Page One #48
It is good to be back - both to writing and to having any chance at making some coin in the NFT market. The holiday hiatus was a much needed break and this is a refreshing market to start writing about again.
The weekly streak restarts now, but you’ll have to bare with me today as I’m certain there are a few dozen things I missed. There are some extra “Other Stuff That Happened” bullets today to try to knock off some of those.
Let me know what I missed on Twitter, hit the button below to come hang out and shill to your friends so we can break 10k subs. As always, appreciate you all for reading.
TLDR:
News and Notes:
Azuki ecosystem rises ahead of 1-year anniversary
Chimpers get their own OnCyber Dojos
DeGods and y00ts set to leave Solana
Doodles shed light on Duplicators, Doodles 2
Friendship Bracelets rise as mint comes to a close
Killabears find new highs (again) as their story continues
Pudgy Penguins lead the cute meta comeback
rektguy breaks through resistance to new highs
Sappy Seals launch the Meme Machine
Recent Launches:
The Captainz prepare for a lengthy reveal
Eternal Harmony creates new beauty every few days
Kubz form the second tier of the Keungz ecosystem
Mutant Hounds are a booger monkey’s best friend
Upcoming Launches:
DigiDaigaku Villains set to mint “soon”
Parallel announces their final Pack Drop
The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey begins January 18th
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News and Notes:
Azuki ecosystem rises ahead of 1-year anniversary
While they haven’t made any official announcements over the past month, Azuki and BEANZ started a strong move upwards shortly after the new year in what looks to me like a classic “somebody knows something” scenario. Azuki has moved from a floor around 11Ξ to 15Ξ while BEANZ have double from 1Ξ to 2Ξ. Their one-year anniversary on the 12th is quickly approaching. While this wouldn’t be the first time the NFT space has created much ado about nothing with Azuki - remember those calendar dates on the website? - it seems pretty likely that they will have some kind of celebration.
Chimpers get their own OnCyber Dojos
The pixel monkeys maintained their reputation of shipping products over the past month. All Chimpers that were staked during the snapshot are eligible to claim an OnCyber Dojo, which can be claimed until Friday here. They also raffled a variety of Timbers pixel art to staked Chimpers earlier in December. Whether it be staking leaderboards or online arcade games, the Chimpers team is always giving their community something new to play around with and seem to be preparing to kick off the next phase of their adventure sometime soon.
DeGods and y00ts set to leave Solana
On Christmas day, Frank made an announcement that certainly elicited some feelings - Dust Labs will be leaving Solana in Q1 ‘23, with DeGods heading to Ethereum and y00ts heading to Polygon. Interpreted as a betrayal by many in the Solana community, this has been the most contentious topic over the past month. Dust Labs received a $3M grant from the Polygon Foundation as part of the move, which only added fuel to the fire. Tensions remained high over the past week when Solana doggie coin $BONK excluded y00ts and DeGods holders from the airdrop. Whatever your feelings on the move, it will certainly bring some more eyes to Polygon, a chain ripe for partnership with international corporations - something Frank has hinted at on Twitter more than once. More details on the exact timing for the departure should come out this month.
y00ts: 144◎ floor | 15,000 supply | 375 DUST mint | minted 9-5-22
Hyperspace | Twitter | Discord | Website
Doodles shed light on Dooplicators, Doodles 2
We’ve learned more about what’s coming for Doodles in the past two weeks than we had in the preceding six months. Genesis Boxes will crack open in February and Dooplicators will gain functionality in January. While we know the Doodles 2 will, eventually, be an uncapped collection, it won’t start that way - holders of Genesis Boxes and Dooplicators will receive tradable beta keys to access Doodles 2, allowing the collection to grow over time. Expect to hear more as D2 opens up beta access.
Friendship Bracelets rise again as mint comes to a close
Those of you who know me know what I say about collection sizes - they’re a meme. Friendship Bracelets has proven this yet again, as the ever-growing collection has been on the rise since the mint first opened in November. Claimable by anyone who held any AB token on October 26th, Friendship Bracelets were created by Alexis André in collaboration with AB founder Snowfro and are the first collection in the new Exploration series. The collection has seen another surge in size as good samaritans issue PSAs to check eligibility before the mint window closes today, January 10th at 1PM EST, with over 4,000 new tokens minted. If you’re reading this before 1PM, check your eligibility here.
Killabears find new highs (again) as their story continues
The violently cute teddy bears, which seemed to fly under the radar even as their floor price rose, have continued to excite their community through a combination of intriguing storytelling and interesting gamification experiments. Their ecosystem currently contains the Killabears, Killabits, Killagear and Killatraits while the arrival of the Killacubs grows ever-closer. Catch up on their story so far with their new one-page explainer.
Pudgy Penguins lead the cute meta comeback
When Luca Netz acquired the Pudgy Penguin project in April ‘22, holders and spectators looked on with skepticism. In the proceeding 8 months, the new team took the Pengoos to new heights in the most impressive pivot the space has seen so far. The Pudgy ecosystem has emerged as a winner again in the previous week, leading a basket of cute animal pfps to higher floors across the board. For a full recap of their journey since the acquisition, read this blog post from the team.
rektguy breaks through resistance to new highs
In a space full of roadmaps and plans and this and that, rektguy has always been an outlier. The collection of seizure-inducing skeletons from artist and Rug Radio personality OSF and the team at Canary Labs have garnered a committed community that comes with benefits like access to daily NFT and crypto updates from their partner community, Degenz. After months of accumulation around ~0.3Ξ, rektguy has gone vertical over the past month. The appearance of The Keeper on Twitter last week has given the community a fresh mystery to investigate, opening the possibility for new developments in the near future.
