Crypto Rallies, NFTs Fall
Bitcoin, ETH and alts continued their rally on Wednesday, but their surge is impacting NFTs. Find out how they fared, plus catch a preview of today's Starbucks NFT drop.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Surging crypto leads to bleeding NFTs
Yuga eco continues downtrend
Starbucks drops 1st-ever open edition
Renga partners with Haas
Powell calls stable coins money and says crypto has staying power
📈📉 Crypto Up, NFTs Down
It's a tale as old as time in the NFT market.
When crypto goes up rapidly, NFTs fall. (When crypto goes down rapidly, NFTs fall too).
NFTs have historically been a call option on ETH and larger crypto stability, and that trend is playing out again.
But now we have evidence across blockchains and major currencies.
Ordinals Volume Falls Off A Cliff
The hottest new market in NFTs, Bitcoin Ordinals, has not been spared from this trend.
With Bitcoin surging past $30k yesterday, trading volume on its NFTs has dried up drastically.
Yesterday's Magic Eden Top 12 saw just 9.61 BTC in volume (about 152 ETH equivalent).
For comparison, the top 12 on Blur's ETH board combined for 11,381 ETH. So Ordinals are seeing about 1.3% of ETH's volume.
Granted, it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison because of the different types of NFTs on Bitcoin (lower supply, meant to be less liquid) and because of all of the Blur farming.
But it still presents some scale.
Leading floors on Ordinals seem to be holding up ok, so far, with collections like BTC DeGods and OCM Dimensions holding steady at 1.7 BTC and 0.48 BTC floors respectively.
We will see how that trend continues.
Meanwhile floors on ETH - not holding up as well.
Yuga's Descent Carries ETH NFTs Downward
The Blur board this morning is washed in red, with almost all of the top 15 projects by volume down 1%-5%.
This is not a huge surprise with ETH up 16% now on the week at $1,900, and many collections are still in green on the week in USD terms.
But there are a few pockets of concern.
The low-end PFP sector continues to dip lower, with CloneX at 2 ETH, Moonbirds at 1.72, Doodles at 1.66 and Meebits at 1.6.
How low can these major PFP collections from the 2021-2022 bull cycle really go? Is 1 ETH the bottom? At some point, buyers will come in to these major collections, but it doesn't seem like we're there yet.
The other trend - Yuga's slow bleed out.
BAYC is now at 38.4 ETH after some more dumps yesterday.
MAYC is at 7.56 ETH.
HV-MTL is at 0.8 ETH, down 3% on the week even with its Forge game coming.
Otherdeeds are at 0.63 ETH and Vessels are at 0.23 ETH.
All while $APE is up 7% at $2.30.
So what's driving this trend?
Zooming in on price action, the actions of the Blur farmers are driving day-to-day price action. And right now, supply is greater than demand.
Two major factors highlighted by Sam (NFT Statistics):
Long-term Ape holders are slowly releasing their NFTs into the farming pool at a greater pace than new whales are buying.
Pending liquidations of over-leveraged whales buying on Blend and those using BendDAO for liquidity is increasing the available supply.
Why aren't there more buyers?
That's a question for the larger trend happening in the Yuga ecosystem - fragmentation and dilution.
Yuga now has 10 collections spanning 277,000 NFTs (BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Kodas, HV-MTL, Otherdeed, Vessels, with 2 versions of Kodas, Otherdeeds and Vessels). That doesn't count Punks or Meebits.
There are 10k active wallets trading NFTs every day on ETH.
And interested buyers now have to pick a specific ecosystem to play in.
Want to go the PFP route? BAYC or MAYC and follow along with Jimmy the Monkey's Trial.
Want to lean into the shiny new object and new gaming? Go HV-MTL.
Want to bet on the metaverse? Go Koda, Otherdeeds or Vessels.
Each has its own set of lore, updates to follow, games and more, and the overall complexity is growing by the day.
There's more to it than this (like tying the PFP assets to the value of $APE, no expected dividends in the near future), but those 2 trends seem to be the primary drivers at play here.
Historically, when Yuga FUD is at its highest (and it's high right now), they near a bottom and rebound. Perhaps that will happen this time as well.
This time though, it feels like there is more room to drop.
☕️ Starbucks' First Open-Edition
Starbucks is back today with its first-ever open-edition Stamp Collection drop for Odyssey members.
The new Starbucks Odyssey Avatar Collection offers three unique designs inspired by their original avatars—Bear, Tiger, and Hummingbird.
TLDR
What: 3 unique Stamp designs: Bear, Tiger, Hummingbird
When: Sale duration: 3 PM ET on June 22nd (lasting 48 hours)
How much: $25 per Stamp, limit 3 Stamps per person
Why: Rewards of 250 Points for each Stamp purchased
Where: Starbucks Odyssey's storefront on Nifty Gateway
The reveal will take place after the sale is over.
It will be interesting to see the demand here, with 3 of the 8 existing Odyssey Stamp collections with floors at or below $30, and 5 of the 8 below $40.
But the utility from those rewards points might be enough to propel potential buyers.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Trading volume came in over 12k ETH on Wednesday; NFTs saw red, with most leaders down 3%-5%
BlackRock NFTs surged in the low-cap sector, reaching a 0.34 ETH floor from a free mint
Renga is partnering with F1's Haas for Haas's NFT debut "Haas x RENGA Racing"
Truth Labs' Big Inc. acceptance letter burn event is happening on Friday (June 23), where each letter will be burned for an employee NFT
Parallel is rolling out Parallel Avatars, with 3 ways to acquire them including The Avatar Manifest, an OpenSea Public Drop and a Play to Mint function
Nakamigos shared a new teaser yesterday, confirming that HiFo Labs is the creator and that the next chapter is coming this fall (floor jumped x%)
The Gucci KodaPendant claim went live yesterday, with holders able to claim their physicals through July 6, 2023
The Premint raffles for Tony Babel's Vintage Editions went live yesterday (live until 12 pm ET today), with the "Emotional Hell" set of 25 priced at 0.9 ETH, and "Hell of a Dish" set of 150 priced at 0.3 ETH
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market soared on Wednesday; BTC +4% to $29,925; ETH +4% to $1,885; PEPE soared 37% to a $587M MC
Jerome Powell spoke before Congress yesterday, with highlights including his stating that they do see stablecoins as a form of money and that crypto "appears to have some staying power"
adidas paused its upcoming Fewo collab according to a message shared in its Discord, coming after allegations of sexual assault surfaced on Twitter (Fewo denied the allegations)
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (4,925 ETH, 38.4 ETH Floor)
Azuki (2,526 ETH, 16.74 ETH)
MAYC (1,430 ETH, 7.58 ETH)
Wrapped Cryptopunks (832 ETH, 49.2 ETH)
DeGods (324 ETH, 10 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Nina's Super Cool World (158%, 0.35 ETH Floor)
Lo-Fi Pepe (94%, 0.12 ETH)
Jarritos (88%, 0.45 ETH)
Renga Black Box (21%, 1.2 ETH)
Hedz (15%, 1.5 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a slower day of new drops after a busy day yesterday.
The highlight is likely the Starbucks drop, described in depth above.
If you want more, see the full list of today's drops from Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
KIEYA by Nygilia (1:00 p.m. ET)
Starbucks Odyssey Avatar Collection (3:00 p.m. ET); $25
Communion by King Xerox (6:30 p.m. ET); $69
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 NFT Calendar page.