Blur Farmers Plant Seeds of Havoc
The NFT market just saw the highest volume day in 9 months with over $90M traded. Yet most projects are in the red - what's going on?
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's update includes:
NFTs see highest volume in 9 months but floors fall
New airdrop from Collab Land
XCOPY mints new piece
LIWA soars
Napster enters Web3
Let’s get into it.
👨🌾 Blur Farming Backfires
NFT traders were euphoric.
The $BLUR stimulus delivered over $200M into the ecosystem.
The market was pumping, with trading volume at levels not seen since the last bull market.
There was green all over the board; almost every project was up 10%-20%.
Yet, just one day later - the action has totally reversed.
Almost every project is now in the red, with a big portion of those gains erased.
What happened?
In short, Blur farmers got over-eager.
Those project floors were all driven up by those "farming" for Season 2 rewards by adding in their bids.
This is evidenced by Blur's TVL (Total Value Locked) soaring over 100% to a new ATH of $84M in the first 2 days since Season 2 of rewards was announced.
The problem - too many people rushed in solely to farm. Floors went up initially, then the listings came in.
Most of the top collections now have very thick listing walls, with tight bid/list spreads, as traders flock in whose only interest is accumulating Blur points.
Let's look at Pudgy Penguins for example.
On Tuesday before Blur Season 2 was announced, the floor was around 5.2 ETH.
Listings were thin; about ~100 to 7.5 ETH (it looked prime to explode)
After Season 2 news, it immediately ran up 15% to 5.8 ETH on Weds
But then the listings came in
There are now 250 listings to get to 7.5 ETH, and the floor has fully round-tripped back to 5.2 ETH (now it looks stuck)
As listing walls get thicker, whales have less incentive to sweep as it will make less of a dent, and thus stay on the sidelines.
Then recent bidders, who likely had NFTs dumped into their bids, panic and look to get out - sending floors down.
This results in the board you see below, with 8 of the top 10 volume projects in red.
A sea of red, on the highest volume day in over 9 months with over 55,000 ETH traded - thanks farmers.
It seems we need a few days for the market to settle from this initial farming rush to get a real read on where we go from here.
We'll be watching.
🚀 Get Paid to Collaborate
Airdrop season is just getting started.
The next stimulus was announced yesterday, with Collab Land launching its $COLLAB token next week.
And it looks like over 2M are eligible.
Anyone who has been active in the NFT market over the past few years, and has used Discord or Telegram, likely is familiar with the Collab Land verification process.
You know, that annoying step to verify yourself before joining the servers - that was Collab Land (now largely Vulcan, but that's for another day).
Well, it looks like all of those discord verifications are about to pay off
Here is what you need to know:
Who is eligible:
Verified Community Members in Discord or Telegram
Collab.Land’s Top 100 Discord communities based on membership, longevity, and activity
Holders of the Collab Land Patron NFT (tokens 1-142)
Holders of the Collab Land Membership NFT
When: February 23 claims begin, lasting through May 23, 2023
Where: The team's site at wagmi.collab.land
What is $COLLAB: A governance token for use within the Collab.Land ecosystem
For those who want to dig deeper, dive into the tokenomics and more on the team's site.
As for token price action predictions, expectations are certainly orders of magnitude lower than $BLUR. But who knows, the market is irrational and those who missed the $BLUR gains might chase this token instead.
Airdrop SZN rages on.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
A few other headlines from a slower day for NFTs:
Trading volume came in at 55,000 ETH, with Blur capturing a whopping 85% (highest % share to date)
XCOPY mints new piece "LA WHENEVER," though the official auction has not yet begun
VeeFriends introduced its new burn mechanism, called Burn Island, serving as a rewards program for VeeFriends holders
Puma is launching Super PUMA NFTs in a new 10,000 supply PFP collection, with existing NITRO NFT holders getting an airdrop
Life in West America soars 35% to a 12 ETH floor in the AI art sector; Claire Silver's Genesis holds at 16.7 ETH
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market fell then rebounded, BTC -3% to $23,800 and ETH -1.2% to $1,670; $MAGIC soars 13% to $2.20, $BLUR -17% to $0.92
U.S. SEC files Securities Fraud Lawsuit against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon
Napster bets on Web3, acquiring Mint Songs to implement their fan-to-artist connections into the Napster platform in Q2 2023
The Sandbox is partnering with Toei Animation, Japan's leading animation studio, to expand its reach outside of typical Web3 brands
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Otherdeeds (6,454 ETH, 1.94 ETH Floor)
Moonbirds (4,079 ETH, 7.25 ETH)
MAYC (2,413 ETH, 16.2 ETH)
Azuki (2,305 ETH, 15 ETH)
Beanz (2,191 ETH, 1.55 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
God Hates NFTees (55%, 0.36 ETH Floor)
Puma NITRO (30%, 0.44 ETH)
Fluf World (12%, 2.88 ETH)
Kevin Abosch open edition (48%, 0.07 ETH)
Degen Toonz (35%, 0.63 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today has that standard Meme Card and Art Blocks drop, but the most exciting mint is Ghost Boy.
Ghost Boy was created by Cool Cats co-founder Evan Luza back in 2015 and represents his newest venture into NFTs. With a 0.025 ETH price point, this will see significant demand.
It is a very interesting market, after the volatile past two days. Expect farming to cool off a bit, but something will certainly catch fire and run this weekend with all that extra $BLUR money still in traders' pockets. Maybe it will be Ghost Boy...
Ghost Boy (11:00 a.m. ET)
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
Longing by Phenomena (1:00 p.m. ET)
Another Life by Violetta Zironi (6:00 p.m. ET)
Xxories (TBD)
Lamborghini - Feb 19 (11:00 a.m. ET)
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.