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- #21: Virtual Creations Are Flocking to Fortnite for Utility
#21: Virtual Creations Are Flocking to Fortnite for Utility
Also: School breaks drive NFT scams
Happy Friday!
Welcome to The Web3 Marketer, where I help brands and marketers stay ahead of the web3 curve
Big announcement:
I am excited to unveil the new branding and focus of this newsletter: ownership economy, onchain creators, and creator tooling for the new internet.

My mission is to help creators transition into the ownership economy, where they can sustainably monetize and own fair share in the upside.
A quick why?
Niche: I believe the new internet & digital ownership culture will emerge bottom-up from creators, not brands and enterprises.
Format: Expecting AI disruption, I am forcing myself to transition from aggregation (and some curation) to curation & creation of new ideas.
Naming: Terms like web3 & NFTs are limiting and drive misconceptions. Digital ownership is a better reflection of the business problem that the new internet and onchain tech is hoping to solve.
Massive thank you to all the friendly souls who’ve gifted me priceless feedback.
And with that, onto the new chapter:
Welcome to Ownable, a weekly newsletter on the ownership economy and onchain creators. Human-curated & opinionated.
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“Airphoria” is a Nike-branded experience within Fortnite’s Creative Mode. Players can earn free in-game avatar accessories and achievements, which, while technically not tokenized, will still be tied into Nike's .Swoosh NFT-based user IDs, and can unlock Nike benefits. This collaboration bridges the gap between the “Web2” online battle-royale shooter played by 25 million users every day and Nike’s NFT-driven platform with nearly 400K members.
LVMH Creates Virtual Models and Shows with Fortnite Maker (Retail Detail)
LVMH has announced a partnership with Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, to use the company’s 3D design technology for fashion shows and virtual fitting rooms for its brands like Louis Vuitton and Bulgari. This decision to partner vs. build or buy mirrors the recent move by Nike to team up with EA Sports and Fortnite to provide digital fashion consumers with some form of “wearing” utility.
A popular form of a phishing scam takes place on Discord or Telegram groups where a compromised admin account posts a link to a fake “legitimate” site that drains a user’s digital collection. Interestingly, the number of attacks increases during summer holidays simply because most of these are orchestrated by high school kids. They typically spend the stolen funds on Roblox in-game skins, gift cards, or online poker games.
Most of the web3 world tends to congregate in Web2 social platforms, despite their many flaws. Ultimately, both creators and consumers strive for connection with other people (or distribution); therefore, while web3 apps may be technically good, it takes a critical density network of people to create a snowball effect. Plus, existing web3 economic motivators can also attract negative behaviors, inauthentic engagement, and “paid shill”.
In a series of now-deleted tweets, Youtube’s most popular creator, MrBeast, announced he is “moving on from MrBeast Burger”. His reasons: 1) inability to oversee quality control across 2,000+ cloud kitchen locations, and 2) desire to focus on the project he’s more passionate about - the Feastibles snacks brand. It’s a perfect illustration that a) operating a hospitality business is tough, and b) focus is key in a creator-led company - the probability of success is commensurate with the creator’s level of attention, and it should be an important consideration for business partners.

Ticketmaster filed trademarks for NFT marketplace and services.
Mercedes-Benz presented an in-car app to display digital collectibles.
CBS profiled Beeple, one of the most celebrated digital artists.
Takashi Murakami channels his love for NFTs in a new show.
ResearchHub raised $5M to reward scientific contributions with crypto.
Fashion brands evolve NFC tag strategies to provide more value.
ArtBlocks, Chormie Squiggles founder shares his onchain journey.

Network: Zora launched its own scaling network to lower NFT minting costs and improve the artist and creator experience.
Embeddables: Mirror introduced a feature to embed NFTs into posts, letting readers collect inline without leaving the post.
Downloadables: Discord plans to let creators sell digital products to their communities via one-time purchases.
Royalties: Gmoney introduced Network Points framework to discourage trading on royalty-free marketplaces.
Signature: Jeff Staple and Gmoney showcased NFT-based autographs attached to NFC-powered hats.
Code reader: Etherscan added ChatGPT into its suite of tools for interpreting and analyzing the Ethereum blockchain source code.
Templates: Bonfire introduced templates for creator homepages.
Grants: Bueno announced three $1,000 grants for artists.
IRL space: Proof Collective plans an events venue in LA Arts District.


Creator economy startup funding
“The rounds have become smaller, the valuations are lower, growth investing is practically not there. It’s disappeared (…) though music-related startups are defying the downturn to raise outside money.”

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Author Bio
Kuba Szewczyk is an NFT Product Strategy Lead at ConsenSys, helping build NFT tools for creators and brands. He previously worked at Bain & Co. Digital Assets and earned Harvard MBA.
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