29/11/2022 Gary Vee-Backed NFT Startup Candy Digital Cuts Staff in Mass Layoffs

The company, valued at $1.5 billion, is backed by Fanatics and was co-founded by Gary Vaynerchuk and Mike Novogratz.

Gary Vaynerchuk. Image: Shutterstock
Gary Vaynerchuk. Image: Shutterstock

Candy Digital, a sports and entertainmentNFTstartup that was founded in 2021 and rocketed toa $1.5 billion valuationthat same year, laid off a large part of its staff today, a source close to the situation confirmed toDecrypt.

Sporticofirst reported the news that Candy had laid off more than one-third of its approximately 100-person team, citing sources close to the company. One former employee, Community Content Manager Matthew Muntner,tweetedthat he was included in the departures.Decryptreached out to Candy Digital for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Trump’s Pro-Crypto Bluster at NFT Gala Lacked Policy Substance
DMarket opens week as top NFT in daily sales
Celebrity Photographer Johnny Nunez Set to Release NFT Capsule Collection

Candy Digital wasfounded in June 2021by Michael Rubin, executive chairman of sports merchandise giant Fanatics, along with Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz and entrepreneur and investor Gary Vaynerchuk. Fanatics was described as the majority owner at the time and said that it would tap its existing customer base to promote Candy.

In October 2021, Candy Digital announced that it hadraised $100 millionat a $1.5 billion valuation, in a Series A round led by Insight Partners and Softbank’s Vision Fund 2. A Fanatics representative declined comment toDecrypt, noting that Candy Digital is run independently and that the sports merchandise firm isn’t involved in Candy’s day-to-day operations.

Candy launched with the official Major League Baseball license, and has sold a number of collections based on the league and its teams. Since then, the firm has rolled out other sports licenses, includinga partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment(WWE),all of NASCAR’s teams(but not the league itself), and a number of college athletes.

The company has also expanded into entertainment-themed digital collectibles, including with a Netflix alliance that hasyielded various “Stranger Things” NFTs. Candy alsoteamed with stock photo firm Getty Imagesto sell tokenized photos. Candy's NFTs were minted onPalm, anEthereumsidechainnetwork.

An NFT is a blockchaintokenthat represents ownership in a unique item, including digital goods such as sports collectibles, artwork, and video game items. The market expanded significantly in 2021, generating some$25 billion in trading volume, and that momentum carried into early 2022.

Candy Digital is the latest NFT-centric firm to face layoffs in recent months as the market has lost significant momentum amid a broader crypto market decline and wider macroeconomic turmoil. NFT saleshave fallen dramaticallysince the start of the year, with about 87% less total trading volume in October compared to January, andvaluations are sinking too.

NBA Top ShotandNFL All Daymaker Dapper Labs, one of Candy’s biggest rivals in the sports NFT space, laid off about 22% of its workforce earlier this month, although it’s unclear how many people were affected. Top overall NFT marketplace OpenSeashed 20% of its staff in July.

In addition to its investment in Candy Digital, Fanatics also has its own internal NFT business now following its estimated $500 million acquisition ofstoried trading card brand Toppsearlier this year.

Arts

https://decrypt.co/115811/gary-vee-sports-nft-candy-digital-mass-layoffs

Interesting NFTs
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.
Domestic - 2017
“Domestic is the manifestation of the cultural patriarchy in my home. The wooden "woman's" tragedy of false desire. It was done in a moment of breakup. The hollow 3d body & its lost eyes, invites you to fill up. Trying to reach out, encumbered and wrapped in its own fragility, the new mother rises."
Hugemorning
A character from The Beacon
Do Nothing (new variant) #7/15
Sometimes
#54746
By OthersideDeployer