Fidenzas Lead Major NFT Art Rebound

Multiple art collections soared 50% to 150%+ on Monday. Why did it happen? Plus catch up on a major new rewards program out of Nifty Gateway.

TylerD

May 23, 2023

TylerD's Market Summary

GM!

Today's top news includes:

Fidenzas lead soaring art market
Nifty Gateway launches rewards
A new Opepen ATH
Blur adds the low-end market
FTX 2.0 may be coming soon

📈 Generative Art Market Soars

Apparently collective NFT market participants decided yesterday was the day to buy generative art.

From Art Blocks to gmDAO collections, prices soared anywhere from 50%-100+ on the day.

Just how big of a day was it, and what were the drivers?

The art market just had its biggest day in months

By The Numbers

Let's start with some notable generative art NFT floor prices and their increase on the day.

Fidenza at 86.5 ETH (+57%)
Ringers at 43 ETH (+48%)
Gazers at 16.9 ETH (+15%)
Archetype at 12.69 ETH (+22%)
Squiggles at 12 ETH (+27%)
Meridians at 7.05 ETH (+30%)
Dynamic Slices at 3.8 ETH (+155)
Primera by Grant Yun at 4.75 ETH (+151%)
Mind the Gap at 1.23 ETH (+89%)
Facture at 0.69 ETH (+103%)

This list doesn't even capture the lower end of the Art Blocks market, which saw several other collections surge 30-150%.

Or the major Fidenza sale we saw overnight for 370 ETH ($685,000).

It very well might have been the best day of generative art price action since the bull market.

So why did it happen?

Market Drivers

My read is it was a combination of a few different factors that caused this wild spike:

The 3AC Grails at Sotheby's beating expectations on May 19th, coupled with a spike in Fidenza sales have provided more confidence to collectors that a top-end market still exists
FOMO from sidelined buyers who have been waiting for a bottom and a turn-around before entering (and realization that memecoin SZN is winding down)
Very thin floors, as potential sellers have undercut each other into a very low liquidity market (some of these percent returns are based on just 1-3 sales)

So is the bottom behind us?

The success of Grails at Sotheby’s has certainly given some confidence to the market

What happens next?

Well, we certainly would like to see some extended runs in these sets.

We have seen the Art Blocks 1-2 day pump before and then liquidity disappears again for weeks and months.

The 3AC Grails wallet still has a huge amount of NFTs in it as well, including 30 Fidenzas, 16 Ringers, and dozens of Art Blocks pieces.

As the next auction(s) grows closer, that will become a bigger looming shadow (I'm not buying that the 3AC shadow is fully lifted).

We aren't out of the woods yet.

But perhaps the big winner - Operator, the artist behind the Art Blocks Curated drop coming this Wednesday "Human Unreadable." The minters will be coming back out for this one.

The next AB Curated drop is going to see increased demand - nice timing

🎁 Nifty Gateway Launches New Rewards

A new bullish driver may have just entered the NFT art market.

Yesterday the Nifty Gateway platform announced their new Collector Appreciation Month along with their rewards program.

Here's how it works:

There are 6 different levels of reward tiers based on lifetime spend
Rewards are in the form of USD rebates on future purchases, from 1% to 10%
Activity in the month of June 2023 on both primary and secondary market will count towards the program (with some exceptions like Starbucks)

It's certainly a nice surprise for those who still actively buy and trade on Nifty Gateway.

Though it does fall short of a true airdrop situation.

So no market stimulus, but more incentives to buy art on Nifty Gateway.

Will it work?

My gut is, we see an uptick in sales but nothing significant. This program falls short of the type of rewards this NFT market has been spoiled with from Blur.

But a lot depends on which major artists they have lined up for June.

Will Nifty Gateway’s new rewards program drive more art market action?

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:

Trading volume fell to 13k ETH on Monday, as the PFP market mostly chopped while the art market soared (as described above)
Blur added 2 new collections to Blend on Monday in Kanpai Pandas and Redacted Remilio Babies, now the 2-lowest entry collections in the program; their floors jumped 8.5% and 15% respectively on the day
Opepens saw a new ATH sale of 24.69 ETH for an R001 x/10, along with 2 sales at 19 ETH for the R001 x/40s; the R001 floor is now 25 ETH
Artist ripcache debuted an innovative new artwork combining the physical and digital realms, requiring partial "destruction" of the physical piece to unlock the digital
LooksRare debuted new portfolio analytics, providing new comprehensive insights into user portfolios
Mocaverse is partnering with decentralized social network CyberConnect launch its web3 Membership Program
Forgotten Runes released a new AI chat bot trained in the Runiverse lore for public beta testing, in the latest NFT-AI crossover

The Opepen market is scorching hot after a new 24.69 ETH ATH sale

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

The crypto market rebounded on Monday; BTC +2% at $27,330; ETH +2.2% at $1,855
FTX CEO's recent work hinting at launch of FTX 2.0
My First DAO launched a new 24-week "Learn and Earn" program, requiring their DAOlphin NFTs as entry pass
The Hot Wheels NFT collection drop sold out in minutes yesterday, as 14,000 packs sold for $20 each on the Flow blockchain
Hot Wheels from Mattel is the latest brand to have a successful NFT drop

🚀 NFT Total Volume

Milady (1,587 ETH; 4.07 ETH Floor)
MAYC (1,466 ETH, 9.54 ETH)
Wrapped Cryptopunks (1,395 ETH, 48.3 ETH)
BAYC (1,227 ETH, 45.4 ETH)
Azuki (850 ETH, 14.7 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase

Factura (103%, 0.69 ETH Floor)
Mind the Gap (89%, 1.23 ETH)
Alan Ki Aankhen (71%, 0.72 ETH)
Ignition (69%, 1.44 ETH)
Primitives (68%, 0.84 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

The big drop today is definitely Snowfro's Squiggles, as 10 new unminted Squiggles will hit the market.

Given the recent surge in the Squiggles floor (from 8-12 in the past few days), there should be solid demand (especially given the charity component).

The wildcard to watch is the completion of Jack Butcher's Checks Elements auction happening later today. If those go unexpectedly high, the Checks floor may see some new interest.

Behind the Veil (10:19 a.m. ET); 0.0469 ETH
Snowfro's Squiggles: The Auction (12:00 p.m. ET); Ranked Auction
AssetDash Vanta (12:15 p.m. ET); 5.55 SOL
Star Symphony Elder Pass (2:00 p.m. ET); 0.069 ETH
Nordic Spring (5:00 p.m. ET); 0.15 ETH

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.