Page One #18
Announcements and such:
We are back after some holiday traveling and some sick days. The current plan is to run it again on Tuesday and get things on schedule. Besides that, not much but the usual - let us know what you think, let me know what I missed and hit the button below to come hang out.
TLDR:
10KTF shop burns down, Wagmi-san escapes unscathed
Akutars mint today at 2PM EST
Alien Frens have evolved
Anata auction ends today between 12PM and 3PM EST
The Artieverse wants you to play games, not download them
The Association hopes to turn around a cold start with playoff hoops
BEANZ are coming to a garden near you (probably rather soon)
Cool Cats better get to Cooltopia because those Pets don’t hatch themselves
MNLTHs are finally ready to crack open
Moonbirds exceed all expectations
OM hopes to bring the 6529 vision to the people
Pudgy Penguins begin building on a clean slate
Shinsei Galverse puts a female-focused spin on anime pfps
Trait Sniper gets ready to launch new access passes
Unemployables are boring on purpose
VeeFriends Series 2 mint is underway
News and Notes:
10KTF orchestrated an immersive storytelling experience spanning Twitch, Twitter and Discord on the 21st. Through video, audio and text, 10KTF continued the story of Wagmi-san and the Boss Toadz while setting the stage for the next phase of the saga. Watch their Twitch stream here and their Twitter videos here. A variety of rumors regarding Wagmi-san’s next step have circulated recently, including a few focused on a familiar bottle in his shop. Wherever they head next, it’s safe to assume the Moonbirds will be joining in.
Alien Frens expanded their ecosystem last week with the release of AF Evolutions. Holders were airdropped an Incubator that can be opened to produce an AF Evolution and were given the opportunity to buy an additional Evolution for 0.25Ξ. Remaining pieces were sold to the public. Both an original Alien and an Evolution will be required to earn $FREN, their soon-to-be-launched token, which will be used in the AF store. Evolutions also receive an Invasion spot and access to merch and IRL events.
BEANZ are, as the name implies, beans. Azuki officially introduced the little guys on the 18th in this thread. Evidently some figured they wouldn’t actually be beans, as the collection tumbled after the announcement before quickly recovering. While an official reveal date has not yet been announced, many assume it won’t be too long and could come within the week. In other Azuki news, Bobu is headed to space.
Cool Cats and Pets finally entered Cooltopia for the first time last week. The game had a myriad of issues upon launch on the 14th, some of which took until the 20th to sort out. Since then, its reportedly been smooth sailing. As holders advance in Cooltopia, Cool Pets will start to hatch: each pet must be fed 50 items before revealing. While the past few months have been a bit rough on the Cats, holders can look forward to progressing through Cooltopia as features continue to roll out. Read more on Cooltopia here.
Pudgy Penguins are making their first moves under new management. On the 20th they shared the Quest Map, a colorful roadmap full of intriguing titles and devoid of details. The new Pudgy logo made its debut on the 21st and their website is undergoing some updates as well. The NFT market has never seen a collection as well-known as the Penguins undergo an acquisition and subsequent restructuring, so it will be interesting to see what direction the team goes and how the market reacts in the coming months.
MNLTHs will unveil their long-kept secrets today. A “Special Ultimate Quest” will take place in the RTFKT Discord at 11AM EST to prepare holders for the future, so expect the reveal to happen sometime after that. Holders have waited over two months to break open the box and everyone has their predictions, but according to Benit0, MNLTH is really just the friends we made while waiting.
In wider market news:
Coinbase NFT marketplace opened for Beta testers on the 20th. The marketplace puts a social spin on things, letting users comment on items, follow each other and scroll through a curated feed of people and projects. While there will be mixed opinions, it’s nice to see them trying something a little different, as there are already enough normal marketplaces. We’ll continue to observe Coinbase NFT marketplace as they roll out to more users.
LooksRare introduced listing rewards on the 20th to incentivize increased liquidity in the market. The program will distribute 250,000 LOOKS per day to users who list NFTs from the top 25 collections within 1.5x the floor price. LR also added a bulk listing tool last week. Read more about listing rewards here and see the bulk listing in action here.
Recent Launches:
Anata began their 24-hour Metadrop auction yesterday and bidding will come to a close at a random time between 12PM and 3PM EST today. See their Medium post here for more details about the auction mechanics. Anatas are webcam avatars that can be used on most video platforms, integrating your NFTs through an extension built by Hologram Labs. All tokens will reveal 23 hours after the mint concludes. Keep up with Anata on Twitter to find out when the auction ends and the final price.
The Artieverse is our first introduction to Artie and his colorful, balloon-ish friends. Artie Mobile Games is a LA-based company that has developed games that are playable on social media platforms without a download. In late 2021, the team raised over $30M in funding from a laundry list of household names. The Artieverse NFTs will act as playable characters in Artie games, including future releases, and players will be able to earn NFTs as in-game rewards. The team plans to bring Artie to other mediums such as cartoons or comics as well.
The Association, the first Ethereum NFT collection from the NBA, minted on the 20th. The mint was full of problems, eventually resulting in the collection being expanded from a supply of 18,000 to 30,000. The project itself is quite interesting: the playoff stats of 240 players will be connected to a Chainlink Oracle and each NFT will gain traits based on said player’s on-court performance and achievements. Despite the rough start, it’s encouraging to see the NBA doing free mints for pretty cool ideas.
