Market Updates
Weekly NFT Volume
Some changes to this week's NFT Volume Chart. Values are in USD rather than ETH.
Chart also includes LooksRare as its own bar considering they have been getting significant enough volume to be displayed. It is also worth taking note of the volume on LooksRare as it ties in with their recent token incentives.
Blur seems to have recovered to their usual volume share of 74% while Opensea + Opensea Pro takes 25% on average this week.
All things considered, USD$10 Million in daily volume across all platforms doesn't seem to be that small a number though we can assume that the bulk of it comes from wash trading on Blur.
Active NFT Traders
Another slow week as Weekly Active NFT traders range between 7,000 to 13,000.
The Active Trader Count has been stagnant for awhile now, signifying that there isn't any increase of interests in recent times.
While not directly, it also implies there isn't new money coming into the NFT space.
Large Cap PFP Index
Large Cap PFPs remain stagnant as CryptoPunks cements its position as the only project above the 500K ETH Market Cap, with BAYC the only other project to stay above 300K ETH Market Cap.
Azuki continues to spiral down as the floor price makes another small leg down.
DeGods remain decently strong, holding its place in the 4th place among PFP projects.
CryptoPunks the outlier this week as the only project to rise in floor. Azuki takes a big hit of XX% as “death spiral” continues.
CloneX unfortunately falls to the Mid Cap PFPs category.
Mid Cap PFP Index
Mid Cap PFPs, as usual, showed more volatility with mixed price movements.
Beanz falls out of the Mid Cap PFPs category having failed to stay above the 10K ETH Market Cap.
Pudgy Penguins rises 6.54% with positive sentiments on Twitter about their upcoming plans while Moonbirds making a small leg up of 4.24%.
CloneX and Milady took small hits, falling 4.41% and 6.30% respectively.
VeeFriends falls the sharpest, down 14.48%, having seen sweeps on their VeeFriends 2 collection from GaryVee himself in the past few weeks.
Trending NFT Projects of the Week
Another week without any notable project trending.
World Coin’s NFT “Introducing World App” makes a surprising appearance behind speculation that the NFT will grant an airdrop of $WLD tokens.
Garbage Bags from Garbage Friends that minted this week makes top 5, following a lowering of their initial mint price midway through the mint.
Spotlights
Opepen takes over Twitter
Opepen was created by Jack Butcher on the 8 January 2023, starting as an open edition, free mint with a minting window of 60 minutes. The collection aims to build around the core mantra of culture and provenance.
A collection that many deemed to be a placeholder and compliment to Jack Butcher's main collection, ‘Checks’, it was not until more than a month later that Jack Butcher tweeted about the potential of Opepen being a PFP collection. The announcement caused the floor to surge to about 0.9 ETH which later cooled off to around the 0.3 ETH range.
In the past week, Opepen took Twitter by storm with notable influencer and threador, Threadguy, changing his iconic Mutant Ape PFP to a unique Opepen built around the colour schemes of his original Mutant Ape.
This was later followed by NFT Marketplace, Opensea changing their PFP and display name to Opepensea, creating the start of a domino effect where almost every notable platform and influencer swapped their PFPs out for an Opepen.
Let's delve into the brainchild of Jack Butcher that is Opepen.
The Opepen 'Sets'
Introducing 'Sets', a concept by Jack Butcher and Jalil.
This is the next step in the Opepen Saga for “revealing metadata of selected Opepens”. The concept was to step away from the usual instant reveal process.
The concept features a slow reveal over weeks, starting with the rarest (Set 001) until we get to floors.
The idea is, every week, Jack Butcher will feature a different Opepen that is usually of a different colour, texture or layout. If you like the look of the art piece, you could then “opt-in” your Opepen to reveal and if selected, your Opepen will reveal into the art of the set you chose.
This week was Set 010, a very sentimental number to Jack Butcher as it’s the translation of his company/project, Visualize Value (VV), as well as highlighting 1/0 (binary 1’s and 0’s) which is the beginning of computer technology as we know. Jack Butcher has been known to have deep rationale behind every set design so far.
What actually caused the big Twitter movement?
On July 11, BoredElonMusk reached out to Threadguy, offering an exchange of his Opepen Set 001 (23.5 ETH) for Threadguy's Iconic Mutant Ape (5.65 ETH). The conditions were set that BoredElonMusk would keep the Mutant Ape for at least a year, while Threadguy would keep the Opepen Set 001 for at least three months.
But to many people's surprise, Threadguy refused which naturally sparked debate in NFT land and Crypto Twitter and the big question, “Is your PFP your brand and can you do without it?"
Along the line, Jack Butcher designed an Opepen for Threadguy using his Mutant Ape's colours as a gesture of goodwill.
Threadguy responded by changing his PFP to the free Opepen designed by Jack Butcher which took the space by storm considering Threadguy had already refused a money making offer.
When Jack Butcher saw this, he created a new open edition mint called ‘Threadition’, whereby anyone could mint the Opepen designed for Threadguy for approximately $2, having all the proceeds go straight to Threadguy. Today, 'Threadition' has raised over $100,000 for Threadguy.
This event even caught the eye of Beeple, who created an Everyday art piece about it.
