Moonbirds has become an NFT upstart, and the team behind Proof is accused of "price manipulation"?
Written by: Kyle
In just 5 days, the Moonbirds series of NFTs became popular in the market. This NFT series consisting of 10,000 decorated cartoon owls in various shapes topped the trading list with sales of more than 310 million US dollars, and the floor price also increased from the initial 2.5 ETH rose to 19.99 ETH.
Moonbirds has become an NFT upstart, which cannot be separated from the promotion of the Proof Collective "club". The club is composed of 1,000 NFT collectors including Beeple. Members need to hold Proof NFT as a pass, and Moonbirds is one of the club's "benefits". Each club member can subscribe to two Moonbirds NFT with a minimum guarantee.
With Moonbirds taking off, though, Proof Collective has been embroiled in controversy over insider manipulation. The Twitter account "NFT Ethics" accused its behind-the-scenes team of buying and selling to drive up prices, and revealed a dark history of the club's co-founder.
Under the popularity and controversy, Moonbirds staged the NFT fundraising model. Proof co-founder Rose revealed that the NFT sale brought $58 million in “financing” to the entity behind it. It should be noted that this model, which is similar to a variant ICO, may touch the regulatory red line.
Moonbirds series of NFT quickly became the top stream
At a time when the overall turnover of the NFT industry has declined, a series of NFTs called Moonbirds has sprung up, becoming the most recent collection of NFTs.
On April 20, statistics from data aggregator CryptoSlam showed that in the past 7 days, the sales of Moonbirds series NFT exceeded 310 million US dollars, ranking first among all NFT projects. It has only been 5 days since the Moonbirds series NFT was released. In other words, its sales within 5 days exceeded the sales of all other NFTs in the past 7 days.
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Part of the Moonbirds series NFT
Subsequently, Moonbirds spread like a virus in the NFT community. Most people first hear about it because of its high transaction price. After launching on the OpenSea trading market, the floor price of Moonbirds quickly climbed to around 9 ETH within a day. On April 18, Moonbirds #3904 was sold at a price of 150 ETH, setting the highest transaction record for this NFT series. Two days later, the famous American host, actor, and singer Jimmy Fallon also announced on social media that he holds the Moonbirds series NFT.
As of April 20, the floor price of Moonbirds has risen to 19.99ETH, which is about 61,700 US dollars, and the highest price of NFT on sale in the trading market is 1500ETH.
No matter in terms of transaction price, transaction volume or social media attention, Moonbirds has become one of the top NFTs as an upstart, and its recent sales have surpassed Bored Ape Yacht Club (boring ape), CryptoPunks (crypto punk) and other heads NFT branding.
One of the magic of Moonbirds may come from its automatic "upgrade" setting. According to the official website, Moonbirds uses a unique PFP design that allows them to be locked and "nested" without leaving the wallet. In layman's terms, after the user purchases Moonbird, as long as the owl does not transfer or sell it, the owl can build its own nest, and the user can obtain "drop" rewards by continuously upgrading the nest.
These perks are a bit of a mystery. According to the official website, only Moonbird holders can enter the private PROOF Discord and log into the closed club channel. Once in, users gain access to Moonbird-related "drops," exclusive access to club meetups and IRL events, and access to upcoming PROOF projects.
Another big "magic" of Moonbirds is the "club" of Proof Collective, the project party behind it. This is a group of 1,000 NFT collectors, including well-known artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) and investor Gary Vaynerchuk.
The co-founders of Proof Collective are also well-known in the NFT field, including Kevin Rose, Justin Mezzell and Ryan Carson. Among them, Kevin Rose is not only a partner of True Ventures, a blockchain investment institution, but also hosts many popular podcasts related to technology and encrypted assets, including a face-to-face interview with Tesla founder Elon Musk.
The prestigious team background is the most dazzling aura of Moonbirds, and members of the "club" of the Proof Collective also need to hold the Proof series NFT as a pass. According to OpenSea data, in early December last year, the average price of Proof NFT was 1.99 ETH. Today, the lowest price of this NFT series has risen to 98 ETH, or about 285,000 US dollars.
In fact, Moonbirds itself is the "perks" section for Proof Collective members. Out of a total of 10,000 Moonbirds, 2,000 will be allocated to Proof Collective members, 7,875 will be allocated to lucky draw winners, and the remaining 125 will be held by the Moonbird team. According to the rules, each member of Proof Collective can subscribe for 2 Moonbirds with minimum guarantee.
Proof, the team behind it, was accused of "price manipulation"
For Proof Collective members, Moonbirds subscription rights can be said to be a "periphery", but a few months ago, this kind of benefit was not attractive.
According to CoinDesk, after the establishment of the Proof Club, the community did not have much idea of building outside the framework of the club. “They have promoted some NFTs and run a small Discord server, but their plans for future projects remain Lack of specificity.” Until Moonbirds became a hit, and the popularity of the community rose.
The project caught fire, and Proof Collective soon fell under suspicion of wash trading and price manipulation.
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"NFT Ethics" tweeted to question Proof
Later, "NFT Ethics" also pointed out that the Proof collective has "nepotism", and some insiders have provided free membership NFTs to family and friends. The account also disclosed a "black history" of Proof co-founder Ryan Carson - when running the former company Treehouse, Carson fired nearly 90% of his employees without paying severance pay.
The most sensitive information among these doubts is price manipulation. Some users worry that Proof insiders manipulate the lottery mechanism for profit, and Proof Collective members use "insider information" to purchase rare Moonbirds NFT.
All kinds of negative comments have stained the Moonbirds brand. Then, Rose, the co-founder of Proof, personally responded to NFT Ethics, saying, "Nonsense, you can invite me to participate in any podcast to debate with you at any time, you are just making up stories."
This back and forth network confrontation did not flow out much convincing evidence, but what is certain is that many people are still shocked by the speed of Moonbirds' popularity, and this new NFT brand also makes people see some A new funding model.
Last Saturday, Rose revealed in a short video that the sale of the Moonbirds series of NFTs earned $58 million for the “Proof Holdings Inc.” entity, which he believes is equivalent to the “financing” of Proof Collective.
In the history of crypto market capital, mainstream crypto assets such as BTC and ETH are often used as settlement units for fundraising. Other crypto assets used to raise funds for the public in the name of blockchain projects. This is exactly the ICO that was cracked down by various countries around 2017 model. Today, Proof Collective has become a financing object, somewhat like a variant of ICO. Daniel, the founder of Grant Tree, a start-up financing service, commented that Rose and Ryan have always been clear that they are raising funds, not "selling art", and they will use money as funds to build products.
According to the plan, Proof Collective will start a metaverse project code-named "Project Highrise" next, and Moonbirds holders can have priority access. At present, the official has not disclosed more information about the project. However, from the point of view of the operation method, it seems that Proof Collective will continue to produce NFT, and intends to use one NFT as the qualification to participate in the next NFT. It is still unknown how these NFTs can be organically combined to bring about product or technological innovation. Judging from the current output , the NFT issued by Proof Collective has not surpassed the "collection" scene.
Proof Collective used its influence to complete a successful issuance of NFT, and the emerging fundraising model it brought may also be followed by others. It is worth noting that regardless of whether there is insider manipulation in the Moonbirds project, this variant ICO-style fundraising method may still touch the regulatory red line. As countries increasingly regulate NFT, the legal and market risks cannot be ignored.
