29/11/2022 Candy Digital Cuts Over a Third of Workforce Amid Tech Tumult

Candy Digital Layoffs Fanatics NFTs
Layoffs have swept the tech industry, particularly in the NFT and cryptocurrency corners, over the past few months.Illustration by Lorenzo Gordon, Artwork via Candy Digitalnone

Candy Digital, the NFT platformbackedbyFanatics, Gary Vaynerchuk and Michael Novogratz, is laying off a large chunk of its workforce, according to multiple people familiar with the decision.

The company informed employees of the cuts Monday morning, said the people, who were granted anonymity because the details are private. The cuts encompass more than one third of the company’s roughly 100 employees.

A representative for Candy Digital didn’t respond to a request for comment. A representative for Fanatics declined to comment.

The downsizing comes amid a “layoff surge” sweeping tech. Earlier this month Twitter laid of roughly half of its workforce in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover. Lyft and Stripe recently laid off more than 10% of their respective staffs. Even Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) and Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN), two of the largest public companies in America, have instituted hiring freezes.

The cuts have been especially deep inNFTsand cryptocurrency, a corner of tech that was already in steep decline before the FTX collapse threw the industry into atailspin. Earlier this month Dapper Labs, the NFT platform behind NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, announced a 22% staff cut. Top Shot did just $1.5 million in sales in October 2022,down 99.3%from $224.1 million in February 2021.

Candy Digital launched in June 2021, back when sports NFTs were still white hot. Fanatics is the majority shareholder, with Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital and Vaynerchuk as equity partners. A few months after the launch, the firm raised $100 million at a$1.5 billionvaluation. That round included investment from SoftBank, Insight Partners, Will Ventures, Peyton Manning and a number of other current/retired athletes, whose names weren’t released.

Candy Digital’s day-to-day operations are run separately from Fanatics’. Rubin’s e-commerce giant has an NFT vertical within Topps, the trading card brand that it acquired in January. Fanatics is investing in that business and is currently hiring in its collectibles division, which includes those NFTs.

Candy Digital’s partners include Major League Baseball, WWE and Netflix.

(This article was updated in the penultimate paragraph to include information about Fanatics digital collectibles.)

Arts

https://www.sportico.com/business/tech/2022/candy-digital-layoffs-nfts-1234696807/

Interesting NFTs
HUR_SIZI x MLI (piece 40 of 40) Edition #1
Now HUR is offering their limited edition [HUR & The Thunder Beast NFT Collectables], extracted from the creation process of their saga, The Revelation of HUR. There will be only 40 NFT’s per character issued, consisting a total of 240 NFT’s. Collectors who own all 6 will get a chance to enter a lottery to a hidden 1 of 1 NFT art which inherits a “ lifetime backstage VIP pass ” to any official HUR concert The prize winner will be announced in HUR‘s Instagram @ 7/24/2021 Instagram:HUR_Official_
My Other Half | Inspired by Minecraft: The Last Minecart (2011)
Almost every year, we capture ourselves in a way that no photo or video is capable of: with a photoscan. If you dig through our archives, you'll find many of them and can see exactly how we change over time. Sam Gorski, Creator | I wanted to find the oldest scan of myself and put him side-by-side with Sam from the present. While it is hard to look at it and not miss the years past, at the same time, this gives me hope for the future by embracing and cherishing the change in my life. How would I have gotten this far without him? About This Piece | Sam on the left was captured in 2014, while Sam on the right was captured last week (2021). This work represents the personal, creative, and emotional journey in all of us, and the hope that ourselves tomorrow may be better than ourselves today.
Who's in control?
In a society where everyone wants to control everyone, who's in control? "Who's in control?" is a mirror of a controlling society, a futuristic vision of a current reality. Artwork with three different states in all Layers (day, night and sunset) allows owners to make different combinations and show who is in control of this artwork! *** Scanning this artwork with the ARize app [https://arize.io/] will trigger an AR video experience*** ***Music used in the videoart by Midranger (feat. Holly Drummond) - "Unrequited" ***
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
Cockerel and chick
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Cockerel and chick late 1810s - Japan