Arbitrum $Billions Coming Soon
A major airdrop is coming next week with Arbitrum's $ARB token launch. Could this be a $1B+ stimulus for the crypto and NFT ecosystem?
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Arbitrum airdrop details
DeGods launch on Bitcoin
Doodles move beyond NFTs
Punks at 7-month highs
Crypto rallies
Housekeeping item: I will be off next week spending Spring Beak with the family down in Florida! My esteemed colleagues at Lucky Trader are going to keep the Morning Minute running, so you will get your news (with a slightly different flare)!
🎁 Airdrop ABCs: Arbitrum Bailout Coming
It's no secret that NFT degens are in desperate need of a stimulus right now.
Well, they (we*) might not have to wait long.
Arbitrum made the long-awaited bombshell announcement yesterday that the Arbitrum token ($ARB) is coming on March 23.
For those unfamiliar, Arbitrum is the leading Ethereum L2 scaling solution. Its $ARB token will serve as a governance token as the Arbitrum Foundation transitions into a DAO.
The token launch comes with an airdrop of 1.275B tokens (12.75%), primarily for the community of Arbitrum users, as the platform takes the next step towards decentralization.
The Details:
Here's the TLDR:
What? Governance token
When? March 23
Where?* https://arbitrum.foundation
Why? Decentralization and security
How? 1.275B $ARB token Airdrop to community
*Go to the Arbitrum link above to find out if you're eligible for any tokens.
The Tokenomics are interesting, with about 56% of the token supply going to the community (43% DAO Treasury, 13% airdrop to users and DAO builders), and 44% going to the team and investors.
How Much $$ To Expect
The million dollar question - or billion dollar in this case.
Most speculating on token price are comparing Arbitrum to Optimism, another Ethereum L2.
Optimism's token $OP holds a $780M market cap and a $10.6B FDV right now.
Arbitrum has $1.68B in TVL (total value locked), about 1.8x Optimism's $930M in TVL (data from DefiLlama).
Looking at transaction quantity, Arbitrum is nearly 4x'ing the throughput of Optimism, with 31M transactions in the past month (vs 7M for OP).
So traders are speculating on Arbitrum at 2x+ the valuation of Optimism, based on some of those key metrics.
This would mean a $20B FDV, and with 1.275B tokens floating around, that puts the estimated token price at ~$1.5.
That would also mean a $2B stimulus is coming to the larger ecosystem - significantly larger than the recent $BLUR airdrop.
Anecdotally, most traders who have at least casually used Arbitrum are receiving 4,000-10,000 tokens, meaning a pretty healthy $6,000-$15,000 airdrop.
Price speculation aside, this is a major event for the Arbitrum ecosystem and will be a welcome stimulus to the crypto and NFT economy in these turbulent times.
🔄 NFT Round Up
There were several news events from the past few days that are not quite "top story" worthy but too big for the "What else is happening" section.
So let's catch up here.
🙈Yuga Errs Again with The Summoning
The most hyped event of the week was The Summoning as the next stage of The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey.
It started well but quickly went sideways when holders and traders realized the Companion trait (holding a 6+ ETH floor at the time) was assigned incorrectly.
Yuga did get it resolved, and made anyone who overpaid based on their mistake whole (a nice move), but it was another mistake.
And price action shows that the market did not quite like the mistake.
The HV-MTL (new collection Summoned from Sewer Passes) floor is 2.32 ETH, down about 25% from where Sewer Passes were pre-Summoning. And this was not a typical "reveal" event with a rare lotto, so it's harder for me to explain the dip using that analogy.
Companions are at 5.1 ETH, and the top rarity HV-MTL trait "Holos" are at 25 ETH floor (and did see sales at that level including a 45 ETH sale for the 7th ranked Holo).
See the 8 different HV-MTL types below.
It will be interesting to see how Yuga and the market keeps or loses attention on HV-MTL ahead of the major Otherside 2nd Trip coming in less than 2 weeks.
🧟♂️ Frank Raises DeGods on Bitcoin
Frank DeGods is following in Yuga's footsteps and launching a side project on Bitcoin.
But instead of going the art route, he is using the 535 DeGods which were burned last year and "resurrecting" them on Bitcoin.
The mint is not cheap, priced at 0.444 Bitcoin (about $11,000 or 6.6 ETH).
That is right in line with the current floor of DeGods (on Solana) though, which are at 559 SOL ($10,800). So the calls of this being a "cash grab" are fairly off base - the price was set at the DeGods floor. Seems logical.
Now the question becomes - would NFT traders rather own a SOL-based DeGod, or one on Bitcoin?
We are about to find out.
