Five bullish signs that prove NFTs aren’t as dead as you think
- Susan G. Hall
- 0
- on Aug 30, 2022
Key points to remember
- NFTs have taken a beating in the bear market, with lower price floors and declining trading volumes.
- Skeptics have argued that the technology is “dead”, but there are good reasons to believe the market is alive and well.
- Recent highlights in the space include Eminem and Snoop Dogg’s Bored Ape-themed VMA performance and DigiDaigaku’s rally at 17 ETH.
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As the crypto winter lasts, NFTs continue to suffer. The bottom prices of the most sought-after collections are well over 50% below their highs in terms of ETH and dollars, while trading volumes have fallen on OpenSea and other markets. Many projects have completely disappeared. But while the space may be suffering, several developments over the past few weeks are showing signs of life. Between Eminem and Snoop Dogg turning into Bored Apes at the VMAs, a free mint hitting a floor of 17 ETH, and the world’s largest social media company stepping up its digital collectibles feature, the NFT space seems much livelier than its opponents. would have us believe.
5) The revival of the chubby penguin
One of the most notable collections of animal avatars from crypto’s first “NFT summer,” Pudgy Penguins enjoyed a dramatic rise before falling out of favor. After internal controversies, it was sold to entrepreneur and investor Luca Netz for 750 ETH in April, but it struggled to gain momentum amid declining sentiment in the crypto market. However, Ethereum’s favorite flightless birds have made a miraculous return in recent weeks, proving that there is still an appetite for community “PFP” NFT collections.
Enthusiasm for Pudgy Penguins hit its lowest point in months when the floor price reached a local low of around 0.85 ETH on June 13. The floor has seen a significant rally over the past few weeks, aided by prominent crypto personalities such as Polygon’s Mudit Gupta and Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik who continued to “wear” their Pudgy Penguin NFTs as Twitter avatars despite the takedown.
Trading volumes for Pudgy Penguins have exploded on exchanges and momentum has grown as the project announced that he had appointed an advisory council including Svanevik, Pentoshi and other ardent pengu supporters. Penguin fever crescendoed the next day with the sale of the left-facing Pudgy Penguin #6873, which sold for 400 ETH (about $650,000) on August 22. These developments have fueled bullish sentiment for the project. While youCute Avatars have cooled off their local highs, a bottom-priced penguin will still cost buyers over $5,000 at current prices.
4) ENS transaction volumes remain high
Crypto Briefing covered the explosion of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) exchanges in April when leagues of NFT degens speculated on three- and four-digit ENS domain names, causing wild price spikes. Although the market no longer saw record ENS trading days, interest in .eth domains continued to grow.
According to data from Rare.GuideENS domain secondary sales now regularly exceed 1,000 per day. Dune data compiled by ENS developer Makoto Inoue shows that registrations and renewals are growing steadily, averaging over 10,000 daily registrations over the past week.
Where trade and record volumes go, prices have followed. Four-digit ENS domains, colloquially known as “10k Club,” have nearly tripled in terms of ETH since April. The cheapest four-digit domains are currently setting buyers back around 1.43 ETH ($2,259), while the more exclusive three-digit domains are now at a jaw-dropping 31 ETH. High-profile sales of rare domains also regularly generate buzz on Twitter. Over the past month, opensea.eth has sold for almost 100 ETH and suilend.eth for 75 ETH.
Whether you’re sitting on your own pile of rare ENS domains or watching in disbelief, there’s no denying that .eth names continue to get a lot of attention.
3) Meta extends NFTs to Facebook
Despite the struggling crypto market and its ripple effect on non-fungibles, 2022 has been a strong year for NFT adoption on Web2 social networks. In January, Twitter’s hexagonal NFT profile pictures gained widespread adoption despite the social media giant charging a monthly fee for the feature.
Not to be outdone, Meta has since launched its own NFT integrations, starting with an Instagram rollout to 100 countries earlier this month, and continuing with a Facebook expansion just yesterday. Although details are still scarce, it is believed that the social media giant will allow users to connect to the blockchain in the same way as its Instagram integration, which currently supports Ethereum, Polygon and Flow NFT.
