Can the crumbling blue-chip NFT usher in a bright moment again?
At the beginning of 2021, the NFT market experienced a wave of upsurge, and NFT led by BAYC has become a new investment target strongly sought after by institutions and celebrities. At that time, as long as the investment background was luxurious, the aesthetics of NFT was online, and the voice of the community was high, a large number of users would flock to it. Even though the threshold for getting the whitelist is getting higher and higher, the chaos of off-market and off-market transactions is frequent, and the price of NFT mint is inflated, but it still cannot resist the Degens who want to buy the next "BAYC".
Where there is Fomo, there is hot money. The NFT trend has attracted a large number of funds to enter the market. These funds are dispersed in different types of NFT investment projects, such as PFP, land, Pass cards, etc., and through the combination with traditional IP and star effect blessing, it has attracted a large number of Web2 users to enter. With fresh blood, smart funds and a rising market, the NFT market has also ushered in a wave of bull market, and the floor price has been continuously raised. Some NFT projects that have a large and active user base and can continue to add value to Holder or Trader are also labeled as blue-chip NFTs.
However, as the market transitions between bulls and bears, various gameplays appear repeatedly and alternately, and everyone is gradually tired of the various hypes of NFT, and began to put forward higher requirements. The once blue-chip projects have gradually been eclipsed due to lack of innovation.
At present, the floor prices of blue-chip projects such as Moonbird, CoolCat, and Doodles continue to fall. Although there was a short-term recovery when the good news was released, they still cannot reverse the downward trend. According to NFTGo's Blue Chip Index (Blue Chip Index), in the past year, NFT blue chips have experienced a short-term high (April 29, 2022) and then continued to fall, and are currently below 9,000 points.
The continued sluggishness of blue-chip projects can't help but make people wonder, what's wrong? Can they "survive" in the next bull market?
The tortuous transformation of "blue chip" NFTs
Looking back at these "blue chip" NFTs, after gaining the double dividends brought about by the growth of industry users and the soaring asset prices, they have entered a stage of serious homogeneity, and they must rely on involution to break through the bottleneck. The first person who blew up this "inward roll" wind was Yuga Labs.
Yuga Labs' plan is to create a metaverse ecosystem that is highly interactive and strongly associated with various NFT characters. So we saw that they started a series of operations such as acquisitions, land distribution, token distribution, and online mini-games since last year. Continuously create an environment with sustainable storytelling for Holders, and stimulate the nerves of investors and the market. This wave of operations brought the floor price of BAYC to a peak of 150 ETH, and completed a new round of financing of US$450 million at a valuation of US$4 billion. Such achievements made the NFTs who have not yet secured the "blue chip" throne salivate and applauded, and also provided them with a template for reference.
As a result, the new "blue chips" are eager to try and start to transform one after another, wanting to make a big splash. However, latecomers who do not adopt a more ingenious strategy are doomed to lose their bets and be ruthlessly kicked off the table by their opponents.
1. Moonbird: Depreciated in each new series
Backed by the strong background and operational capabilities of the PROOF team, Moonbirds opened Mint at a price of 2.5 ETH, and quickly reached a floor price of 37 ETH after going online. The trading volume once surpassed the top NFT projects BAYC and CryptoPunks. Regardless of project background or market performance, Moonbirds is regarded as a phenomenon-level new blue chip.
So, PROOF struck while the iron was hot and announced the launch of a new NFT series, Moonbirds Oddities. Unfortunately, Moonbirds Oddities did not continue the glory of Moonbirds. In addition to being complained about by everyone in terms of appearance design, its floor price has also fallen all the way.
At that time, catching up with the rise of the CC0 concept, Moonbirds seemed to want to reverse the situation. Announced that the NFT series and its sister project, Oddities, will be moving to a CC0 copyright model. However, this decision was not decided by a vote of community members. Some holders did not buy it, believing that the decision to adopt CC0 a few months after the release of NFT deprived holders of their rights. After the CC0 announcement, the floor price of Moonbirds fell by 3 ETH, and has continued to fall to around 12 ETH since then.
But that hasn't affected Moonbirds' plans to push for a new series. In August, Moonbirds completed a US$50 million Series A financing led by a16z. And plans to launch the third NFT Moonbirds Mythics in early 2023, as well as the token of the same name, and also establish a "social metaverse platform", as well as other NFT plans, such as using unique smart contract functions to cooperate with artists to launch "Proof X ” and “Curated” brands, among others.
At present, these plans are still plans, the first quarter of 2023 is coming to an end, and we have not yet seen the various products that Moonbirds promised. And from the perspective of the new plan, Moonbirds is still continuing the old path of continuously issuing new NFT projects, but the team lacks ecological development capabilities, resulting in the difficulty of new projects and the decline of old projects. The current Moonbirds floor price has dropped to 3.7 ETH.
