Page One #20
Announcements and such:
Here we are at Page One #20 (although the first three were in The One). We’ve grown a tremendous amount since starting in January and there’s certainly more to come. For the time being, thank you for reading and I hope you all have learned something new, found something cool and maybe made a few tokens here or there.
There is one formatting change this week: I’ve mashed the news section together with the “other stuff worth a look” that sometimes finds its way in. The result, I hope, will be a section filled with streamlined, to-the-point updates about specific projects and general news from around the space. As always, let me know what you think on Twitter, check out our April recap (and Round Tripping per usual), and hit the button below to come hang out.
TLDR:
Adidas holders can claim physical merch until May 11
Azuki’s BEANZ will pop out of their pods on May 5
Bridgeworld and Legions Genesis will soon sport a new look
CPG introduces a new cohort with Pop on the 14th
Doodles hit all-time high, rumors swirl about dilutive collection
Ethereum Name Service catches fire as 10K club mints out
Fragments by James Jean offer avatars corresponding to IRL sculpture
Mirror Pass gives the average Joe an inside look at exclusive chatrooms
MV3 Access Passes see volume as anticipation grows
My Imaginary Friend is the latest signature character to enter the NFT space
NFT Worlds Avatars mint on May 4 and 5
OneOnes deliver Migrating Lines’ distinctive style in pfp form
Otherdeeds put Ethereum on pause, shatter volume records
Phantom Network comes out from the underbelly of web3 on Wednesday
Ragnarok heats up ahead of reveal (maybe) this week
Shibuya prepares for Chapter 2
Trait Sniper offers up their tools for life
News and Notes:
Adidas Into the Metaverse opened the claim window for physical goods, requiring holders to burn Phase 1 and receive Phase 2. Claims are open until May 11 and nets claimants a beanie, a hoodie and a tracksuit. This is the first real announcement regarding the pass since it minted in December, albeit Adidas did announce OzWorld a few weeks ago. They haven’t announced where the collection is headed next, but it might not be too long before we find out.
BEANZ made a significant move up on Sunday evening as liquidity moved out of The Otherside. An announcement surfaced on Monday morning, shortly after the run: BEANZ will reveal on May 5. Their reveal is one of the last notable events left on the calendar from March: The Otherside, Moonbirds and MNLTH have come and gone, leaving the floor open for these little guys. While some were initially disappointed with the news that BEANZ are beans, Azuki’s vision for the dilutive collection will probably become a lot clearer over the next few days.
Bridgeworld is receiving a facelift. Their Twitter account has been teasing the forthcoming update, which will bring not only a fresh user interface but also new art for each Legion - and it looks great. While Extra Lifers probably have a sentimental affinity for the LG’s unique art style, the new art and UI brings a sense of togetherness to Bridgeworld and its soldiers. The team have kicked off a promo campaign ahead of the launch of their new questing system and will continue updating via Twitter and Discord. In other Treasure news, the DAO has partnered with Strider to continue building the bottom-up metaverse. Smol Brains also made a lengthy announcement on a variety of topics the other night - stay on top of all things Treasure with their new newsletter, The Compass.
Doodles hit a floor price of 20Ξ Sunday, a new all-time high, and didn’t stop there. The colorful collection of simply-drawn avatars started to fly without a reason in sight, although there is unconfirmed speculation of a potential airdrop. While they did release the Space Doodles a few weeks ago, Space Doodles were not an airdrop, meaning the Doodles universe still consists of just 10,000 pieces. This makes them the smallest of all top pfp collections, opening the door for speculators to dream of a dilutive collection. Who knows - maybe we see it sometime soon.
Ethereum Name Service domains have been flying lately, specifically those containing three or four numbers. Affectionately referred to as the 10k club, three and four digit domains sold out just last week and have been climbing since. It currently costs 16Ξ for a three digit domain and ~2Ξ for four digits. The incredible returns in just a few days have ignited interest in ENS domains and spurred ideas that are either brilliant or terrible, such as five digit domains and three letter domains. You’ll certainly hear more about this from your friend who is now a domain squatter.
MV3 Access Passes saw an uptick in sales this week as the MV3 team made some rounds to discuss their upcoming project with groups such as Origins. MV3 comes from the team behind metav3rse, one of the largest NFT news accounts on Instagram. There’s little information about the project besides sneak peeks of their 3D-rendered avatars. The full collection is planned for release sometime this summer, but that doesn’t mean holding an access pass is just a waste of liquidity - holders were recently given 100 allowlist spots for CPG’s upcoming POP collection (more on that below).
Recent Launches:
Fragments by James Jean minted over a few days last week and will reveal today, May 3. The collection contains 7,000 avatars, each hand-drawn by artist James Jean. Each character is contained within a pentagonal frame, painted in Jean’s signature psychedelic color palette and inspired by various styles of traditional art. The series is commissioned by Outland and each of the 7,000 pieces corresponds to a single panel of glass in the Pagoda, a large-scale architectural sculpture to be unveiled by Outland sometime in 2023. The relationship between the collection and the sculpture displays an ever-increasing willingness to blend the digital and physical realms of the art world and will certainly be something to keep an eye on.
Mirror Passes hope to provide a new take on Alpa - by getting it from others. Mirror is creating a vault of NFTs that provide access to token-gated chats (such as PROOF or BAYC holder chats), allowing Mirror holders to read these chats through a web dashboard. The goal is to create a way for those with a smaller budget to gain access to the conversations had in these private and costly chatrooms. It’s a creative concept and one that many could benefit from - whether or not said private chats allow this to go on remains to be seen.