Using your NFTs as profile pictures on dated social media sites on its own is pretty disappointing, but it shows the direction companies like Meta and Twitter are heading. Additionally, allowing NFTs on social media is a huge opportunity to expose a whole new segment of the internet to NFTs – and ultimately crypto.
It may seem counterintuitive to celebrate Meta’s embrace of what it calls “digital collectibles” when news of social media NFT integrations frequently leads to online mobs gathering against all space. . But bad publicity does not exist and if adoption continues to increase, even skeptics may soon change their minds.
2) Eminem and Snoop Dogg star as Bored Apes at the VMAs
Two of the world’s biggest rap stars, Eminem and Snoop Dogg, have done a lot to increase mainstream NFT exposure over the past few months, most recently using their performance at last Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards to show their support. to technology.
Another event that exposed a mass audience to NFT was Sunday’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards by rap superstars Eminem and Snoop Dogg. If you’ve been following the duo this year, you’ll no doubt have noticed that they’ve become quite ardent promoters of a certain NFT: Bored Ape Yacht Club collection.
Snoop, a longtime NFT enthusiast, purchased Ape #6723 in December 2021 and now holds it in a wallet named DEATHROWNFT along with blue chip NFTs from collections such as CloneX, FLUF World, and World of Women. After buying Snoop, Eminem followed suit by buying Ape #9055 on New Years Eve.
For their VMA performance, Snoop and Eminem performed their recent album “From The D 2 The LBC” backed by their fully animated Bored Ape avatars. Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, has partnered with the duo to deliver animations that look amazingly similar to the first gameplay teasers for the company’s upcoming Otherside Metaverse.
Reaction to the rappers’ Bored Ape performance was decidedly mixed. The consensus among crypto natives seems to be that the performance was trustworthy and poorly animated. On the r/Eminem subreddit, the criticism continued. “This NFT shit he’s doing is downright dumb,” said one user posting as GilbertGrape13. However, others like Delphi Labs General Counsel Gabriel Shapiro had more positive things to say. “Okay, that might be surprising from a permanent BAYC bear, but the Eminem Snoop Dogg thing sounded pretty cool?” he says in a Monday tweet.
Regardless of how the performance was received or public perception of NFT Bored Ape, the fact that it happened sets an interesting precedent. Perhaps we’ll see more NFTs make their way into mass media in the future, which could be favorable for adoption.
1) DigiDaigaku launches as Free Currency, reaches 17th floor ETH
The latest update to our list is also arguably the most unexpected. After months of price drops, free mints, and collections of NFT bear market jokes, a project has seemingly defied the odds and recreated a buying frenzy not seen in the NFT market in months.
DigiDaigaku, a free mint project that many die-hard NFT enthusiasts overlooked when it launched on August 10, soared to a low price of 17 ETH on Monday, seemingly out of nowhere. Interest in anime girl avatars accelerated after NFT degens discovered that Limit Break, the company behind DigiDaigaku, raised $200 million for the project last year from a cast of top backers. plan, including Paradigm, FTX, Coinbase Ventures, and Mino Games. .
DigiDaigaku is set to be the first game to pioneer Limit Break free-to-own game model, but further details have yet to be released (apparently the company’s CEO, Gabriel Leydon, wants to keep things under wraps for now). Of course, speculators had a blast driving prices up while details surrounding the project remain unknown. Those who spotted DigiDaigaku’s potential early were able to load NFTs for around 0.5 ETH, earning them a gain of up to 3,330% if they managed to sell the top.
A relatively unknown game project like DigiDaigaku entering the market and surpassing other NFT stalwarts such as CloneX, Doodles, and Pudgy Penguins shows that there is still life left in the highly speculative market. NFTs may have been dormant for the past few months, but to anyone who looks closely enough, it’s obvious that the space is far from dead.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this article, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.