[Short #74] 12-month lows, Gucci x Apecoin, VMAs

šŸ¢ Slowly, then all at once šŸ’„

As the space continues to adjust to the realities of a slower market, those that are in it for the long haul see things differently. Everything in crypto from a $ standpoint may be down, but that doesnā€™t tell the whole story (it does make great headlines though!).

Below are 3 examples from different corners of Web3 that confirm that the space is still thriving despite the exclamations pronouncing Crypto is dead.

Opensea volumes

Mando @greatmando_nft

Strange time in the NFT market. Volumes lower. Active traders higher. Number of NFTs sold higher. Two things drove this - lower ETH price and the "free mint meta". Market has just adapted to everyone getting rekt. If adoption still picks up in quiet periods then thats awesome.

ImageImageImage

11:16 AM āˆ™ Aug 1, 2022


144Likes17Retweets

A relatively unnoticed tweet considering all the big headlines the past couple of days. As a growth guy, I love me some numbers! What is Mando saying in this tweet? Letā€™s unpack that suitcase.

BTW, the Dune dashboards are from Richard Chen of 1Confirmation, a Crypto VC fund. Awesome to see VCā€™s building to benefit the public šŸ˜Œ

PS: Ignore the tiny bars at the very right. Those are August numbers and weā€™re only 2 days into the month, so of course those bars would be šŸ¤

Opensea volume in USD

This chart and its corresponding numbers would be what most skeptics are using for headlines. In $ terms, the environment is down. BAD. 12-month lows bad.

January 2022 $ volume: $4.857 billion

July 2022 $ volume: $528 million

Thatā€™s a -89% change in NFT $ volume. Holy guacamole. Itā€™s more understandable why some folks in the space are in despair if they held over the past 6 months.

Great headlineā€¦but why?

Opensea # of monthly NFTs sold

January 2022 # of NFTs sold: 2.285 million

July 2022 # of NFTs sold: 1.702 million

Thatā€™s -26% from January highs. Down, but not bad.

Opensea # of monthly users making a transaction

January 2022 # of monthly users making a transaction: 546,127

July 2022 # of monthly users making a transaction: 415,435

Thatā€™s -24% from January highs. Also down, but not bad.

So whatā€™s going on here? Like @greatmando_nft said:

ETH is down from $ terms. To add some more detail to this, NFT valuations from a ETH price standpoint is also down. So this is a double-whammy of sorts. Taking the example from last weekā€™s post about the bear market with a sample of NFTs that I hold:

The first whammy is that ETH relative to USD is down.

The second whammy is that NFT valuations are down, regardless of whether itā€™s a top tier project or not. This is due to a lot of external/internal factors ā€” overall market, valuations in general were too high, profit-taking, etc.

When you combine the two, the down bad scenario compounds.

This is not the ā€˜teamworkā€™ I would like to see, but itā€™s teamwork nonetheless šŸ˜‚

Free mint meta. The space has gotten stingier, so one of the ways for projects to have a chance at success is via launching the project through a free mint and gain revenues through secondary sales. This is less desirable vs. paid mints (revenue upfront), but it a result of teams adapting to current market conditions. Another strategy is reducing project mint size, which also results in reduced capital inflow for the team.

Because many recent projects are a free mint, there is still a large number of transactions and users participating in the NFT space.

That leads to some interesting questions:

  • Quality vs. Quantity: We still are at high levels of engagement, but what is the quality of it? Clearly much lower if we define quality by $ value.

    • If we define quality by second, third, nth transaction, that might be another proxy.

    • If we define quality by monthly retention - User transactions in month 0, then month 1, month 2, month n, that could be another measure

    • Break out users transactions with the value greater than a specific $ amount? Would that help us better understand users that are actually buying/selling vs. free minters?

  • Who has left? Who is staying? Who are the newcomers to Web3 and NFTs during these rough times? Who are the ā€˜touristsā€™ that have left?

    • For the people who have left NFTs, have they left completely? Or are they spending their time in Web3 but in other ways, like joining DAOs, working full-time at a Web3 company, etc?

    • Because of the point around free mint meta above, is there a more diverse international audience? Or is there geographical consolidation?

  • What would it take for people to come back? Everyoneā€™s motivations for joining and staying vary. What about motivations to come back? Itā€™d be cool to see an industry-wide user research initiative around this. Is there a user research DAO out there? Lol

    • If some came for the money, would they only come back for financial purposes? Would they come back for non-financial reasonsā€¦ever? If so, what would encourage that?

    • How important is the social and/or utility component for this? For example:

      • Who will be the first celebrity to onboard 100,000 fans into Web3/NFTs in a thoughtful way? How will they do that? Would people who left be convinced to come back because of that celebrity?

      • Which brand will be the first to onboard 1 million consumers into Web3/NFTs in a thoughtful way? How will they do that? Would people who left be convinced to come back because of that brand?

Lastly, note that those Dune charts are for ETH NFTs and Opensea stats only. That said the overall NFT ecosystem follows the trends that Mando and I have pointed out.

So things look pretty slow šŸ¢, whereā€™s the ā€˜all at onceā€™?

Have you seen a turtle before? If so, subscribe!

Gucci x Apecoin

Not to be outdone by Tiffany & Co, Gucci had a big announcement earlier this morning.

Twitter avatar for @gucci

gucci @gucci

Now accepting @apecoin payments via @BitPay, select Gucci boutiques in the USA expand the range ofcryptocurrencies available for in-store purchases, yet another step in the House's exploration of Web3.

1:52 PM āˆ™ Aug 2, 2022


6,574Likes2,019Retweets

My reaction in a meme:

The other luxury fashion juggernaut that is not LVMH is Gucciā€™s parent company, Kering. I donā€™t know if thereā€™s a luxury fashion Illuminati that has decided Crypto and Web3 are the next big thingā€¦but something is happening.

Similar to LVMH, this isnā€™t Keringā€™s first announcement related to the space. Recently Gucci and Balenciaga have announced that they will accept crypto as a form of payment.

On top of that, this announcement is specifically related Apecoin, the currency of Yugaā€™s ecosystem. This is a cryptocurrency that just launched a few months ago and is associated with a NFT collection of Ape jpegs. Impressive if you ask me.

The VMAā€™s

MTVā€™s annual VMAs (Video Music Awards) added a new category for this yearā€™s show: Best Metaverse Performance.

Whoā€™s being nominated and on what platforms?

Holy guacamole x2, these are some big names! Although I havenā€™t watched any of these performances, it seems that mainstream metaverse and interactive entertainment experiences are going to be a thing. Note the platforms these artists performed on: Roblox, PUBG, Minecraft, Youtube, Wave (havenā€™t heard of this one).

Iā€™m curious to see when the first blockchain/Web3 associated metaverse (Sandbox, Decentraland, Otherside, etc.) performance will be nominated for this type of award.

Wait a second, I may have spoken written too soonā€¦Buried in Waveā€™s FAQs

Letā€™s do some more digging. From an article in May related to a XR event in partnership with Teflon Sega, a virtual influencer.

So the Justin Bieber concert on Wave is not specifically related to Web3/NFTs. But Wave as a platform is getting into the space in general. šŸ¤”

šŸ¢ Slowly, then all at once šŸ’„

See you tomorrow folks!

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