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Polygon Summer Is Coming

Frank DeGods shared some serious alpha with y00ts holders this week regarding some absolute game-changers coming for Polygon. Here's why it's such a big deal.

TylerD

May 5, 2023

TylerD's Market Summary

GM!

Today's top news includes:

A major y00ts update
Bullish changes coming for Polygon?
Details on the Sotheby's marketplace
$PEPE soars past $1B
Stripe launches fiat-to-crypto on-ramp

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🤯 Frank's Big Update and the Future of Polygon

Polygon has been building major partnerships for months and seemingly stacking brand equity, but it has not yet translated to its NFT market.

Is that about to change?

Some clues from Frank DeGod's AMA with his y00ts holders make it seem like it might be finally happening.

Background

For quick background, Frank DeGods is the founder of the DeGods and y00ts NFT projects.

DeGods recently bridged from Solana to ETH, and y00ts bridged from Solana to Polygon (seemingly due to a major grant provided by Polygon).

That move has since been questioned, as DeGods have thrived on ETH while y00ts volume has been relatively low.

Well those questions might be answered soon.

y00ts volume has been peanuts over on Polygon since the bridge

The Details

Wale.Swoosh, a Researcher in Residence for Azuki, had an excellent thread summarizing Frank's AMA.

Here are the takeaways:

y00tpoints (the y00ts reward program) are being prioritized and will be useful for items beyond merch
An art upgrade is coming
Operation MHL (Maximizing Holder Liquidity) is launching soon, providing education and trading tips
A solution for the Polygon bridge is coming, allowing the use of mainnet ETH without the bridging process
Brand partnerships are coming, and there's a big pool of major brands on Polygon (Mastercard, Reddit, Nike, etc.)

Bullet 4 is the major one here.

It's no secret to anyone following the NFT market that Polygon volume is peanuts compared to ETH.

In the past month, Polygon has seen $44.9M in NFT volume, compared to $471M on ETH. So they're being dwarfed 10-1.

And it's largely because the process to bridge ETH to Polygon is cumbersome.

If those barriers are removed, things could change fast.

Polygon NFTs aren't inherently worse than ETH NFTs - they're just harder to access. Soon that may not be an issue.

Additionally, the ETH network has been basically unusable due to high gas for the past few weeks. That won't be an issue on Polygon.

This feels like perfect a perfect setup for Polygon.

Frank alluded in his AMA that these updates are coming in Q2, so in the next few months.

It might be time to start looking at some Polygon NFTs...

The list of major brands building on Polygon is very impressive

🖼 Sotheby's Launches NFT Marketplace

Sotheby's made a major surprise announcement this week with the launch of their new art secondary marketplace "Sotheby's Metaverse."

Branded as "the most trusted and dynamic destination to collect, buy and sell remarkable digital works," they are attempting to solve the problem of fragmentation in the 1/1 market.

Their team is curating artists and aggregating their works across all platforms.

And they're kicking off with some of the absolute top artists in the space.

Sotheby’s launched a much-needed 1/1 aggregator with it’s Sotheby’s Metaverse

The Details:

The TLDR of their new marketplace:

What: Aggregator of 1/1s from a selection of across marketplaces
Who: A curated selection of 13 artists to start, highlighted by XCOPY, Sam Spratt, Tyler Hobbs, and Claire Silver amongst several other top artists
How: peer-to-peer transactions will be executed on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains.
Where: https://metaverse.sothebys.com/
Fees: 2.5% fee on top of fully enforced royalties

When you navigate to an artist's actual page, you'll see a brief overview of the artist on one tab and then a separate tab containing their entire set of NFTs.

Unfortunately, listing prices don't seem to have migrated from those other platforms. XCOPY for instance has 0 NFTs for sale on Sotheby's Metaverse and 24 listed on SuperRare.

A glimpse at an artist’s home page on the new mp

Why It Matters:

Artists often have 1/1 pieces spread out across multiple marketplaces (Foundation, SuperRare, AOTM Gallery, etc.).

It can be difficult to get a grasp of artists' full portfolios because of this, and an aggregator was sorely needed.

Escher jumped in to solve this issue for the editions market for digital art, but it looks like Sotheby's is the first mover for 1/1s.

So it's a big win for collectors.

Now we just need to see NFTs actually listed there for this to work.

XCOPY has a beautiful collection page on Sotheby’s - but no pieces are listed for sale

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

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

Trading volume was just under 10k ETH on Thursday, as unique traders fall to 5,500; NFTs see red
Blur has seen 19.2k ETH ($36.5M) in loans since Blend opened, though there are signs that their BNPL program is slowing
OpenSea Pro added a new data visualization feature with Bubblemaps
0N1 Force announced a new partnership with Horizen Labs Ventures to "deliver its community world class experiences," explore new opportunities, and drive growth
Cryptoys debuted Star Wars collectible digital toys on May 4th
Fuddies launched on SUI, selling out its public Dutch auction at 120 SUI (~$180) and seeing over $700,000 in secondary volume (floor at 100 SUI)
The Solana Foundation launched an NFT pitch contest for potential founders looking to create long-term PFP projects

Cryptoys capitlized on May 4th with its Star Wars launch

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

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

The crypto market chopped on Thursday; BTC even at $29,100; ETH even at $1,905
$PEPE soared 65% to a $1.16B MC on rumors of major exchange listings coming soon, while $TURBO rebounded over 100% to a $50M MC after Elon responded to Beeple's $TURBO Everyday
Stripe announced the launch of its fiat-to-crypto onramp, another step towards easier crypto onboarding and use as a currency
ERM Labs (famous for Escape Rooms) has partnered with The Sandbox to bring real-life escape room experiences into the metaverse