Germany launches dog-themed NFTs to fetch cyber talent: Nifty Newsletter, June 21–28

In this week’s newsletter, read about the German foreign intelligence agency issuing a dog-themed nonfungible token (NFT) treasure hunt and check out the new NFT stamp collection from the autonomous territory of the Faroe Islands. Find out about Hermès latest win in its infringement case against MetaBirkins, and don’t forget this week’s Nifty News, featuring the NFT Web3 card game Gods Unchained being added to the Epic Games store, and why the United States Secret Service created an NFT collection.

German intelligence service launches dog-themed NFTs to fetch cyber talent

The German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), launched a collection of dog-themed NFTs on June 19. Aside from cartoon depictions of dogs, the collection features an on-chain treasure hunt to recruit cyber talent.

Dogs of BND NFTs are only collectible by finding a character string posted on the organization’s Instagram that will direct users to a specific Ethereum address. Users would need to use the given information to find the collection and mint the NFT.

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Judge grants Hermès request to halt all ‘MetaBirkin’ NFT sales

On June 23, Manhattan-based U.S. Judge Jed Rakoff granted the request of luxury fashion house Hermès to block all sales of the MetaBirkin NFTs, marking another win for the fashion brand in the infringement case.

Rakoff showed skepticism toward artist Mason Rothschild’s defense against the Hermès’ suit and questioned the artist’s continued marketing of the project. He said that Rothschild’s “entire scheme” was to trick customers into believing Hermès endorsed the project.

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Faroe Islands postal service issues NFT-embedded stamps

The Faroe Islands released its first series of stamps, known as “crypto stamps,” with a digital copy stored on the blockchain as an NFT and still serving as actual postage.

On June 23, the official website for the local postal service announced the collection called Stamps of Maybe, which was produced in collaboration with the company VariusSystems. The Faroe Islands follow two other European countries, Austria and the Netherlands, in issuing NFT stamps.

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Yes, the Secret Service has an NFT collection, and no, it’s not for sale

Cointelegraph spoke with agents from the Secret Service’s San Francisco field office, known as the Digital Asset Technology Alliance Squad, about their NFT collection sitting on OpenSea.

The unit specifically deals with crypto-related crime and said the collection was created to better understand how NFTs worked. One of its forensic financial analysts said it also serves as an example of the agency’s interest in the crypto ecosystem.

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Immutable’s Gods Unchained launches on Epic Games Store

Gods Unchained, the NFT trading card game from Immutable Games, was listed on the Epic Games Store on June 21. The Web3 trading card game is now accessible to Epic’s 230 million customers.

Initially, the game was released in June 2019, growing its user base to nearly 80,000 weekly users by January 2022. Each card in the Gods Unchained world is represented by an NFT on the Ethereum layer-2 network, Immutable X.

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Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.