Sappy Seals launch the Meme Machine
The de facto mascot for every memer on Twitter just made it a whole lot easier to meme. The Meme Machine uses AI to create memes containing holder’s Seals, allowing for instant creation and distribution of personalized memes of all kinds. While it’s starting off “small and simple,” the Seals have plans to expand to other communities including Pudgy Penguins, The Plague and others while also allowing users to earn (something) for their memeing and marketing efforts. Another benefactor of this week’s bounce, the Seals currently sit just below their all-time high.
Other Stuff Happened:
Batdzu’s creative collections have kicked off Pepe Fever
Castaway Characters reveal ahead of public islands launch
Cool Cats shift their focus to gaming, community in 2023 (Lucky Trader)
Fluffy Hedgehogs follow cute collections to higher floors
Moonbirds sign with United Talent Agency in quest to go mainstream
The Otherside releases new trailer alongside year-end update
RTFKT Pod burning will take place in January
Sartoshi returns and announces some utility for End of Sartoshi
Shibuya is releasing White Rabbit Chapter 3 today
6529 Meme Cards wrap up Season 1 and kick off Season 2
Recent Launches:
The Captainz mint and prepare for a lengthy reveal
Memeland’s highly anticipated Captainz mint started on the 4th when Potatoz holders and Memelisters sent in their payments. On the 7th, Captainz were airdropped to buyers and saw initial sales as high as 7Ξ before dropping to ~5Ξ over the next day, where they still sit. Like the Potatoz that came before them, the Captainz will reveal in phases over the next few months. Read their FAQ here for more details on what comes next.
Eternal Harmony creates new beauty every few days
Eternal Harmony is a first-of-its-kind work of ever-changing art. The collection of generative paintings composed of watercolor and oil pastels comes from Proportio, a traditional painter who started creating NFT artworks in 2021. Every three days, each Eternal Harmony throws away its identity to generate a new one in a process that sees painted assets layered in a “collage-like overlay of elements.” Creating beautiful generative paintings is hard enough, but to do so again and again is an accomplishment. Read more about how the project works here.
Kubz form the second tier of the Keungz ecosystem
After holding a bid-based auction a la Metadrop, Kubz sold out for 0.469Ξ on the 28th and were airdropped to winning bidders on the 30th. The Keungz ecosystem, founded by Keungz, has been around since the release of Genesis Keungz in September and will eventually release their 10k collection, YogaPetz. The community has strong ties and a similar structure to Memeland. Kubz will begin their reveal, which consists of multiple phases, on January 13th.
Mutant Hounds are a booger monkey’s best friend
While Mutant Hounds are not an official Yuga collection, one could easily assume they are. The lore-driven collection of mutated dogs comes from mega-mutant Lior and the team at Mutant Cartel, a long-standing DAO for Mutant Apes. With art that arguably one-ups their owners, the collection has already set off on a storytelling journey that looks like it will include more than a few friends. Hound Collars are set to be redeemed for Hounds on January 11th.
Other Stuff Happened:
Abasho is 250 pixel pfps defined by their holders
DenDekaDen is a collection of 756 randomized on-chain anime fortunes
Oraands, on-chain art for the Commodore 64, sold out after 2 months
Open Edition season is in full swing with over 1,300Ξ of Manifold sales
Trump Cards pumped then dumped because of course
Upcoming Launches:
DigiDaigaku Villains set to mint “soon”
After three months of saying FOLLOW ME RETWEET THIS AND REPLY FOR WHITELIST, Limit Break founder Gabriel Leydon says the Villains mint, the first 10,000 token Digi collection, is “very soon.” Potions were introduced a few weeks ago and their open-source “royalty solutions” contract is set to be released next week. Their Dragons mint will take place during their Super Bowl ad on February 12th, implying the Villains mint will likely take place in the next few weeks. Enter for an actual chance to win a whitelist spot here (which, of course, requires a retweet and a follow).
Parallel announces their final Pack Drop
The crypto card game years in the making has reached their final pack drop. Pack Drop 6 mirrors the format of PD5 in which qualified holders can prepay until the 12th with packs being distributed on the 14th. Check the PD6 Manifest here to see if you qualify, and if you don’t, remaining packs will be distributed on a FCFS basis on the 14th.
The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey begins January 18th
Judging from the prologue trailer released on December 21st to the “mysteries” revealed on the 28th, along with some other details, this Trial is shaping up to be Yuga’s most inventive mint yet. Described as a “playable, interactive experience,” TJM will take place from January 18th to February 8th according to their new website. The mint is free for all Apes and Mutants, implying a total supply of 30,000 - of what, we’re not sure yet. More details including a “guide” to study are set to be released tomorrow, January 11th.
NFT Market Overview:
We are so back (and I am terrified it’s just bait). A substantial amount of volume has returned to the market in the past month and while some of that may have been fueled by Blur bid-washing in mid-December, it feels quite organic over the past week. Transactions and active users also show clear increases and anecdotally I’d guess many of us have seen some AFK friends return to see what all the fuss is about.
Older, more established projects have dominated the market over the past week or two and there are some differentiators for these - not only are they more established and in many cases more trustworthy than newer projects, but they have fully formed communities with committed holders. They also likely have some inactive holders. These two factors may be contributing to the bounces we are seeing in many familiar faces, as the total number of tokens available to be sold is probably a good bit lower than total supply in many cases.
While there are some market-wide catalysts on the horizon, like the $BLUR airdrop, nobody should be calling this a new bull run. These bounces do not last forever. Enjoy it while it lasts - the most I am hoping for is a few weeks.