Welcome to NFT Insider for March 25th, 2022 – FREE Edition, brought to you weekly by Alts.
Each week, we give you our analysis of the NFT market and any current IPOs, plus a heads up on cool projects we think are worth checking out.
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
NFTs in 2022
NFTs on the fractional marketplace currently stand at an 82% return since they started trading on Otis and Rally. The fractional returns on NFTs have been driven down and trading sideways since late January.
Are NFTs in a bear market? The 30-day chart on Nonfungible.com shows increased activity this past week, most of which can be attributed to the release of ApeCoin ($APE). After a four-day spike, sales volume has gone back to most of the month’s levels. $APE is currently trading at $10.16 per coin, after opening on the market just above $6 per coin.
NFTs Last Week
NFTs on Fractional Marketplaces
The Art asset class appears as a bright spot, with XCOPY’s Bottom Feeder joining day trading.
The Grimes NFT Collection is driving the art category once again this week, with shares trading at $31, up from $18 last week. Chromie Squiggle #524 is down from $0.80 last week, now trading at $0.65. Bottom Feeder is trading at $0.85, down from the $1 IPO.
What was the effect of $APE on Rally’s fractional Apes?
Well, the coin certainly helped boost three of the assets on Rally, though one Ape remains relatively unchanged. The floor price for Bored Apes currently sits at $306k.
Rally’s “Laser Eyes” Bored Ape #4612 has regained some lost value from last week when it sunk below $3 per share. It is now trading at $4.75 per share ($470k market cap) but still down from its IPO price of $7. “Leather Jacket” Ape #9159 is at $7.40, up from last week’s $5 per share with a market cap of $289k.
“Astronaut” Bored Ape #7359 on Rally has made gains, now trading at about $16 per share for a market cap of $303k. “Captain’s Hat” Bored Ape #601 is trading at $20 per share for a market cap of $328k.
NFTs on OpenSea
One of the beneficiaries of last week’s $APE drop was other collections.
With $APE holders taking profit, it gave them liquidity to purchase other collections and an opportunity to diversify their NFT portfolios. So, yes, it’s no surprise that Bored Apes and Mutant Apes take the top two spots for the second straight week, but it’s worth exploring the floor prices of other prominent collections pre-and-post-$APE.
- Cool Cats has gone from a floor price low of 6.8 ETH to 8.5 ETH.
- Doodles went from a low of 11.2 to 12.5 ETH.
- Clone X went from 12.25 ETH to 14 ETH.
- Azuki has gone from 8.8 ETH to 13.7 ETH.
- World of Women was at 9 ETH and is now sitting pretty at 11.5 ETH.
$APE had a trickle-down effect on some of the more prominent collections in the space.
We like 3Landers, which took the top position on OpenSea four weeks ago. Since March 9th, it has consistently been trading at a floor price above 1.6 ETH. Last week its floor stood at 1.6 ETH, and now it is at 1.88 ETH.
NFTs This Week
Fractional Marketplaces
There are no NFT Initial Public Offerings this week.
Projects Minting
When we highlight minting projects, we are not endorsing the project but highlighting a few reasons why the project has the potential to be successful. How do we define success? We define a successful project as one that you can mint and sell for a profit or one where you hold and benefit from its utility.
Tribe X Empire
When: March 26 @ 9 PM ET
Cost: 0.2 ETH
This is a collection of 11,111 woman avatars split between pre-sale and public sale. You can join the Tribe X Discord here. Holding a Tribe X NFT will give you access to the Launchpad, a Tribe X-specific metaverse.
OneOf Mints
When: March 24 @ 5 pm ET
Cost: Mint Available for Free
This is part of the NFT Collection by Masego x FKJ x Voidz, and it’s a great way to start an NFT collection or add to your collection – OneOf is offering a free NFT (completely free, no gas) commemorating the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Click here for more info on that. Last week, a free NFT commemorating the 64th GRAMMY Awards was available.
The Free NFT also includes a chance to win a pair of flyaway tickets to next year’s GRAMMYs in 2023. For music enthusiasts, the NFT Collection by Masego x FKJ x Voidz offers an opportunity to win concert tickets and music memorabilia.
All buyers of the Gold ($25, 500 editions), Platinum ($150, 450 editions), and Diamond (auction, 1/1) NFTs will be invited to a virtual jam session by the artists. Select winners from each NFT level will receive concert tickets and merchandise.
Industry News
What Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, has done in less than a year is nothing less than remarkable. This is not news. But one could argue that the past three weeks of the company’s existence are even more incredible.
If we travel back in time to March 7, we will find Bored Apes sitting at a 68 ETH floor, and the NFT market in a state of angst… In early February, the Apes had reached a 120 ETH floor. In about a month, the most valuable NFT collection in the world had lost 43% of its value off all-time highs.
Then Yuga made an announcement that shocked the NFT and business community. They had acquired IP brand rights to the CryptoPunks and the Meebits from Larva Labs. Yuga Labs was already the industry leader; it then bought one of the most historically significant and valuable NFT collections in the Punks. The Meebits were the cherry on top.
Somehow, a few days later, Yuga cannibalized their headline-catching news. With the release of ApeCoin ($APE), it airdropped 10,904 coins to each Bored Ape holder and 2,042 to each Mutant Ape holder.
At today’s price, Bored Ape holders were gifted $144k through a coin that appeared out of thin air, and Mutant Holders received a not-too-shabby $25k. ApeCoin is now the 58th most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, holding a market cap just north of $2 billion.
But what can $APE buy? At the moment… nothing.
The coin’s price is based on hype – hype that, in truth, Yuga has consistently delivered on. Owning $APE at its current price is betting that the Bored Apes ecosystem will deliver on its promises again, in the not-too-distant future.
What does a future Bored Ape ecosystem entail? As of right now, there’s Ape DAO, by which $APE serves as a governance token; there’s a metaverse in the works by Yuga Labs meant to rival The Sandbox and Decentraland, and future Ape-sponsored in-real-life and virtual events.
The release of $APE doesn’t come without its share of criticism, though.
Our friends at Otis noted that 14% of $APE’s initial supply went to corporate entities, further enriching them and giving them substantial voting power within APE DAO.
Fortune Magazine concluded that $APE created an even bigger gap between major corporations and NFT-centric individuals and those just becoming aware of the space. Vitalik Buterin had criticisms about Ethereum being used for speculative purposes, clarifying that he’s perfectly fine with Bored Apes but that he’d like to see more examples of Ethereum for “public goods.”
Yuga’s recent success does seem to have garnered some resentment. What was once viewed as a grassroots movement of crazy NFT’ers has now taken on a more subdued tone – the corporate takeover is one step closer.
On Tuesday, Yuga announced that it raised $450 million in its seed round. That round put Yuga’s valuation at an estimated $4 billion. Among the biggest investors were a16z, Animoca Brands, and Time Ventures – publisher of Time Magazine and owned by Salesforce Founder and CEO Marc Benioff. No wonder Time Magazine announced this week that it would be accepting payments in $APE.
Does any of it matter? If the price of $APE continues to rise with its potential to displace meme coins like Doge and Shiba, as Giancarlo argues, why shouldn’t retail investors also profit?
A few days after its release, $APE had plummeted from about $40 per coin to just above $6. Media outlets were quick to jump on its drop. Nearly a week later, the coin is trading at twice the value of its release price – $12.90 per coin.
If you happened to buy $100 of $APE at its initial price, you would now be looking at a sweet $100 profit.
The collective launch partners for Yuga, who were given 14% of the initial $APE supply, are now looking at a $1.7 billion gift in one week. So it goes…
