NFT Weekend Recap
There were some major events this past weekend that are set to have a major impact on NFTs and Web3. Catch up on all the latest news and get ready for the week ahead.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
BTC NFTs heat up
China gets deeper into Web3
Jack Butcher's big weekend
Debt ceiling deal reached
F1 issues tickets as NFTs
📰 NFT Weekend Recap
Hopefully you all had a nice long holiday weekend!
While the markets were fairly slow over the weekend, there were a few major headlines that could have a major impact the Web3 and NFT landscape.
Here were the major storylines from this past weekend:
Bitcoin NFTs heat up
China gets deeper into Web3
Jack's big weekend across art, memes, and PFPs
Let's dive in.
Bitcoin NFTs Heat Up
The biggest headline of the weekend, and maybe the week, was the rise of Ordinals and Bitcoin NFTs.
A major milestone was set yesterday, as the 10 millionth inscription was made.
But that isn't what caught market attention.
On Thursday evening, founder BitGod launched a new BRC-20 called $OXBT. It was a free mint, costing ~$10-$13 pending gas for a block of 5,000.
By Saturday morning, $OXBT had done a full 100x, with minters turning $10 into over $1,000.
This led to some rotation around the BTC NFT ecosystem, which saw a surge in volume.
On Saturday AM, 4 of the top 10 leading projects by volume were BTC projects. And then on Sunday AM, the top 2 spots by volume were held by BTC projects.
$OXBT was the primary winner of that volume, but other projects benefitted, with BTC DeGods reaching a 1 BTC floor and Bitcoin Frogs rebounding to 0.11 BTC.
More and more attention is being paid to this ecosystem now, and many are calling for an inevitable flipping of ETH. It's certainly feeling more plausible than it was a few months ago.
China Gets Deeper Into Web3
Two major NFT-related headlines came out of China this past weekend.
First, the Beijing government tech committee apparently launched a Web 3.0 white paper.
The whitepaper covered NFTs, VR, AI and the metaverse among other topics, referencing major companies ByteDance, JD and Baidu along with artists Beeple and Gavin Wood.
Then on Saturday news broke that a famous Chinese singer and actress Karen Mok rocked a Cryptopunks-themed dressduring a show on Hunan TV, the 2nd largest Chinese TV station.
First Meebits, now Punks. It seems like China has a thing for Larva Labs NFTs.
These headlines all come before retail China is expected to get legal crypto exposure starting on June 1, when citizens will be allowed to purchase for the first time since crypto was outlawed.
It's certainly a big week ahead on the Eastern front, and expectations are high.
Jack's Big Weekend
Jack Butcher is on a real heater.
His Checks Elements auctions surpassed expectations last week, raising over 400 ETH.
They then more than doubled on the secondary market, reaching a 6.75 ETH floor, marking a major win for everyone who minted.
On Friday Jack launched his first Meme card in the Memes by 6529 ecosystem, which promptly ran to a 1.369 ETH floor, making it a top-4 card by price.
And then there were Opepens.
The Opepen packs 003 and 004 details were released Friday evening, with the artist confirmed as Batzdu and Visualize Value.
This sent the market into peak hype mode, with the Opepen floor briefly surging past 1 ETH and pack subscriptions going through the roof.
Before Monday's reveal event, both packs were well over 50% subscribed, with Batzdu's at a whopping 64% subbed.
Then the reveal went live around 5 pm EST last night with more fireworks.
The 003 and 004s started selling in the 5-7 ETH range, and the floor surged 20% to 0.83 ETH.
This was in contrast to popular expectations that the floor would dip post-reveal, as those who didn't win the raffle were expected to dump. Instead, collectors saw the significant price action on the 003/004 reveal and opted to buy.
A few stats as of this AM:
Opepen floor: 0.82 ETH
R001 floor: 40 ETH
R002 floor: 2.5 ETH
R003 floor: 4.95 ETH
R004 floor: 8 ETH
Unrevealed 1/1 floor: 13.8 ETH
Unrevealed 1/4 floor: 2.25 ETH
Unrevealed 1/5 floor: 1.7 ETH
The other surprise here (for most) is that 004 is outperforming 003. The Batzdu hype was much higher in the general market, but given Visualize Value's ties to Jack and the dynamic nature of that pack (vs pure editions), it's holding a 60% premium.
Overall the Opepen ecosystem is as hot as ever. We will see how Jack maintains that momentum until the next packs are announced.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:
Trading volume jumped back to 12k ETH on Monday, after falling close to 10k ETH on Sunday; the broader PFP market was down slightly on the week
Beeple featured Nakamigos in another Everyday on Sunday night, leading to a major pump (coupled with a pump by a new influencer), briefly driving the floor above 0.7 ETH before retracing to 0.6
Social intelligence platform NFT Inspect announced "Inspect 2.0" featuring a revamped interface, a DAO and the $INSP token coming soon
RFTKT x Rimowa forging went live yesterday
LooksRare announced a new token buyback program, using fees from raffles to buy its own $LOOKS
Blur added Beanz to its Blend/BNPL program on Friday
Tribute Brand launched Chromie Squiggles generative sweaters
Pudgy shark toys went live Friday night for $250, instantly sold out and started trading as high as $1,000 on the secondary market
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market rebounded over the weekend; BTC up to $27,975; ETH at $1,912
The U.S. government announced a debt ceiling deal was reached on Saturday, with stock futures expected to open in the green
Red Bull collaborated with Nifty Gateway and Burnt Toast to launch its Red Bull Doodle Art collection, with 61 pieces priced at $5
Formula 1 (F1) issued race tickets as NFTs for this past weekend's Monaco F1 Grand Prix race (on Polygon)
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (2,763 ETH, 45.2 ETH)
MAYC (1,775 ETH, 9.54 ETH)
Nakamigos (1,215 ETH; 0.61 ETH)
Azuki (884 ETH, 14.73 ETH Floor)
Opepen (655 ETH, 0.8 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Bitcoin Miladys (53%, 0.15 ETH Floor)
0xMahjong (27%, 0.4 ETH)
Mutant Hounds (21%, 0.17 ETH)
Valhalla (12%, 0.65 ETH)
Nakamigos (11%, 0.6 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a slower day of drops coming off the long holiday weekend.
The main event is likely from Claynosaurz, with the launch of their new game "The Call of Saga" with Solana mobile.
The Claynos floor is down 56% on the month to 58 SOL, so it will be interesting to see if this can galvanize some market action.
Art Blocks Presents: Meaningless (11:00 a.m. ET); Dutch auction
Claynosaurz "The Call of Saga" (TBD); 0.02 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.