Nakamigo Mania
Nakamigo Mania
The new cult project Nakamigos is up 7,000% in just 11 days and has officially taken the NFT market by storm. What is going on and what can other projects learn from their success?
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today’s top news includes:
Nakamigos rocketing
DeGods migrate and dip
Yuga’s new CEO starts
Memeland surges
Arbitrum responds to FUD
🚀 Nakamigos Storm on to the Scene
The NFT bear market has been brutal, with an especially bad downturn in late March.
Spirits and community sentiment seemed to be headed to the bottom as several popular mid-tier PFPs spiraled downwards.
Enter a fun, pixelated art PFP project to try and save the market.
Nakamigos.
Unless you have been living under a rock or just off NFT Twitter completely, you have seen these things flying around, popping up as PFPs and in memes.
But what was at first just a fun project community members were vibing with has turned into a real force, as the 20k supply collection reached a 0.7 ETH floor overnight.
That's a whopping 340% gain on the week and a 70x from mint.
Why are they gaining popularity?
By the Numbers:
Before digging into the bull case for Nakamigos and why they are surging, let's look at some key figures:
Mint price: Free for EOS holders; public Dutch auction ending at 0.01 ETH
Days since mint: 11
Lifetime volume: 13,612 ETH
Number of sales: 58,844
Number of owners: 5,753
Current ATH sale: 20 ETH
Royalty: 5%
Ranking in global reach: 1
So in 11 days since mint, the floor is up 70x from the public mint price (infinite from the end of sartoshi mint price of free).
The entire set of 20,000 NFTs has turned over almost 3x with 58,844 sales.
And the Nakamigos Twitter page has already reached the #1 rank in global reach on NFT Inspect (and 7th for all PFP collections).
What Nakamigos Did Right
After studying this collection closely for almost a week now and being engaged deeply in the community, there are several things the Nakamigos team did right to set this project up for success.
Low mint price
Pixelated art
Distribution of mid-tier and high-end traits
Community leverage
Honoraries for whales and artists
Royalty enforcement
Here's a quick look at each of those factors and why they matter.
Low mint price: The free mint for EOS holders and a Dutch auction ending at 0.01 ETH made the project widely obtainable in a brutal bear market. The low entry also kickstarted an "every man" vibe from the beginning as virtually no one was priced out.
Pixelated art: The art is very strong on this collection for those that enjoy the pixelated style. They make great PFPs, which has led to a surge in their use on Twitter. And there are very few "bad" or "floor" traits, which leads to a constant churn and nothing anchoring the floor down.
Mid-tier and High-end traits: One of the most eye-opening factors for this collection has been the above-floor sales. Typical low-cost "degen" mints can see their floors take off, but volume is almost entirely located at the floor. Not the case with Nakamigos. Check out some of the mid-tier and high-end floors from yesterday (several of which are already out-dated).
The set contains many nostalgic and fresh traits that haven't been used much before, and it's leading to a surging number of sub-community groups popping up in Twitter group chats. Which is one of the biggest organic growth methods for NFT collections right now.
Community leverage: The Nakamigos team piggy-backed on the mfer community with their mint, and that group was key in supporting the project during the very important first week. There were marathon Twitter spaces, ninja training sessions, and early and frequent memeing - all instrumental in the early success of the project on social.
Honoraries: They also sent honorary Nakamigos to several notable artists and collectors early on, which helped the social reach even more. And now, some of those big names have made Nakamigos their PFPs - huge for social reach.
Royalties: The team set royalties to 5% and then made sure they were enforced on Blur. In fact, they were not being enforced earlier last week on Blur, which led to deep farming and some early volatile price action. But the 5% rake has seemingly trimmed down pure farming a bit (evidenced by typical farmers not holding huge bags) and has led to what feels like more organic price action.
This combination has led to major market momentum and caught Beeple's attention, who highlighted the Nakamigos in his piece "PRAY" last night, which sent the market up another 30%.
Will Nakamigos have staying power?
It's the multi-million dollar question right now. But early indications point to yes, based on those factors above.
We will be watching.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of the headlines from a slow weekend in NFTs:
Trading volume spiked over 31k ETH on Sunday, the highest level since March 16th and up almost 50% from recent levels
DeGods officially made it to ETH, with 76% migrated so far; the floor is at 7.97 ETH, down about 25% from local highs over the 11 ETH level; y00ts fell about 15% to 2.1 ETH
Yuga's new CEO Daniel Alegre has officially started at the helm of Yuga after leaving Activision Blizzard on Friday
The Memeland ecosystem surged on Sunday, with Captains reaching 6 ETH and Potatoz eclipsing 3 ETH
Killabears announced a new mint for Killacubs coming on 4/20, priced at 0.25 ETH
87 Punks were sold in a single transaction on Saturday for 5,261 ETH ($9.6M), sending the floor down to 58.5 ETH
Doodles Genesis Boxes revealed on Friday, revealing their contents and gear for the upcoming Doodles 2 collection
Mocaverse is adjusting its staking window starting today at 9 am ET
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market chopped over the weekend; BTC -0.3% at $28,300; ETH -0.5% at $1,810
The Arbitrum Foundation clarified a recent governance vote and some token sales based on recent community feedback
Argentinian low-cost airline Flybondi is partnering with TravelX to offer flight tickets as NFTs on the Algorand blockchain
Third Time Games has partnered with NBC Sports to provide a 3D simulation of the iconic Kentucky Derby for the 2nd year in a row
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Wrapped CryptoPunks (6,565 ETH, 59 ETH Floor)
Nakamigos (2,599 ETH, 0.71 ETH)
Otherdeed (1,359 ETH, 1.74 ETH)
MAYC (1,293 ETH, 13.4 ETH)
DeGods (1,030 ETH, 7.97 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
end of sartoshi (134%, 0.12 ETH Floor)
Nakamigos (71%, 0.71 ETH)
Milady (29%, 1.46 ETH)
Captainz (10%, 6 ETH)
Potatoz (13%, 3.09 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a slower day of new drops with just a few notable ones on the docket.
The Art Blocks drop has a fairly high supply at 360, even though the fixed price of 0.13 is relatively low and may be low enough to catch some interest after last week's big Curated run.
Then Iron Paw Gan comes this afternoon from Adam Ape, with a 4k supply for 0.15 ETH.
Candy: 2023 MLB Highlights (1:00 p.m. ET); $20
Art Blocks Presents: SL/CE by Stranger in the Q (11:00 a.m. ET); 0.13 ETH
Iron Paw Gang (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.