Back again to recap another lackluster week. Volume is downbad, people are paying $1,000+ for actual goblin jpegs and nft-general won’t stop playing EtherCrash to pass the time - but we’ve still got news to discuss.
You’ll notice some slight formatting changes as I’ve moved titles above the paragraphs and added some more spacing, so hopefully it’s a bit easier on the eyes. Hit me on Twitter or in The One (big ol’ button below) and let me know what you think - and as always, thanks for reading and subscribing.
TLDR:
Altered State Machine teases Gen-II Brains
Azuki airdrops Twin Tiger Jackets
Boki welcomes ‘Dreamers and Adventurers’
Chimpers tell the next chapter of The Boring Ape Chronicles
Coolman’s Universe has Infinite Possibilities
FLUF World launches The Underground 2 customization portal
goblintown.wtf mix memes and mystery to great effect
Huxley Issue 4: The Guide continues the Fury-7 story
Kith Friends combine digital identity and physical fashion
Moonbirds Oddities appear in the nest
Pixel Vault makes waves at VeeCon
rektguy brings OSF’s flashy style to PFP form
RTFKT Space Drip Capsules are ready for forging
wassieverse brings the wassie lore to life this June
News and Notes:
Azuki airdrops Twin Tiger Jackets
After a rough few weeks, Azuki holders got some good news. The Twin Tigers jacket, first shown at the Garden Party on March 30th, was airdropped on the 20th. The NFT will be redeemable for the double-sided sometime in the coming weeks. All secondary royalties will be donated to Stand With Asians, an AAPI-focused charity. They also announced an event on June 22 during NFT NYC - RSVPs start next week.
Azuki: 12.75Ξ floor | 10,000 supply | 0.0Ξ mint | minted 1-11-22
Jacket: 0.26Ξ floor | 10,000 supply | airdrop | minted 5-20-22
Coolman’s Universe has Infinite Possibilities
Spleshies received a gift last week when a surprise airdrop was delivered on the 19th. The airdrop, called Infinite Possibilities, is currently just a mysteriously veiled box with an undisclosed reveal date. While they wait to reveal the possibilities, Coolmans will make an appearance at NFT NYC and will release a collection of baby Spleshies sometime in June.
FLUF World launches The Underground 2 customization portal
FLUF World, the expansive universe created by Non-Fungible Labs, launched their new digital hub last week. The Underground 2 serves as the home of all things FLUF, bringing the myriad of collections under one roof. In addition to new dashboards, Underground 2 allows PartyBears to customize their scene and sounds, name and describe their Bear and update token metadata to reflect their choices. PartyBears also received a HNI Pot last week which will eventually attract a Buzzie, the newest member of FLUF World.
FLUF: 2.85Ξ floor | 9,999 supply | 0.09Ξ mint | minted 8-5-21
PartyBear: 0.6Ξ floor | 9,999 supply | 0.09Ξ mint | minted 12-17-21
Moonbirds Oddities appear in the nest
When Moonbirds launched a little over a month ago, the PROOF team focused the spotlight on the project utility, making the nesting feature a key talking point. Over the weekend, the importance on nesting was proven when nested Moonbirds received their first airdrop - an Oddity. The “pellets,” as the PROOF team has called them, were designed in collaboration with Cryptoadz and Nouns artist Gremplin - besides that, not much else is known about the strange hives. They’ll reveal sometime in July.
Moonbirds: 25Ξ floor | 10,000 supply | 2.5Ξ mint | minted 4-16-22
Oddities: 2.8Ξ floor | 10,000 supply | airdrop | minted 5-22-22
Pixel Vault makes waves at VeeCon
Punks Comics and MetaHero creators Pixel Vault brought a laundry list of announcements to VeeCon last week. They introduced Pixel Vault Sports, a new division focused on empowering sports communities, and announced a partnership with the UFC and a sponsorship deal with the MLB. Punks Comics #3 will be the final issue and will prepare holders for the PUNKS avatar project. Lastly, Blur Studios, known for their work on a variety of AAA video games and the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots, will assist in refreshing the MetaHero brand. Check out this thread for a few more details and expect more info from PV soon.
RTFKT Space Drip Capsules are ready for forging
After over a year, Space Drip holders are finally receiving their drip. On May 21, RTFKT announced that Space Drips will be forged into 19 customized Creator versions of the Nike Air Force 1. The Space Drip collection features pieces designed by 19 different artists including MGXS, Loopify, and Defaced. While many know RTFKT mainly as the creators of Clone-X, this is a reminder that they have been around for some time and have helped shape our space. Dates for redemption are in the tweet above.
Recent Launches:
Boki welcomes ‘Dreamers and Adventurers’
The newest entrant to the crowded pastel profile picture arena, Boki hopes to differentiate itself by bringing a cast of core character to life in an ongoing narrative. Sporting a familiar yet unique art style, Boki features many of the usual talking points - merchandise, IRL events, an upcoming companion airdrop and exclusive trading tools and analysis for holders.