CREYZIES showed up in Mfers’ wallets on 4-20 just like a holiday miracle. While we’ve seen many Mfer derivatives, this is the first official Mfer airdrop. CREYZIES are the work of Reylarsdam, or REY, whose portfolio of cryptoart is just as (if not more) fun than his spin on Mfers.
0.27Ξ floor | 10,000 supply | free airdrop | minted 4-20-21
Gem | Twitter | Reylarsdam
Moonbirds have dominated volume charts and Twitter timelines since they minted on the 16th. They’ve commanded market volume throughout the week and have done so in unprecedented fashion. By the end of the day, Moonbirds will likely have passed Cool Cats and Doodles to move into 9th place on OpenSea’s all-time volume charts with over 105,000Ξ of volume traded - they currently sit in 13th with ~99,000Ξ traded. The signature pfp of the PROOF Collective has more than lived up to itself while helping propel its parent to a 138Ξ floor. It has been, undoubtably, the most audacious debut the market has ever seen. For a little more analysis than I provide here, read this breakdown from Will Peaster at Bankless.
Murakami.Flowers Seeds were minted by raffle winners on the 17th. Over a million raffle entries were cast, creating a prohibitively difficult culling process. Each seed will reveal into one of 11,664 possible flowers. While Murakami worked with RTFKT on Clone-X, Murakami Flowers is his first individual NFT collection and will form the base of his web3 community.
Shinsei Galverse minted last week and has continued to attract volume since. The collection of anime gals from Ayaka Ohira and Emi Kusano blends nostalgic style with traits that give the collection a diverse personality. The team aims to create a community-driven anime and hopes to expand on the lore of the universe through subsequent airdrops.
Unemployables are lo-fi pixel people created by the team at able.com, a financial planning and management app designed for creators and freelancers. Holders will vote on how to allocate the Unemployable Fund, a portion of the treasury used to support community members or projects. Each Unemployable will also receive a De-Fi ID via airdrop in the future.
VeeFriends Series 2 opened their mint last week, giving VF S1 holders and Book Games raffle winners the chance to mint anytime between the 18th and the 24th. In lieu of a public mint, the 10,000 unallocated pieces are being raffled off to members of the VeeFriends Discord through PREMINT. VF S2 is one of the largest collections on the market yet has performed very well so far: over 25,000 pieces have been minted and the floor is nearly triple mint cost.
Other stuff worth a look: CLAY, Elysium, End Game, Mems, SMOWL, WarKittens
Upcoming Launches:
Akutars mint today at 2PM EST. Created by artist and former MLB player Micah Johnson, Akutars are generative avatars of Aku, the main character in Johnson’s artist universe. Aku’s story has so far been shared through a 10-part series of animated video NFTs, the first of which was minted in February 2021. Holders of Aku chapters were airdropped an Akutar mint pass. Aku has earned plenty of acclaim over the past year, including a nod as one of 2022’s most innovative media companies. The collection includes collaborative pieces with Billionaire Boys Club and Pusha T, amongst others.
Cope Beanz is fellow The Oner BoldLeonidas’ method of coping with BEANZ and Birds and everything else. There’s no roadmap, but there are some pretty funny Beanz included. Expect it to mint sometime later today with more details to come before launch.
Imaginary Ones announced they will hold their mint next week starting April 27th. 4,200 people on the whitelist will have 24 hours to mint for 0.2Ξ and the remaining supply will be sold in a Dutch auction on the 28th. The starting price of the Dutch auction will be 50% of the floor price or 1.5Ξ, whichever is lower. Imaginary Ones have been preparing for this mint for a few months and it will likely be well anticipated.
OM was introduced Punk 6529 last week. OM is 6529’s vision for what the metaverse can and should be. The project is currently in Alpha phase, where it will likely remain for a few months before moving to a more open Beta. At the moment, they are just looking for people to provide thoughts and assistance. Have a cup of coffee and settle in for the 6,000 tweet thread that describes everything far better than I could.
Trait Sniper is launching a collection of NFT access tokens with two tiers available. The Alpha tier (0.2Ξ) provides access to most of their suite of tools and the Genesis tier (2Ξ) provides all that plus auto-purchase orders, mass bids and instant access to collection rarities. The mint is planned for May 1st.
NFT Market Overview:
Looking over the past two months or so on the charts, I think many would say we are in an acceptable position. The market has plenty of opportunity but isn’t on fire (besides the birds), high-volume days are popping up every once in a while and users and transactions are as consistent as ever. Besides coin prices and the rest of the world economy, nothing to worry about.
Things got a bit slow after the Azuki-fueled early April period but Moonbirds has fixed that (at least in terms of volume). When that volume stops flowing predominantly through Moonbirds is anyone’s guess, but it has to happen eventually (right?). There are a number of other eye-catching events coming up: Akutars mint today and MNLTHs should be revealing. Then we have the unknowns: BEANZ reveal and the BAYC land sale. Liquidity could get tight for smaller projects if any of these things happen to overlap.
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