2. Doodles: Amazing start, great development
Doodles has a luxurious team background, its team members Evan Keast, Jordan Castro and Scott Martin come from Dapper Labs, Evan Keast and Cryptokittie, and Doodles planned to create an animation and multimedia trend brand IP in the early days of its birth. At the time, the idea was indeed attractive. So soon after Doodles went online, it squeezed into the ranks of blue-chip NFTs, and the floor once rushed to 23 ETH (the issue price was 0.123 ETH).
But Doodles has gone against the grain of its perfect start. In Doodles' business expansion plan, although there is no "imitation" of the old way of continuously releasing new NFT series, every new product it launches is tepid. For example, it released the Space Doodles game, set up Doodles Records to set foot in the music field, planned to release dynamic NFT Doodles 2, and even migrated to the new Flow chain. These seemingly innovative ideas are reflected in the continuous decline of floor prices in the market.
And Doodles hasn't even tweeted a single word in half a year. Not interacting with the community makes it more and more distant from the community. When the community continued to criticize the development team for not doing things seriously, constantly diluting the value of OG holders and deviating from the Web3 vision, Doodles founder Jordan Castro announced in the official Discord that Doodles is no longer an "NFT project" and will develop into a media franchise brokerage company . But they only raised $54 million last year to focus on music and game NFT development, which aroused strong dissatisfaction in the community. The current floor price of Doodles, which is already riddled with holes, has dropped to 3.67 ETH. And to the community FUD, Doodles said, "Don't expect us to go with the flow."
It looks like a personality, but it is actually stubborn. As a team, Doodles should continue to develop around the value story they want to build, and use the results of their work to justify this value story. But so far, neither Doodles' new features nor delivery capabilities have met his ambitions.
3. Cool Cats: Submerged in a sea of pictures
For Cool Cats, who has been in the mud for a long time, the "blue chip" is getting farther and farther away from him.
The highlight moment of Cool Cats seems to be its infancy, and in the later development, the secondary performance of the project is relatively less conspicuous. In the nearly 3 years since its launch, Cool Cats seems to have only released the pet breeding game Cooltopia, and some product features around Cooltopia such as CoolScore, Journeys, and Fractures NFT. And these products are not remarkable. And it has not made great efforts in business ecology and marketing promotion. The floor of Cool Cats has dropped to 1.39 ETH, and eventually they can't escape being forgotten in the corner after the early novelty wears off.
Endless bids, endless floors
The "blue chip" NFT is gradually declining. In addition to its own development problems, there is also the influence of the Blur mechanism.
Before Blur went online, many NFT trading markets were already in a leading position, but the emergence of Blur is considered to have had a revolutionary impact on the entire industry. Its "Bid for Airdrop" incentive mechanism has become the driving force behind the liquidity of the NFT market. The main promoters behind it are professional traders with a large number of blue-chip assets and professional NFT trading knowledge and experience. They don't regard long-term holding as the main pursuit of playing NFT. What they value is the rewards obtained from "Bid for Airdrop" and the profits brought by quick flipping.
It can be said that Blur is "FTizing" NFT.
On the surface, we see that the liquidity of NFTs has improved, but in fact NFTs are going through a huge test. The first to face the test is BAYC. Last month, after Brother Maji was blocked and dumped 1010 NFTs, the floor price of BAYC fell by 25.5%, from 75 ETH to 55.89 ETH. Although the floor of BAYC rebounded after the panic, it was still unable to break through 70 ETH and is currently stable at 58.5 ETH.
If the floor price of BAYC falls further, there will be a large number of BAYCs facing liquidation in the market. Currently, 8 BAYCs are being auctioned on BendDAO, and there are 67 BAYCs with a health coefficient of around 1-1.1, facing a great risk of being liquidated.
This is not an exception. In the first season of the airdrop event, Blur Farmer bought a large number of NFTs by sweeping the floor to obtain airdrop points, which then pushed up the price of NFT and repeated this operation to attract more Blur Farmers. But when the act became unprofitable, they began dumping their amassed possessions, triggering a cascade of falling floors.
On March 21, nearly $17 million worth of Wrapped Cryptopunks was sold off, and Brother Moji took over 77 more. This sell-off smashed the floor of Wrapped Cryptopunks from 75 ETH to 62 ETH. At present, Brother Maji has not sold a large number of Wrapped Cryptopunks that he received, but from Blur, the bidding wall of Wrapped Cryptopunks has reached 55 ETH. If the last BAYC sell-off occurs again, the floor price of Wrapped Cryptopunks will fall further.
Summarize
Summarize
In the ever-changing NFT market, the narrative and development pattern of blue chips is entering a period of adjustment. With the overall defoaming of the NFT market, it is becoming more and more difficult for NFTs who want to secure their blue-chip throne. How to enable Holders to increase their holding value, keep a steady pace around the set route, and maintain the "stimulation" to consumers is the main challenge for the future development of NFT.
