Everyone is crazy for Moonbirds
Hopefully our open rate will be as high as Meta's take rate
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📈 Market
Our favorite charts from Sfermion Research’s Q1 Chart recap
Collectibles dominated Q1 with 82% of the total sales volume ($USD) followed by Art (5%), Gaming (7%), and Metaverse NFTs (6%).
Metaverse NFTs have the highest average sale value at $7,900 followed by Collectibles ($4516), Art($3242), and Gaming($2264).
Ethereum dominated sales value but not transaction count
Check out the rest of the charts
📰 Mainstream
NBAxNFT
The NBA has made its first formal leap into web3 by dropping a new Twitter handle called NBAxNFT in addition to a corresponding Discord server.
The NBA already has partnerships in place with Coinbase and NBA Top Shot but has never launched an NFT initiative of its own.
The NBA’s Discord hints at the NFT drop being issued on the Ethereum blockchain.
In related news:
The Golden State Warriors partnered with FTX to launch a commemorative NFT collection for its 2022 NBA Playoff run.
Based on rarity, holders receive:
Access to holder-only Discords
Autographed memorabilia
Playoff tickets
A ride on the Warriors’ championship float (too early?)
Logan Paul’s DAO
YouTube star and boxing phenom Logan Paul is launching a new NFT collection called Originals 99.
Per the name, it will be a collection of 99 NFTs where half of the proceeds will go to the DAO’s treasury to be spent on whatever they choose to vote on.
Some suggestions for the DAO treasury allocation include:
Buying a private jet that DAO members can charter
Investing in movie scripts
Investing in digital assets
Looks like Beeple is into it
👤 Social
Crazy for Moonbirds
For the last few weeks, in discord alpha groups and telegram chats, one project has the drawn desire of thousands.
These guys.
Kevin Rose, Justin Mezzell, and Ryan Carson’s private NFT group, Proof Collective, have watched its floor surge to nearly 100 ETH. The only problem is that it’s a membership NFT - they needed a PFP.
Enter Moonbirds.
The 10,000 NFT PFP collection has easily been the most anticipated drop so far this year.
Holders receive:
Access to the Proof Metaverse
Gated Discord channels
Nesting (aka staking) rewards
A cute owl thing
The 1,000 Proof Collective members got 2 Moonbirds for free leaving 7,875 left (125 to the team) for everyone else.
Please, no more (gas) war
When we last wrote about Moonbirds, the plan was to sell the remaining 7,875 NFTs via a dutch auction in descending order from 2.5ETH - 0.1ETH.
However, that quickly changed once it became clear that there was enough demand for all 7,875 to sell out at 2.5ETH - leading to a gas war.
Basically, the Proof Founders didn’t want the same thing that happened with VaynerSports Pass to happen with Moonbirds.
If you haven’t heard about what happened with VaynerSports Pass the TLDR is that it cost 0.155 ETH to mint a VSP but participants reported spending as much as 1 ETH in gas and sometimes didn’t even get one :(
All in all, the participants in the VSP mint spent ~$26M in gas for VaynerSports to net just ~$8M.
Now back to Moonbirds.
So because the Proof crew wanted to avoid a gas war, they opted for a raffle.
32,000 wallets participated with 7,875 winners along with an additional 3,000 wallet waitlist.
Participants were required to have 2.5 ETH in their wallets
Moonbirds will add an additional $66M to Proof Collective’s treasury. With a floor of 18 ETH, Moonbirds are already selling for 5-8x the 2.5 ETH mint price.
More Moonbirds:
~80,500 ETH in sales volume so far
The highest sale was for 150 ETH
66% of the NFTs are held by unique owners
A great thread on why Moonbirds was so successful
*A belligerent amount of scammers are out there conducting Moonbird phishing scams on Twitter so stay vigilant*
VeeFriends Series 2
Following a slew of delays, 55,555 NFTs are being released to VeeFriends Series 1 holders, Book Games holders, and the public.
32,000 wallets out of 120,000 Book Games holders were given mint allocation
All VeeFriends Series 1 holders can claim a Series 2 for free (+gas).
The 10,000 NFT public sale begins on April 25th
More info:
Mint price of 0.355 ETH
1/1 combination of 214 characters, 6 poses, and 55 backgrounds
Series 1 holders have exclusive access to the evolving pose
🎮 Gaming
Axie’s bug bounty program
On the heels of losing $600M+ in one of the largest hacks in the history of crypto, Axie Infinity has upped its bug bounty program to reward white hat hackers up to $1M.
Hackers that find a fatal bounty now take home a $1M reward on a 6-month vesting period.
In related news:
US officials linked the North Korean Lazarus hackers to the Axie/Ronin hack.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced new sanctions on Lazarus’s Ethereum wallet.
Private blockchain analysis firms Elliptic and Chainalysis have both confirmed that the sanctioned wallet matches the one used in the hack.
Elliptic estimated that 14% of the money has already been laundered, with an additional 9% on deck for laundering.
Read Sfermion Research’s Axie Update
🌎 Virtual Worlds
Meta’s take rate
Meta released a 20-minute video about their upcoming metaverse project.
If you want to watch it in its entirety, here it is.
If not, here’s a recap:
The metaverse will be called Horizon Worlds. Users will be able to buy and sell virtual land and assets.
Meta has a 47.5% take rate on the sale of virtual items.
They previewed different places available in Horizon Worlds, including a virtual Wendy’s.
Meta is setting up a $10M creator fund.
As expected, people, are HATING on Meta for the massive take rate. For reference, Apple has received backlash from many people (including Zuck) for its 30% take rate in the Apple App Store.
Almost everyone, especially in crypto, will naturally look for ways to poke holes in Meta’s quest for virtual world domination. But for better or worse (usually worse), Meta has an enormous distribution advantage. With 2.4M DAUs, Oculus has more users than just about every crypto project right now.
💸 Funding
The Fabricant ($14M) - A digital fashion house for the metaverse. The round included participation from Greenfield One, Sound Ventures, RED DAO, Sfermion, Koji Capital, Borski Fund, Slingshot Ventures, and a slew of angels.
Digital Insight Games ($7.5M) - Digital Insight Games is an independent Web3 gaming studio. The round included participation from Hivemind Capital Partners, Griffin Gaming Partners, Hunt Technology Ventures, RSE Ventures, and Signum Growth Capital.
LOVO ($6.5M) - Lovo produces AI voice NFTs. The round included participation from PKO Investments, Hashed, Goodwater Capital, and a slew of angels.
The Kingdom ($3.6M) - A culture-focused, open-world Metaverse. The round included participation from Infinity Ventures Crypto, Alameda Research, Shima Capital, Newman Capital, SweeperDAO, 3Commas, Chiron Partners, Liquid Lab Ventures, and NSMG.
Crurated ($3.2M) - Wine-backed NFTs. The round included participation from Chris Van Aeken, and Dip WSET.
📚 What we’re reading
Crypto.com - 2021 Crypto Market Sizing Report and 2022 Forecast
Coinvise - The Future of Music is Web3. Should Artists Focus On NFTs, Social Tokens, or DAOs?
a16z - How to Drive Business Growth By Fostering Your Community
Shift - Your Guide to Social DAOs
🐦 Tweet check
👀 Alpha
Blockchain home registry - Mint your home on the blockchain
🎙Zima Red Podcast
Paul Kohlhaas is the founder of Molocule which is a decentralized biotech protocol that is democratizing biopharma research and development.
We chatted:
How drug development current works
The monopolistic nature of drug development
The Open Source pharma movement
Longevity research DAOs
Psychedelics medicine DAOs
How the Molecule team is building the future of Decentralized Science
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