Pudgy World Takeover
Art Basel went out with a boom with two major announcements Saturday night. Find out what they were and how the market responded.
📈 NFT Weekend Recap
Expectations were through the roof for the Pudgy announcement on Saturday at Art Basel.
The floor was pumping, collectors were dumping Fidenzas and Autoglyphs for Penguin NFTs, and the energy was palpable.
And in what is a rare achievement in web3, the team delivered and lived up to the hype.
Introducing Pudgy World
On Saturday night, the Pudgy Penguins team introduced Pudgy World Alpha, with the tagline "the beginning of a new era of blockchain-backed experiences, with the goal of onboarding millions..."
Here's the TLDR:
Pudgy World will be an open-world storytelling experience that is meant to be fun, playable by millions, and on-chain
Alpha testing began on Saturday and will continue until Public launch (date TBD)
Two new main characters were introduced, Pudgy and Peaches
Pudgy World will close the loop with Pudgy Toys, bringing toy buyers into the Pudgy metaverse
This final post in the announcement thread sums the vision up nicely:
"Providing a seamless and immersive on-chain experience between the physical and digital is core to our mission, and we are excited to take the next leap in bringing blockchain technology to the rest of the World"
The other aspect of the announcement - Project Overpass and the next step in IP licensing will come sometime in 2024 (was somewhat expected in 2023).
Oh, and a widely circulated video shows Luca answering the question about if a Pudgy token is launching at Art Basel with "No token...at Art Basel."
That response has led to much speculation that a token is indeed planned for the future, just not launching soon.
The market responded well to Pudgy World, with the Pudgy Penguin floor holding at 12 ETH through Saturday night before dipping Sunday into Monday (now at 11.1 ETH and +10% on week).
Lil Pudgy's jumped to 1.11 ETH, up 30% on the week and bringing the ratio of Big:Lil to 10:1.
Now with pretty clear air above (just ~200 listings to 15 ETH and 400 to 20), many are expecting Pudgy's to continue grinding up into 2024 and the public alpha launch.
What Else Is Happening?
Though Pudgy took the spotlight, there were some other big story lines from the weekend.
Rug Radio Merges with Decrypt
In a surprise announcement Saturday night, Farokh and the Rug Radio crew shared that they would be merging with Decrypt to enhance their media offerings.
The TLDR of the vision is this:
Rug Radio community members will be able to create decentralized content with oversight from Decrypt editors
Decrypt gains access to Rug Radio's creator platform and tools
The pair are partnering with Arbitrum to develop a state-of-the-art ad tech network
A token is planned to launch after the merger is complete and in-line with this new ecosystem vision
Enter Josh Quittner, Decrypt co-founder:
"This is an example of one plus one equalling three. By joining forces with the Rug team and its community, we hope to supercharge our ambition to one day be able to ‘decrypt everything.'"
It's certainly an exciting new partnership, and it will be interesting to see more detailed plans released in the coming days as the official merger draws near.
As for the market response, Rug Genesis NFTs did pull back from a local high over 0.3 ETH but are still up 33% on the week at 0.21 ETH.
Gaming and Token Rally
The other story from the weekend - gaming-related NFTs and projects with tokens continued to pump.
Sugartown Oras jumped 120% on the week to a 0.6 ETH floor after a bull-post by Beanie laying out the upside of the Zynga project sent it soaring on Sunday.
Mocaverse reached a 4 ETH floor on speculation that a Moca token is in the works.
And Pixelmon jumped 18% on the week, now at 1.83 ETH, after its CEO confirmed a token is coming.
NFT Market Overview
Now for a quick look at broader price action.
Here is a quick rundown of the notable floors and their 7-day price changes:
Fidenza: 66.66 ETH (-3%)
CryptoPunks: 55.69 ETH (-3%)
Ringers: 33.5 ETH (-2%)
BAYC: 29.34 ETH (-3%)
Gazers: 11.88 ETH (+3%)
Pudgy Penguins: 10.95 ETH (+9%)
Grifters: 10.27 ETH (even)
Chromie Squiggle: 9.29 ETH (+3%)
Winds of Yawanawa: 7.75 ETH (-3%)
Azuki: 6.43 ETH (-5%)
MAYC: 5.68 ETH (-2%)
Captainz: 4.98 ETH (+13%)
Otherside Koda: 3.5 ETH (+7%)
Milady: 3.17 ETH (-17%)
DeGods: 3.1 (-9%)
PROOF: 2.9 ETH (-23%)
So it was mostly a slight red week with leaders down 2-3%.
Pudgy's and Captainz were the outliers to the upside, up 9% and 13%.
And PROOF and Milady were the outliers to the downside, down 23% and 17%.
NFT Stats' large-cap NFT index has seen its rally slow, which shouldn't be a surprise based on this week's price action. That index has been pretty much up-only for the past 2 months now so a pause/pullback would make sense.
Now the question becomes - how long or deep of a pause/pullback will we see?
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:
ETH trading volume jumped to $29.3M on Sunday, while NFT leaders were mixed
Sugartown led top movers +52% to 0.59 ETH after a post from Beanie sent the floor to 0.7; Seedworld NFTs and Mocaverse also saw big gains
Solana NFTs broadly cooled off after a meteoric rise; Mad Lads at 195 SOL floor, Tensorians at 106
Transient Labs is facing some pushback after apparently minting and selling an ACK work minted without his permission
Jack Butcher introduced Opepen Set 27 "The 27th Character" currently 4,000% subbed; the set will include art created live at Art Basel over the weekend (unrevealed floor at 0.49 ETH)
Jack's Oviators went live on Friday, featuring physical Opepen-style glasses + unique gen art for 0.11 ETH on Base
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
Crypto majors fell hard on the day; BTC -4.4% at $41,750; ETH -5.2% at $2,220; SOL -7% at $67.72
AVAX stayed green even through the downturn, +7% to $35 (and +64% on the week)
BONK continues to outpace PEPE, now $710M in market cap compared with $590M
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (3,536 ETH, 29.34 ETH Floor)
Pudgy Penguins (1,729 ETH, 11.16 ETH)
Azuki (1,180 ETH, 6.43 ETH)
MAYC (850 ETH, 5.69 ETH)
Lil Pudgys (789 ETH, 1.11 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Mocaverse Treasure Box (85%, 0.48 ETH Floor)
The Mounts of Seedworld (50%, 0.44 ETH)
Seedworld Vanguards (45%, 0.45 ETH)
Mocaverse (37%, 3.97 ETH)
Imaginary Ones (31%, 1.18 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a slower day of drops to start the week.
The meme card is from Fran Rodriguez, and there are a few trading card drops from Valeria Games and takashi murakami.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.Â
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
Valeria Games - Trading Cards (12:00 p.m. ET)
Max Chadwick "Short Stories" (1:00 p.m. ET)
Murakami - trading cards (TBD)
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