Have NFTs Found A Local Bottom?
The NFT market has been in depression mode these past few weeks, but there is some growing bullish momentum. Are NFTs back? Plus Nike's OF1's debut today.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
Growing momentum in the NFT market
Blur's 2 new collections come today
Pudgy Penguins launching toys
Elon tweets a PEPE meme
adidas rebrands its web3 program
🙈 Are NFTs Back From The Dead?
If you look at the classic Wall St. "Psychology of a Market Cycle" cheat sheet, it feels like we are in (or leaving) the Depression phase.
Panic and capitulation came back in April as floors tanked live during NFT NYC when holders realized no major announcements were coming to save their bags.
Then the timeline got angry, with much of it directed at Blur.
As memecoin season started and heated up, people seemingly stopped caring about NFTs all together.
This was punctuated last weekend when Blur had less than 1,000 daily active unique users across both weekend days.
The common narrative on Crypto and even NFT Twitter was that "NFTs are dead."
Well, everyone's always the most bearish at the bottom.
And there are some positive signs of potential reversal.
What's Been Happening?
Here's a list of some of the more bullish headlines from the past week, in no particular order:
ACK sells out his The Broken Keys collection with a 9 ETH minimum winning bid (far above expectations), with top winning bids over 30 ETH
Jack Butcher's Opepens see multiple 5-10 ETH sales for his s001 series
0n1 Force rallies 80% on the week on major news from the new ownership team and speculation ahead of a major announcement coming today
The Art Blocks Curated drop on Friday minted out and 2x'd on secondary
Animoca Brands chairman Yat Sui sweeps the BAYC floor
Gwei is back in the 40s (from recent average highs over 100)
Elon tweeted out a Pepe meme, $PEPE soared and then cooled off within hours
While each of those bullets is important, the last two are the ones I'm watching the closest.
Memecoins and gas have been huge drivers in NFT trading coming to a halt. If it costs 0.04-0.06 ETH to transact, NFT traders simply won't. And why trade NFTs if there are "easy" 2-10x trades in the memecoin streets?
Well, there are signs that memecoin season is over (or ending soon). In hindsight, it sure looks like $PEPE and the memecoin ecosystem hit a blowoff top on the May 5th weekend after the Binance listing.
It's been basically down only ever since, on lower volume.
With lower volume of coin trading comes lower gwei - meaning it's cheaper to trade NFTs again.
And we're starting to see some green back on the NFT board because of it.
By the Numbers:
A few notable floor increases on the week:
0n1 Force (+80%, 1 ETH floor)
Pudgy Penguins (+5%, 4.54 ETH floor)
Captainz (+15%, 8 ETH floor)
Beanz (+5%, 1.34 ETH floor)
Potatoz (+20%, 3.2 ETH floor)
Additionally, though Punks and Apes are both red on the week, they are both up ~10% from intra-week local lows.
So is the bottom in?
It's hard to call bottom as long as Blur farming is happening with any size, but there is positive momentum.
This week will be a big test with VeeCon happening Thursday-Saturday - will we see the classic conference dump?
If not, and if we can see a few weeks of positive growth, we might be able to finally pull out of this depression and into "disbelief."
But you probably won't believe it...
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:
Trading volume was under 9k ETH both days this weekend, though NFTs saw a good amount of green
Art Blocks is updating its Bytecode Storage library to enhance on-chain storage capabilities for the platform
Pudgy Penguins share that Pudgy Toys are coming on May 18th, as the PFP project looks to use toys as a "trojan horse" into NFTs
PROOF announced that holders of "Bookends (Study)" can now claim physical pots, created by Snowfro
Memeland Season 1 of Raids is now officially live, with the raid rates updated to Win 45%, Loss 48.1%, and Broken Seas (burned) 6.9%
Blur has its two newest Blend collections going live today, with broad speculation on which two sets it could be (smart money on BAKC and Beanz)
DeGods is partnering with the Ordinal Gallery to host an art event featuring live auctions and special collaborations on May 18 at BTC Miami
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market rebounded over the weekend after days of decline; BTC +2% at $27,370; ETH +1.3% at $1,830
$PEPE soared 40% after Elon tweeted out a Pepe meme, reaching an $840M MC, before retracing over the weekend to $700M
LG Electronics is seeking patent protection for a television that facilitates NFT trading
adidas announced that they are rebranding their official web3 Twitter account from @indigo_herz to @ALTSbyadidas
LG is seeking patents for TVs featuring NFT trading
🚀 NFT Total Volume
MAYC (2,141 ETH, 9.86 ETH Floor)
Wrapped Cryptopunks (631 ETH, 49.2 ETH)
Pudgy Penguins (612 ETH, 4.7 ETH)
Milady (493 ETH; 3.94 ETH)
BAYC (470 ETH, 46.8 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Pudgy Rogs (42%, 0.34 ETH Floor)
VeeFriends S2 (22%, 0.11 ETH)
Neo Tokyo Citizens (21%, 5.2 ETH)
Pixelmon (17%, 0.63 ETH)
rektguy (11%, 0.73 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today has the standard Meme card and Art Blocks drops, but the wild card comes from Nike.
The long-awaited Nike Our Force 1's debut today for those with presale access. Overall, there will be 106,453 pairs of digital Our Force 1s for sale, for $19.82 each.
The public will have their chance at some OF1s on Wednesday.
If Nike can pull this one off and sell out, every major brand will be on alert. This is one of the first "mainstream" web3 product launches at an attractive entry price, and Nike may have laid out the blueprint for others to follow.
Get caught up with everything going on with OF1's with our comprehensive guide!
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET); 0.06529 ETH
.SWOOSH OF1 Box - Presale (12:00 p.m. ET); $19.82
AB Presents: Nära by Tengil (1:00 p.m. ET); Dutch auction
Reddit: Better Launch Next Time (TBD); free
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.