As BuzzFeed News already points out, Paris Hilton claimed to own an NFT from Bored Ape Yacht Club purchased at a price of $300,000, while host Jimmy Fallon reportedly said he paid for his digital monkey around $216,000. 

A few hours ago, the official Bored Ape Yacht Club channel retweeted the latest sale of Bored Ape #4523 for 129,129 ETH, the equivalent of over $400,000, at the time of writing. 

Bored Ape #4523 was purchased for 129.129 ETH
https://t.co/1nEKXTZAy1

— boredapebot (@boredapebot) February 7, 2022

During last summer, 101 of the Bored Ape Yacht Club tokens sold for $24.4 million in a Sotheby’s auction. A few weeks later, it was the turn of competitor Christie’s, which auctioned off four Bored Apes, for $12 million.

In September 2021, directly on the OpenSea platform, a mysterious user paid about $2.6 million for a character in the collection.

 

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