My Imaginary Friend by Kai didn’t sell out during their mint on the 28th, so the unsold pieces were airdropped to holders. The debut NFT project from Kai, My Imaginary Friend gives holders the chance to design their own iteration of Kai’s signature character, a simple white stick figure. Kai has been drawing the character for years - the character can be found in museums or in the homes of athletes like Rob Gronkowski and Odell Beckham Jr. While the project wasn’t an immediate success, it’s another example of artists coming to the NFT space to create their vision and connect with their community in new ways.
OneOnes minted on Monday, selling out before reaching the public sale. The project is the large-scale collection from Migrating Lines, a well-decorated 1/1 cryptoartist with a beautifully distinctive style. The pieces tells the story of Dino, a young kid from the year 3050 who is transported to the Magical World. Limited to 6,565 pieces, the collection of avatars is divided into 8 Core Families, each with special attributes and perks. Each piece will offer multiple avatar options. The roadmap is intentionally vague but will focus on community, friendship and storytelling. They didn’t create a Discord before mint, but should be making one soon.
Otherdeeds for The Otherside minted on Saturday night, putting everything else on Ethereum on pause for 2 hours or more. 55,000 deeds were sold for 305 ApeCoin each in one of the largest mints ever. Gas fees were hefty throughout the entire window and many paid over 2Ξ in gas to mint two deeds. The minting process burned over $130M of Ethereum and drew considerable backlash from the community at large and instead of making a genuine apology for their lack of creativity in distribution, Yuga Labs implied that ApeCoin should move to its own chain.
Regardless, The Otherside has absolutely shattered the volume records set by Moonbirds just a few weeks ago. Only 3 days after release, the collection has seen nearly 200,000Ξ in volume with pieces selling for as much as 333Ξ. It’s a complex collection to get a feel for, featuring a wide variety of environments, resources, artifacts and the coveted Kodas, which currently sit at a floor of ~25Ξ.
Ragnarok has seen constant volume since minting last week, trading for nearly 12,000Ξ total. Their public Dutch auction sold out in about three minutes and the floor has ranged between 2Ξ and 3Ξ since shortly after release. Each Ronin functions as a profile picture and an in-game avatar for their MMORPG which is planned to roll out over the remainder of 2022. While there aren’t many more details than there were last week, most are expecting the collection to reveal sometime this week.
Trait Sniper released lifetime access tokens last week. The collection includes two tiers: 3,000 Alpha tier units give holders access to their regular site, while 333 Genesis tier units let holders use advanced features like auto-buy, mass bids and instant rarities. Trait Sniper is one of the older sniping tools and has accumulated nearly 100,000 users and a lengthy list of partnerships including LooksRare, Moby and Gem.
Upcoming Launches:
“Crypto Packaged” GOODS is preparing to expand their community with the release of the Pop series, a collection of 2,777 artfully designed goods that grant access to much of the CPG network. Benefits include access to the CPG Incubator, Genius Calls, IRL meetups, the Data Room, daily market reports, allow list raffles and more. Their genesis collection, released last September, sits at a floor of 30Ξ and grants holders access to the Pop benefits as well as a network of 300 mentors from a variety of industries and professions. Look for CPG: Pop to mint on May 14 and enter the allowlist raffle here.
NFT Worlds Avatars will mint on Wednesday, May 4. Mint passes were airdropped to NFT Worlds holders and those on the whitelist, who will pay 0.4Ξ for their mint. The remaining supply will be sold in a Dutch auction starting at 1Ξ. Each Genesis avatar can be staked to earn $WRLD from marketplace fees and holders will be eligible for exclusive in-game titles and roles.
Phantom Network has announced the details of their mint. The public sale will be a Dutch auction starting at 2Ξ held on May 4, while those on the whitelist will mint on May 5. The anime avatar project from the Nanopass team has taken the stage as the most buzzed-about upcoming mint, garnering over 400,000 Twitter followers and a host of partnerships with projects like Kaiju Kingz and Neo Tokyo. There are few details about the project - they are “a shadow, vague, formless” - but they’ve captured the space’s attention regardless. The Dutch auction starts at 11PM EST on Wednesday.
Shibuya, the decentralized animation project from Pplpleasr and co., will announce allowlist details for Chapter 2 on May 9th. They’ve previously announced that Chapter 1 holders will qualify for the allowlist. Holders of the producer pass can participate in different votes such as which story arch to follow. Since the release of Chapter 1, the team has held a few community events including showing The White Rabbit in Shibuya and naming their main character.
NFT Market Overview:
Daily NFT volume hit a new all-time high on May 1 powered by The Otherside and has since started to roll into other projects, with BEANZ and Doodles being the most obvious immediate benefactors. Large liquidity events such as The Otherside’s release can be a boon or a bane on the market, but considering there are a number of notable releases and reveals on the horizon, there’s reason for optimism. Phantom Network will surely propel volume on Wednesday and the BEANZ reveal this weekend will be another catalyst. As long as the coins can stay afloat and the stock market doesn’t go to zero, it looks like we could see a good run over the next week or so.
The charts below, like usual, come from Hildobby on Dune. One thing to notice is the disparity between OS vs. LR volume share and transaction share. While LR’s marketshare of NFT volume reached a peak above 15% on the 30th, their share of transactions was only about 2%. Given their lower fees and rewards, LooksRare is carving out a niche as the go-to destination for high-value NFT sales.
Other Stuff Happened/ing
DeFi Kingdoms initial liquidity pool has been selling tokens, was incorrectly listed in the documents; team addressed the situation in a town hall
LooksRare adds support for Blockscan messages
Something Token minted last night, offering holders access and discounts at the Americana Marketplace
VanEck will launch NFT, sees potential for “unlimited” use cases