Page One #54
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It was so over and now we are so back. It will probably be so over again next week. Enjoy being so back while it lasts.
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TLDR:
News and Notes:
Blue Chip spots up for grabs as stalwarts continue to bleed
Opepfps are developing while Jack features derivatives
The Otherside takes a Second Trip on March 25
TwelveFold is inscribed, revealing polarizing art
Recent Launches:
All AI Art Looks The Same rewards BrainDrops veterans
Defybirds blend Moonbirds with Lucréce Monsters
Dimensionals embrace the Free-to-Own strategy
Gitcoin Presents turns into a Machi farming frenzy
Seizon adds a twist with dynamic rarities
Starbucks releases first limited NFT, The Siren Collection
Upcoming Launches:
Franky’s Dinner crafts classic cartoon frogs
Maplestory announces their NFT entrance
Sewer Passes grant entry to The Summoning today
Taproot Wizards start Making Bitcoin Magical Again
News and Notes:
Blue Chip spots up for grabs as stalwarts continue to bleed
Clone X, Doodles and Moonbirds were three collections many felt more than comfortable betting on a year ago. Despite their recognizability and resources, all three saw months-long sell-offs continue over the weekend. In the past six months, all three are down over 30% despite announcing various new developments.
These projects, all from blockbuster organizations, feel like they were anointed Blue Chips practically from the start. In contrast, a variety of avatar projects have spent months upon months in the mud, building communities with a more organic feeling. These tokens did not instantly grant their holders clout, but over time they have earned it. Don’t have to take my word for it - the chart above illustrates it well enough.
While there are many other factors to acknowledge in this discussion, we’ve learned that no project is too big to bleed or too small to turn its fortunes around.
Opepfps are developing while Jack features derivatives
In his typically mysterious manner, Jack Butcher has continued to drop a variety of potential teasers for the Opepfp he first mentioned nearly a month ago. Each successive teaser causes a slight pop in price and volume as Butcher fans await the next metadata change. Elsewhere in the Butcherverse, fine-tuning continues on the Checks website, which now features timelines for each token. Jack plans to use the Checks metadata to showcase derivative artists and airdropped what some might call a TwelveFold derivative to One Check holders on the 13th.
0.5Ξ floor | 15,984 supply | free mint | minted 1-8-23
The Otherside takes a Second Trip on March 25
Voyagers are heading back for a Second Trip later this month. The grand-scale tech demo will include more playable regions than the First Trip and allows holders to invite a friend to accompany them. This time, players will participate in an “interactive gaming experience” led by “Otherside Team Captains,” all of which will be detailed at a later date. After the Second Trip, Othersiders can turn their attention to the upcoming Legends of Mara “2D experience.”
TwelveFold is inscribed, revealing polarizing art
Yuga’s off-the-cuff art collection, which fetched a total of ~$16.5M in it’s widely criticized auction last week, was inscribed on Monday. The 300 pieces are divided into 25 different series of 12, each with a distinctive style and palette. The collection drew the typical mix of opinions, with some questioning how much the art matters anyway. Inscriptions were distributed late last night and have yet to be traded, but expect to see some sales - whether on Bitcoin-based marketplaces or Emblem Vault wrappers - pretty soon.
300 supply | >2.25 BTC auction price | auctioned 3-7-23
OrdinalHub | Twitter | Website
Other Stuff Happened
DeGods set to announce how the 535 Ordinal DeGods will be distributed
Escher, a new editions marketplace from the Tessere team, launches March 30
Limit Break, creators of DigiDaigaku, acquired mint platform FreeNFT
Pixel Vault releases whitepaper for upcoming PVP game Battle Plan
RTFKT announces Air Force 1 forge opens April 24th
Sponsored Content:
Today’s article is sponsored by Arcade, the leading decentralized marketplace for NFT liquidity with over $24 million in TVL. Optimized for borrowing and lending against valuable PFP assets, rare 1/1 art pieces, tokenized RWAs, financial NFTs, and more, Arcade maintains one of the lowest default rates and highest average loan size in the space! And with a focus on security with multiple contract audits to date, there's no better place to enter NFT finance.
Recent Launches:
All AI Art Looks The Same rewards BrainDrops veterans
Those who held a full set of BrainDrops pieces were rewarded for their commitment last week when the AI art platform airdropped All AI Art Looks The Same. The collaborative collection features pieces from 14 different BrainDrops artists including Claire Silver, Roope Rainisto and Pindar Van Arman. Juxtaposing the vastly different styles of each artist, the collection displays an immense range of AI art possibilities.
Defybirds blend Moonbirds with Lucréce Monsters
In a rather unique collaboration, Moonbirds have gotten a monstrous makeover courtesy of Monster artist Lucréce. The surprise collection was a free claim for Nudebirds, while 1,500 spots were also raffled to holders of Lucréce’s Proceed With Caution. The result is an unexpectedly diverse collection that mixes Monster motifs with Moonbird’s pixel style. In other PROOF news, the Moonlight design system was open-sourced last week, giving creators to a variety of Figma assets used by PROOF.
Dimensionals embrace the Free-to-Own strategy
Outspoken founder who loves Twitter giveaways, established and well-funded team of mobile game developers, absolutely no info about the game - it’s the Free-to-Own strategy at work. Dimensionals from Mino Games is the latest gaming project to fly the F2O banner. Their debut collection, Genesis Dimensional Stones, will presumably act as the “factory NFT” in their ecosystem. While details about the stone’s utility - and the game’s content - remain illusive, they’ve already begun preparing for the second collection, a hero known as EVE. Look out for more details on their socials.