There were some promising signs in the auction of "The Original Frank" DeGod that closed yesterday evening at a sales price of 44,256 $DUST ($80,000 or ~3 BTC).
Expect the momentum of that auction to help drive a boost of interest in today's FCFS sale.
If you want to learn more or participate in the mint happening today, check out this primer with all the info.
🌈 Doodles Are No Longer an "NFT Project"
In a stunning Discord announcement late Wednesday evening, Doodles co-founder Jordan Castro (known as Poopie) shared some surprising news.
Doodles are trying to go from NFT startup to a leading media franchise.
He went on to mention how they're tired of "building in public" and essentially wasting time on holders motivated by money.
This led to some heated exchanged in the Doodles Discord, where at one point Poopie told a holder to "floor his Doodle and GTFO.
After this news got around NFT Twitter, the Doodles market puked (and it wasn't rainbows).
The Doodles floor is now at 3.6 ETH (dropping as low as 3.4 in the fallout), down 25% on the week.
Poopie did release a statement clarifying his comments yesterday, but not to major effect.
Doodles are now likely facing a Moonbirds-esque holder turn-over situation in reaction to this new vision.
We will see if they rebound, or continue this downtrend over the coming weeks.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of the other major headlines from a slower day in NFTs:
Trading volume came in just under 36k ETH, highest since March 9th, though most NFTs continue the recent down trend
CryptoPunks eclipsed a 69 ETH floor for the first time since August 2022, in "up only" mode since active trading on Blur began (and benefitting from the crypto and NFT volatility)
One of the "Lost Robbys" otherwise known as "AI Generated Nude Portrait #7 Frame #110" sold for 260 ETHyesterday (or $432,000)
VeeFriends Eruption 2.0 for Burn Island started yesterday, bringing an exclusive auction for 3 unminted Chromie Squiggles
Fellowship AI minted outs its Patron passes around 0.24 ETH and saw them 4x to 1 ETH (now 0.7 ETH); the NFTs are mint passes for upcoming "Post-Photography AI" projects, with a drop from Roope Rainisto coming soon;
Jack Butcher shared new details on the Opepens and the potential for OpePFPs while also launching an "Opepefier" leading to crowd-generated Opepens popping up all over NFT Twitter
Des Lucrece x Moonbirds "Defybirds" will start their first burn event today, allowing holders to get a rare Glitch bird
DigiDaigaku completed one half of its Dragon Eggs airdrop, though the collection has lost considerable steamsince the Super Bowl, not at 0.069 ETH
Chimpers launched their second adventure in the start of TBAC Series 2
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market was up big overnight; BTC +7.3% at $26,750; ETH +5% at $1,750; $BLUR +3% to $0.64
$APE "survived" the 40M token unlock last night, up 1% to $4.35
LinksDAO officially buys a golf course, winning their bid on the Spey Bay Golf Course in Scotland; the purchase price is still unknown but was likely at least $908,000
LiveArt revealed a new NFT membership card that provides access to exclusive drops, token rewards, and events on its art trading platform.
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Wrapped CryptoPunks (8,658 ETH, 69.2 ETH Floor)
MAYC (3,567 ETH, 13.7 ETH)
HV-MTL (2,758 ETH, 2.23 ETH)
Doodles (2,402 ETH, 3.6 ETH)
Otherdeed (1,837 ETH, 1.6 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Genesis Dimensional Stones (30%, 2.4 ETH Floor)
Hedz (24%, 3.2 ETH)
goblintown (20%, 0.49 ETH)
Opepen Edition (10%, 0.5 ETH)
DigiDaigaku (9%, 6.9 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
The main event on deck for today is the Mocaverse reveal coming this morning at 9 am.
The floor has held up well at 1.2 ETH through this week's volatility, but the price action today and this weekend likely dictate where this set goes from here in the short term. Typically we see a post-reveal dump anywhere from 20-40% - if Moca can buck that trend, it will be a huge sign of strength.
Other than that, the Art Blocks mint is semi-interesting at just 128 supply but recent mints have done very poorly on secondary so tread carefully non-art lovers.
And then on Sunday, we get our first Sesame Street NFTs as the Cookie Monster collection comes to Veve for $60 - the main event to watch on Sunday.
Mocaverse - Reveal (9:00 a.m. ET)
Memes by 6529 (12:00 p.m. ET); 0.06529 ETH mint
AB Presents: Rippling by Yi-Wen Lin (1:00 p.m. ET); Dutch auction
SEAK (7:00 p.m. ET); 0.25 ETH mint
Sotheby's Natively Digital (TBD); kickoff
Cookie Monster on Veve (Sunday, time TBD); $60
Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's Project Schedule page.