7,414
NFT Twitter erupted, with supporters of Threadguy minting tens of these 'Threaditions', and high profile accounts such as Opensea and NBA Topshot changing their PFP’s temporarily to Opepen renditions simply "FOR THE CULTURE".
Threadguy lead the PFP train.
Relevant Links:
Opepen Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/opepen-edition
Opepen Set 010 Website: https://opepen.art/sets/010
Jack Butcher Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackbutcher
Threadguy Twitter: https://twitter.com/notthreadguy
Doodles x CAMP physical experience to be open in August
On 31 May 2023, Doodles officially announced on their Twitter page that they will be partnering with family experience company, CAMP, for their first ever flagship retail and entertainment experience.
With the goal of growing the Doodles ecosystem, they aim to create a real life emotional connection with anyone, not just NFT collectors.
CAMP has partnered with Disney for multiple installations in the past, including 'The Little Mermaid', 'Encanto', and 'Mickey & Friends' which makes it all the more exciting that Doodles are partnering with an experienced and well connected company.
Details of Doodles x CAMP:
> Opening on August 19
> Located at 651 W. North Avenue in Chicago
> Featuring 3 main rooms, "The Stoodio", "Flower Forest", and "Crash Site"
> Exclusive co-branded collection of apparel and accessories to be sold
> OG Holder Grand Opening Preview and Meet Up on August 17, 6PM
> OG Holders receive 5 complimentary tickets
> Tickets priced at $28
What does this mean?
Doodles has always been well known for its IRL experiences, having hosted some impressive ones in the past. Doodles NFT Party at SXSW 2022 featured many cool equipments that elevated the experience for holders, while the most recent pop up at Something In The Water also showcased the creativity and cultural experience that the Doodles team can offer.
As Doodles aims to be a globally recognisable IP brand, IRL experiences are key.
By focusing on IRL experiences and building emotional connections with people, it creates brand loyalty, not exclusive to holders, but to the general public that attend these events.
Also, through being family friendly, Doodles can reach a wider audience and tap into the younger demographic to build brand recognition in the same way that children's cartoons such as Spongebob, Scooby Doo, and Powerpuff Girls do.
This might mean tapping into a large market in kids' toys, with the market size reported to be $65.8B in 2021 and projected to reach $89.5B by 2031. Simply achieving 1% of that market size would mean revenue of $895M for Doodles. Easier said than done of course!
While this might be an idealistic goal, it is definitely a step in the right direction, not only for Doodles but also similar projects in the NFT space. Projects such as Pudgy Penguins and Cool Cats have also taken similar approaches in being a family friendly, IRL experiential brand. Pudgy Penguins having released their Pudgy Toys and are expected to release more in the next quarter, while Cool Cats has hosted a few IRL experiences such as the one during NFTNYC in 2021. All of which have had positive feedbacks.
As mentioned in previous week's newsletter, it will be interesting to see which NFT project comes out on top as the best IP brand.
Relevant Links:
Doodles Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/doodles-official
Doodles Website: https://www.doodles.app
Doodles x CAMP Website: https://camp.com/doodles
Doodles Twitter: https://twitter.com/doodles
CAMP Twitter: https://twitter.com/CAMPSTORES
Kanpai Pandas announces D+RIP, bridging physical and digital assets
Omnichain NFT project, Kanpai Pandas, announces "D+RIP", their latest venture that aims to bridge the gap between our physical and digital worlds.
Through the use of NFC chips and QR codes, each D+RIP (Digital Real Items for Pandas) acts as a gateway to interactive experiences within the Kanpai Pandas ecosystem.
Panda holders can buy items from this token-gated collection on PPDEX using either crypto or fiat. They will receive a digital trait for their panda, a physical item (shipping included), and an NFT minted on Polygon that shows proof of ownership.
The initial D+RIP offerings consist of the "Ice Bling Pendant" and the "Black Bling Pendant."
What does this mean?
As the world moves towards blurring the lines between physical and digital assets, we are starting to see many projects building towards the Phygital direction.
Kanpai Pandas, having innovated on this idea, might just pave the way for clothing brands in the future - an experience where buying a physical good can also be represented in your digital identity.
Existing Web2 brands can take a similar approach, allowing their consumers to have an internal digital identity, and purchasing of apparels will mean their digital identity can equip it.
Alternatively, they can ride on an existing project to execute on such an experience.
The problem now, is that there isn't that ONE collection that unifies all brands. Every PFP looks different, with different line works and postures which makes it difficult for a brand to work with multiple projects. This is also why we have seen many individual brands working with individual projects.
Interoperability between projects is an issue that is prevalent, especially between Metaverse platforms and we are still a long way to go from finding that 1 unified language.
We'll look forward to the day that unity happens.
Relevant Links:
Kanpai Pandas Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/kanpai-pandas
Kanpai Pandas Website: https://kanpaipandas.io
Marketplace Website: https://ppdex.io/marketplace
Kanpai Pandas Twitter: https://twitter.com/KanpaiPandas
Quick Fire News
Bored Ape Yacht Club tweets Apefest is happening in Hong Kong from 3 November to 5 November
CyberKongz announces the details of its Genkai mint on 27 July
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