Weekly Wrap: 22nd May - 29th May

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Well, Ledger have already started backtracking on the Recover feature discussed last week and have re-commited to open-sourcing more of their code. A welcome step for sure!

It seems like Ethereum's memecoin season is mostly behind us, apart from a determined crowd that continue to throw Ether at an ape influencer named Ben that I'm hesitant to link to here. Feel free to reply to this email if you're out of the loop.

At the same time, Bitcoin Ordinals appear to be here to stay after a brief initial wave of hype in Febraury. And in fact, it seems to have started a new wave of trying to apply web3 concepts to Bitcoin with BRC-20s stealing the conversation this week. Maybe memecoin season isn't over after all? 🤔

- @nuconomist

Crypto Market Cap: 1.21 Trillion Dollars 🔺+3.42% (Was 1.17 T)

Bitcoin Dominance: 44.8% 🔺+0.54% (Was 44.56%)

Ethereum Dominance: 18.9% 🔺+1.34% (Was 18.65%)

Other Crypto (excl. BTC & ETH): 36.3% 🔻-1.33% (Was 36.79%)

Nuconomist Notes:

As I write this email we are breaking back into the 28XXXs on Bitcoin and 19XXs on Ethereum, could this be the start of something special or will we fall back into the range? We'll find out by next weeks email for sure.

NFT Market Cap (ETH): Ξ 8.0 Million 🔻-2.44% (Was Ξ 8.2 Million)

NFT Market Cap (USD): $15.39 Billion 🔺 +2.94% (Was $14.95 Billion)

30 Day NFT Volume (ETH): 389k 🔻-1.76% (Was 396k)

Nuconomist Notes:

While the NFT Market Cap as priced in ETH is down slightly this week, it is up in USD terms thank to the rise in Ether price. But more notably, the decrease in 30 day rolling NFT volume has also slowed down for the first time in weeks. Could we finally be reaching that elusive bottom in the market?

I suspect that whatever happens next with the price of the crypto majors (ETH/BTC) will dictate what happens here. If crypto goes up, I can imagine a scenario where NFTs get a USD value boost whilst maintaining current ETH prices, but if crypto gets a little parabola then we could see a further dump of NFTs as traders look to ride the faster train. And finally, if cryptos slump from here, it's likely we continue our slow decline until some enthusiasm comes back into the market.

While this newsletter has mainly covered ETH NFTs so far, I am certainly aware of the enthusiasm for BTC NFTs, primarily Ordinals, and will likely do a deeper dive on the site in the coming weeks.

It has been said before that bull cycles often start with a new innovation that breeds some excitement, early adopters get on board and cause hype, the hype brings in wider audiences, and that enthusiasm (and fresh capital) spills over into other areas.

While it is still early to call it for Ordinals, I do wonder if this innovation is a significant enough event to be that catalyst that ultimately kicks off a new cycle for NFTs. And if it is? What could be the impact for Etherum based NFTs. We've already seen Yuga, DeGods and Satoshibles, expanding to the Bitcoin chain without cannibalising their existing collections. Surely they won't be the last?

1. Mutant Ape Yacht Club

2. Bored Ape Yacht Club

3. Milady

4. Azuki

5. Wrapped Cryptopunks

Nuconomist Notes:

Once again, no change to who is featured here this week. However, the floor price for Milady has fallen significantly (-22%) over the past seven days as the Elon pump effect wears off. If my Twitter feed is anything to go by, Milady holders are still making their presence known as a community so it will be interesting to see that dynamic evolve as the price falls further. Are there a wave of people waiting to pick them up at a lower price, or will they simply retrace to a more organic bottom? I certainly suspect the latter, but that bottom is also probably higher now than it would have been several weeks back as they have picked up some notable whales and influencers.

1. Opepen Edition: 1090 ETH PnL

2. Bored Ape Yacht Club: 816 ETH PnL (640 ETH PnL)

3. Cryptopunks: 326 ETH PnL

4. Fidenza | Art Blocks Curated 302 ETH PnL

5. Pudgy Penguins: 195 ETH PnL (Was 425 ETH PnL)

Nuconomist Notes:

While the volume charts may be stable, collection profitability appears to be a faster moving indicator. Opepen Edition jumps up from behind with a fresh reveal on the cards within the next 24 hours. It seems the NFT community still doesn't plan ahead and will always FOMO last minute for a notable collection.

Fancy Nouns proved to be a flash in the pan for now and is nowhere in sight, while Bored Ape Yacht Club reclaim their place in the top five.

Cryptopunks jump from the least to most profitable list with just 19 sales this week, proving how easy it is to surf up and down these charts when a single floor sale is potentially over 2% (2.37016093953893 to be precise) of the total PnL for the top five of the week.

Fidenza made the news again with the NFT collection formerly owned by 3AC (infamously defunct hedge fund) being auctioned off last week, including a Fidenza for $1 Million. It's likely this stirred more interest within the last week for what is a high value and typically illiquid collection. In fact there were almost as many sales this week (8) as there were in the prior month (9). The attention economy strikes again!

1. Moonbirds: -423 ETH PnL

2. Clone X: -422 ETH PnL

3. Mutant Ape Yacht Club: -328 ETH PnL

4. Otherdeed for Otherside: -293 PnL

5. Webaverse Genesis Pass: -200 ETH PnL

Nuconomist Notes:

Moonbirds and Clone X never fail to dissapoint, holding the top spots this week, although with less realised losses than the prior week. Always a silver lining!

Mutant Ape Yacht Club seems to have accepted its loss below the psychological support level of 10 ETH, so this could potentially turn to resistance without further stimulus. It will be interesting to see if it maintains this level in the 9s or begins a slow bleed like many collections before it. History is not on it's side, but in the short-term the wider crypto and NFT market is likely to have a bigger impact on it's immediate price action in my opinion. I suspect if NFTs get a boost there is a wave of people who will happily step into this community for a ride, but if it's down, even the mighty Yuga collections will struggle fighting gravity. This is reinforced with Otherdeed for Otherside (another Yuga collection) continuing it's underperformance here.

Webaverse made it onto this list with a single whale dumping 501 NFTs from the collection into Blur bids over four days for around 200 ETH of losses. This rapidly dumped the floor price from around 0.05 ETH to 0.0191 ETH at the lowest, although the collection appears to have retraced most of the move for now. Undoutedly, there will now be a few Blur bidders holding bags they dont and there could be some cascades. While the individual values might be considered low in NFT land, a price drop of 61% in a matter of days shows the outsized impact whales can have when they exit a project. However, the full retracement shows that panic selling the bottom isn't always the best choice at times like this if your personal thesis for the project hasn't changed.

Ordinals have proven demand on Bitcoin, but fees will push users to Layer 2 - Bitcoin Magazine

Blend Seizes 82% of NFT Lending market share - CoinDesk

No, MetaMask will not withold your crypto for Taxes - Decrypt

What is ERC721-C, and could it solve Web3's royalty issues? - NFTNow

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Nuconomist Notes:

With any new chain, there are different nuances to what collectors find valuable. One contender for Bitcoin NFTs is the existence of rare satoshis. As each NFT is inscribed on a single Satoshi, the smallest possible amount of Bitcoin (0.00000001), the source of this Satoshi is considered notable by some. This reminds me of the time on the Ethereum chain where mints with a lower number were perceived as more desirable. For a while it may have given traders a boost but over the long term the desirability of the NFT content was resposible for most of the value. Will it be the same here? It is too early to tell but somethig to keep in mind if paying a premium for "Rare Sats".

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