Chimpers tell the next chapter of The Boring Ape Chronicles
After curating his community for nearly a year and working as an artist for Nouns, pixel artist Timbers and team have released a meticulously detailed and diverse collection of intergalactic primates. Chimpers pick up where The Boring Ape Chronicles left off and will tell the story of these space monkeys who descend from the 100 Genesis Chimpers. The team is as tight-lipped as ever and plan to remain so, delivering value to holders through “mystery, surprise and reward.”
goblintown.wtf mix memes and mystery to great effect
Late Friday night, a seemingly innocuous (and incredibly ugly) collection came out of nowhere without a hint of its origins. Their well-produced website was devoid of creators, costs or a Discord link, yet the Goblins sold out quickly and captured the market’s attention with memes (a number of which mention Yuga Labs) and mystery. Five unhatched eggs are slowly losing their shells, teasing a reveal of some sort, while the contract contains some yet-to-be-used functions. While the team remains unknown, many have applauded their execution and anxiously await the next chapter.
Kith Friends combine digital identity and physical fashion
Invisible Friends teamed up with Ronnie Fieg and international lifestyle company Kith to deliver a cross-media collaboration. Nine unique Kith Friends, each themed after a city and sporting gear from the Kith Summer 2022 collection, were auctioned off last week. Invisible Friends holders could purchase one special edition KF, separate from the auction, on the 20th and can claim the products said KF is wearing - albeit not until around February 2023. Their wardrobes will evolve over time, revealing the items each holders has access to.
rektguy brings OSF’s flashy style to PFP form
OSF’s rektguy began minting on the 21st and those on the allowlist can claim them until the 27th. A former banker turned artist and Rug Radio host, OSF has been creating vibrant, stylized art for the better part of a year, garnering acclaim from his supporters and artists alike. OSF originally drew rektguy while still working as a banker and he’s featured in many of his works. A CC0 project whose roadmap is, I quote, “lol,” rektguy is meant as a gift to his supporters and a tribute to all the rekt guys out there.
Upcoming Launches:
Altered State Machine teases Gen-II Brains
Altered State Machine, the AI company masquerading as an NFT project, announced a second generation of Brains will be coming sometime soon. In their tweet on the 23rd, ASM says they will soon detail the Genome Mining process which will be used to mine Gen-II Brains. As the key to “non-fungible intelligence,” Brains play a key role in ASM’s vision of bringing AI ownership to the world. ASM is part of the Non-Fungible Labs ecosystem alongside FLUF World and a number of other collections.
Huxley Issue 4: The Guide continues the Fury-7 story
Huxley’s six issue Sci-Fi comic series will begin the second half of the story on May 26. The expansive universe that will eventually span comics, video games and movies was created by Ben Mauro, an acclaimed concept designer and world builder whose previous work includes games like Halo Infinite and movies like The Hobbit. Huxley holders will mint first, followed by allowlist partners and finally winners of the public PREMINT raffle. This article has all the details for the mint.
wassieverse brings the wassie lore to life this June
After introducing the project earlier this month, the wassieverse team delivered the details of their mint, which will take place on June 3. Created by a team of lil shids including inversebrah, Bags, and a host of others, wassieverse’s first experience, a 3D photo booth called Canvas, will be available upon launch. More games will come soon after, including bull riding and pinball, and the team plans to bring AR, VR, and V-tuber support to each NFT once the games are finished. Check out their roadmap here.
NFT Market Overview:
There’s no debating the state of the market for the past week - ugly. Four of the past nine days seen about $50M (or less) in total volume across all marketplaces, the lowest daily volume since October 30th, 2021. Despite the lack of volume, traders are sticking around for the most part with the noticeable dip on 11th and 12th (when crypto markets dumped). Volume per transaction has plummeted as low-quality derivatives and free mints dominated transaction counts over the past week, signaling there is more gambling going on than usual.
While projects such as Chimpers, goblintown and rektguy still managed to find some success last week, it’s turning into a real attention economy. Collections that are not currently in focus are more illiquid than usual. While blue chips will maintain some attention and liquidity regardless, projects in the middle tier are caught in limbo.
The global macro-economic outlook is likely to remain rather negative for some time, making the crypto and NFT markets increasingly unpredictable. This isn’t news. Things could certainly still get (a lot) worse before they get better. But hey - at least we’ve got goblins.
Other Stuff Happened/ing
A16Z announces $600M Games Fund One
The Chainsmokers released their new album on Sound.xyz
GameStop introduces the GameStop Wallet
Gem introduces batch transfers
Hublot and Takashi Murakami are creating an NFT - enter the raffle here
Milady Maker plummets after founders’ origins resurface - thread here
OpenSea introduced Seaport, a new marketplace contract
Robinhood is developing a DeFi wallet
Spotify is reportedly testing NFT profile features for artists