Gitcoin Presents turns into a Machi farming frenzy
The patrons of open-source software at Gitcoin partnered with Metalabel to release an open edition entitled The Quadratic Funding Collection with all proceeds used to fund public goods. The QFC contains five “records” including Vitalik Buterin and co.’s 2018 paper Liberal Radicalism and was open for seven days.
While the Ethereum founder did not publish the collection, he did sign off on being included. His name fueled enough FOMO to send the collection as high as 0.7Ξ, handing minters a 14x in just a few hours.
When the FOMO fuel ran out, an entirely separate spectacle began. Farmer extraordinaire Machi Big Brother began accumulating tokens in unprecedented size - at one point holding more than 1/3 of the supply and participating in 3/4 of all QFC trades. Over the past month, farm lord Machi has realized more than 3,500Ξ in losses (shoutout to NFTstatistics for the ever-great data).
Seizon adds a twist with dynamic rarities
While projects like Memeland’s Potatoz and Captainz have employed lengthy, staged reveals in the past, Seizon adds some interesting twists. After starting as clouds, each token turned into a droplet on the 13th, revealing its rarity. On the 17th, each token will gain a species. Whether or not a token was transferred after its rarity reveal will influence which species it becomes - for full details, consult this graphic and this Medium article. Founded by Minty, HD and artist Godchi7d, Seizon announced a partnership with Canada-based multimedia company MOONBASE on the 9th. Reveal is set to start on the 21st.
Starbucks releases first limited NFT, The Siren Collection
After announcing the Odyssey loyalty program late last year and releasing a number of editions, Starbucks released their first limited-supply collection last week. The Siren Collection features 2,000 unique pieces comprised of their signature mermaid in different colors and backgrounds. Odyssey members could purchase two for $100, but many complained about technical difficulties on the NiftyGateway minting site. Other stamps, like the Holiday Cheer stamp, could be obtained simply by completing tasks like Starbucks trivia games or purchasing a gift card.
$800 floor | 2,000 supply | $100 mint | minted 3-9-23
Other Stuff Happened
“BRC-20s” introduce fungible tokens to Bitcoin (shoutout Domo)
Crypto Coaster takes you on a generative rollercoaster ride
Kawaii Plushies mint today at 11AM EST
Pollen began their mint on the 14th
Upcoming Launches:
Franky’s Dinner crafts classic cartoon frogs
The collection of artfully illustrated frogs will follow the story of Franky as he eludes a “mysterious restauranteur looking to add a new item to his menu." Each token is animated by founder and artist Fordenad in the “rubber hose” style popularized by 1930’s American cartoons. Community members could win allowlist spots by playing a platforming mini-game on Franky’s website. The allowlist mint begins today at 9AM EST with a reserved phase before moving to FCFS at 2PM EST.
Maplestory announces their NFT entrance
Few legacy companies have come into the NFT space displaying the vision and understanding that Maplestory displayed in their initial announcement materials last week. The 20-year old game, which still has about 160,000 active users according to their Medium announcement, is searching for reincarnation on the blockchain.
A 20-minute long reveal video makes their ambitions clear: create a digital universe that allows interoperability between Nexon IP as well as the introduction of outside IPs, including those from established NFT collections. While others have opted to create walled gardens or small experiments, Maplestory has committed to fostering a (rather) open digital universe that seems to share the values of the space at large.
Sewer Passes grant entry to The Summoning today
Unfortunately this is coming out before The Summoning, which takes place at some point (?) today, so there’s not much new info at the moment. We recapped the Sewer Pass journey so far last week, so there’s not much need to do it again. One thing of note: only passes with a “Ranked” trait of “Yes” will be eligible to participate. Whatever Power Sources Yuga have up their sleeves are sure to be entertaining - we’ll talk the full details next week.
Taproot Wizards start Making Bitcoin Magical Again
Almost two months after bursting onto the scene with the largest Bitcoin block ever mined, the Taproot Wizards have started cultivating their allowlist. Prospective Wizards will have to earn their spot by completing Quests at Wizard School. The first two quests, which were available over the weekend, required prospects to complete a Lightning transaction and add a 🧙♂️ to their Twitter name - simple requests.
The third quest is a bit more time-intensive, requiring prospects to record a video of themselves showering in a wizard costume. Quest 3 closes on the 24th. While Quest 4 is listed as “coming soon,” we don’t yet know how many quests there will be or when the Wizards will finally be distributed - watch their socials for more info.
NFT Market Overview:
A strange week in the wider economy and crypto-sphere made for a strange week of NFTs. Volume fell off on the 9th just as the SVB and USDC mess began to surface. While this provides a clear explanation for the lack of sales and wallets over the weekend, Saturday saw the lowest number of unique NFT buyers since November 12, 2021 - just 11,348.
Since the Blur airdrop, it’s become much harder to gleam trends from volume and sales data. Farmers dominate both metrics, as shown by how quickly Gitcoin Presents reached the same number of lifetime trades as BAYC. Whether or not the volume and sales candles will look nice next week seems to depend mostly on how much money Machi wants to lose.
Other Stuff Happened/ing
Blur rolls out friendlier mobile site, enables mobile purchases
Epic Games Store is set to host “close to 20” crypto-games - Blockworks
Meta announced their NFT programs will be shut down
Oh Baby Games previews their web3 game client
The Pokemon Company is looking to hire NFT experts
Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.