Do Museums Want $12M Worth of Yuga NFTs?
Machi's vote has finally passed - what happens now? Plus catch up on the latest news in the art market and a new competitor causing problems for the Friend Tech market.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Machi's AIP passes, $12M to be spent on Yuga NFTs
Art market sees huge day of wins
Pacman Blur breaks silence, shares announcement of an announcement
Crypto falls with equities post-FOMC
Friend Tech competitor leads to TVL and market dip
🐵 Machi's Vote Passes - Now What?
It's official - Machi's ApeCoin DAO proposal has passed with a whopping 65% "Yes" vote.
Now 11M $APE ($12.1M) will be earmarked for the purchasing of Yuga NFTs to be displayed in museums around the world.
So the question on most traders' minds - what does this mean for the market?
Well both BAYC and MAYC are unmoved on the news so far, as was $APE.
It seems to all depend on how this will be executed. A few open questions:
How will the DAO make these purchases? In bunches, gradually over time?
How will they convert APE to ETH to make the purchases, or will they be able to work out other ways to buy?
Which museums want to display Yuga NFTs? If the museums need to be lined up before the purchases, it could take a while to line up enough to support $12M in buys.
We will see what new information around planning is released in the days to come.
Still, some exciting news in a somewhat stale Yuga ecosystem...
🖼 A Big Day for Art
The NFT market may feel a bit quiet right now, but demand for top digital art is still holding strong.
A few headlines and market action from yesterday:
Per Kristian Stoveland''s "Pursuit" auction (200 NFTs released as a part of Velocity Series) ended at 0.33 ETH and saw its floor rally to 0.68 ETH on 73 ETH of secondary volume - a solid 100% gain for minters
DeafBeef's HASHMARKS finished with a 6.05 ETH top bid & 3.055 ETH min winning bid for his first 50 mints
Christie's "Keith Haring: Pixel Pioneer" auction closed with all 5 lots selling for at least $250,000 (bringing in $1.5M in sales)
Defaced's "Lost In The Supermarket" 1/1 saw a 30.7 ETH bid with 2 days to go in the auction
If you're going to pick a sector of the NFT market to play in right now - art feels like the one.
Now we will see if the collectors rallying in Marfa this weekend can bring some more momentum back home with them.
👥 Friend Tech Trend Tracker
It was a bloody day in the Friend Tech market, as the launch of a new competitor and some cracks in 3,3 led to a broad sell-off.
Let's start with the numbers.
Here are some of the core Friend Tech metrics for 9/20 and their day-over-day change:
New user signups: 16,994 -> 7,314 (-57%)
Return users: 10,806 -> 10,251 (-5%)
Daily Buy volume: $5.32M -> $4.7M (-12%)
Total Volume: $9.78M -> $10.34M (+6%)
TVL: $37.28M -> $35.65M* (-4%)
Highest key: Racer 7.056 -> 6.32 (-10%)
*14.3% of TVL is from self-buyers per Slice Analytics' new dashboard.
Total users are now over 226,000 and total transaction volume is up to $250M.
Self-buying is still going strong led by Vombatus who is now within 0.16 ETH of becoming #1 on the leaderboard (Racer at 6.32 and Vombatus at 6.16).
Sellers outpaced buyers by almost $900k yesterday, driving the decline (~10% across the board).
The reasons for selloff?
1) A new SocialFi competitor called Post Tech launched on Arbitrum quickly reaching $900k in TVL; it has similar functionality to FriendTech but with a Twitter (X)-like interface, more rev share, and different farming incentives
2) Some early cracks in (3,3) started showing after a few big holders sold off and a bit of a small cascade followed
In other news, Neptune surfaced another interesting data point regarding new joiners - only ~20% of new joiners are buying anyone else's keys this week.
That's down from 45-50% average over the past few weeks.
This raises the question of how many of these daily signups are true new users. It seems like returning users is still the best metric to determine daily actives for now.
A few other trends and developments we saw:
Friend Tech is now available on Desktop - a welcome relief for those grinding it several hours per day
Hype has already begun for the entrance of the #1 Blur farmer CBB0FE, who is joining FT today at 4 pm UTC (how much will he deploy, how will farming be impacted, etc.)
Dingaling keys show strength in the pullback as he moves up to 11th on the leaderboard at 2.836
A few notable new/recent joiners and re-activations:
Pepe joined and quickly rallied past 1 ETH (also causing a bit of a selloff elsewhere)
Tyler Durden shared plans to become more active and saw his keys rally 40% to 0.38 ETH
Pornstar Gabbie Carter seemingly re-activated and popped 43% to 0.15 ETH
Dirwin E-bikes, the first brand with a physical product that I've seen launch on FT, giving value to keyholders via exclusive discounts
Overall expect more volatility today and tomorrow ahead of the next airdrop, any new updates from the team and the rise (or fall) of Post Tech.
If you like this content, catch our morning Friend Tech show at 10 am ET.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Trading volume was up slightly to $8.2M (5,100 ETH) on Wednesday, while the leaderboard again saw a mix of red and green (Pudgy's led top movers, Sugartown led losers)
Pudgy Penguins jumped 8% on Wednesday to a 4.66 ETH floor, a day after the team released a new cryptic roadmap titled "A Brave New World" with no other details
Pacman Blur posted on X for the first time since July 5, explaining the quiet due to heads-down development and saying updates should be coming soon (so an announcement of an announcement coming)
Yuga Labs announced new partnerships for continued development of The Otherside Metaverse, including Faraway, Bad Rhino Studio, Hadean and AccelByte
My Pet Hooligan launched its public early-access game in the Epic Games Store
DraftKings Reignmakers sold out its Week 3 Primetime packs in minutes yesterday evening, continuing the streak
Magic Eden has added open editions to its marketplace in its latest feature rollout
Moonbirds with the "Space Helmet" trait will be featured alongside other art and culture in the Lunaprise Museum, a time capsule that's being sent to the moon
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market was down on the day in line with equities after the FOMC meeting; BTC -1.4% at $26,750; ETH -2% at $1,590; SOL -2.7% at $19.6
NFT Platform ImmutableX saw its token soar 35% to $0.75 yesterday
Optimism sold 116M of its OP tokens ($157M) to 7 buyers yesterday in what was described as a "planned event," though the team's treasury still holds at $1.25B
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (730 ETH, 24.85 ETH Floor)
MAYC (473 ETH, 4.93 ETH)
DeGods (453 ETH, 3.46 ETH)
Milady (281 ETH, 2.4 ETH)
Pudgy Penguins (255 ETH, 4.63 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Nina's Super Cool World (33%, 0.44 ETH Floor)
goblintown (32%, 0.18 ETH)
Kubz (18%, 0.14 ETH)
Mutant Hound Collars (17%, 0.47 ETH)
Pudgy Rogs (11%, 0.33 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Nakamigos CLOAKS steal the show today, with the expansion collection of 20k minting for free for holders at 12 pm ET (0.05 ETH for public at 4 pm).
The Naka market has been a roller coaster since the team's announcement and pivot, but reactions to the art seem positive and the wildcard is if there is a game somehow tied to this.
Expect this to get the most attention in the market today.
What may fly under the radar - Rich Poole's "Ahunga" drop on Verse. With momentum in the art market and a very aesthetic drop, this is one to pay attention to.
Dig into those drops and see the full list of today's drops from Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
Blockgames (11:00 a.m. ET)
Nakamigos CLOAKS (12:00 p.m. ET)
Cool Cats - SIDEKX (1:00 p.m. ET)
Rich Poole x Verse - Ahunga (12:00 p.m. ET
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? 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.