gm jpeg enjoyers,
Welcome to the first Parsec weekly, as it’s our inaugural publication we’ve included more than a weeks worth of content, tldr:
Lowest NFT volume in 12 months, bluechips fade, new mints see volume
Damien Hirst’s 'The Currency’ - Decision time
Minecraft bans NFT’s - NFT worlds plunge
Isekai Meta
The Potatoz
Otherside's 'first trip' marks another local top
Ledger market pass
Chimpers dojo
Market overview
It's been a rocky week in the wonderful world of jpegs, NFT's closed their lowest-volume week in 12 months with bluechip floors down across the board (in ETH)
With ETH trending and some alts moving, NFTs have faded that momentum as a higher ETH price overhangs mints and NFT markets have traditionally performed better in sideways market
One clear trend from recent volume is the increased competition of alternative NFT marketplaces. LooksRare organic volumes have diminished but upstarts x2y2 and sudoswap have entered the game with lower fees and in the case of Sudoswap a completely novel NFT AMM mechanism (listen to our podcast with the sudo team).
Damien Hirst - Wednesday was the last day for holders of Damien Hirst's 'The Currency' to decide whether they want to keep their NFT or burn it for the physical. Hirst's first foray into NFT's was to test the boundary between physical and digital art and is a demonstration of his provocative art style "The Currency explores the boundaries of art and currency—when art changes and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art". Exactly one year prior to this deadline, Hirst released the collection alongside 10k equivalent physical pieces kept in a secure vault in the UK. The final numbers came in at 5,149 physicals and 4,851 NFTs, as a result Hirst will be literally burning just under 5k physical editions. The event presented a liquidity suck but a surprisingly high volume range into the deadline.
Minecraft bans NFT's - On the 20th of July Microsoft's Minecraft released a statement explaining their views on the integration of NFT's in Minecraft.
"The speculative pricing and investment mentality around NFTs takes the focus away from playing the game and encourages profiteering, which we think is inconsistent with the long-term joy and success of our players."
Some NFT collections that rely on the use of the open-source sandbox-style world builder had heavy drawdowns - NFTworlds dropped from 3 to 1 ETH with sales as low as 0.5, now sitting back at 1.2 ETH. Once a market darling with a top tick >17 ETH platform risk seems to have mostly crushed this dream.
Though I can actually appreciate the values they preach, I can't help but think Microsoft just had their Vitalik/Blizzard moment and may have just helped to spark the creation of another world-changing technology. They are seemingly stepping down and dipping out of the competition. Whether large or small (I think big), Microsoft just created an opportunity, a gap that will likely be filled by passionate blockchain/gaming enthusiasts in years to come.
Isekai Meta - The studio Ghibli-esque 'metaverse brand' launched 1 week ago today, their aim - to create a "story and community-driven, hand-drawn NFT collection + metaverse brand that taps into the foundational human need to connect with others through storytelling". The collection had a slow first 24 hours, grinding down below mint price to 0.17 (0.25 mint) until a few notable buyers started sweeping (dingaling, phaedvault.eth) and the team decided to strategically cut the supply down from 10k to 7777. After the supply was cut and minted out, market fomo kicked in and floor price rose from 0.4 to 0.8, information has since come out to lead speculators to believe that reveal won't be for a couple of weeks as the art is 95% finished and secondary price has reflected that, Isekai now sits at 0.4 ETH
I don't own any but the artwork is truly fantastic and I am personally excited to see where this goes. In general seeing a new project like this (i.e. not goblin related) that is sparking interest is a good sign for some health re-entering the NFT market.
The Otherside - Yuga's the Otherside once again marked a local top for itself and the wider market with the inaugural 'first trip' tech demo. I won’t go into it here but I wrote a thread the day after while it was still fresh and bubbling in my mind
Ledger's genesis mint - Hardware wallet manufacturer @Ledger dropped their genesis NFT collection three days ago, the Ledger Market Pass - 10k supply at 0.3 ETH each, it sold out in just under 24 hours to a combination of allowlisted and waitlisted participants. Benefits of the pass include:
A limited edition black-on-black Nano X
Get preferred access to [ L ] Market collaborations
Privileged access to new Ledger hardware
Airdrops of art NFTs from Ledger's Artist In Residence program
Some of the planned collaborations include RTFKT, Tag Heuer and Deadfellaz. The collection has seen 2.7k ETH in volume since the drop and currently sits at #3 on the weekly volume chart. Floor price topped out at 0.7 ETH and currently sits at 0.53 ETH
Chimpers Dojo - Founded by popular pixel placer and Nouns artist (@TimpersHD) alongside his lore-master twin brother (@NFT1sight) the creators of the TBAC and Chimpers universe celebrated the release of 'The Dojo' - a staking mechanism for the Chimpers genesis and generative collections - holders can stake their chimps in return for XP and bandanas as they level up. The dojo is rolling out in three phases. Phase one - training, where chimps will earn XP each day in order to level up. Phase two - battling, chimps will be pitted against each other in hand to hand pixel combat, winners will gain more XP and other unnamed rewards. Phase three - adventuring,
"By training and battling your Chimpers they will become stronger and more experienced, and they will be ready to venture outside the DOJO. Chimpers are hunter gatherers and adventurous souls by nature, and this is where the real mystery, surprise and reward begins!"
You can read more about the dojo in this Medium article. In three days and at the time of writing, 60% of chimps have been staked, floor price has stayed flat around 1.5 ETH while active listings decreased by 53%. A similar effect proceeded moonbirds staking and I would expect this trend to continue among NFT projects as they become more technical and on-chain aware.
Memeland Potatoz - Last week, web2 company 9gag dropped their first collection in the Memeland universe 'The Potatoz', a 10k supply free mint for allowlisted participants. The drop saw a huge influx of volume on secondary and now sits atop the weekly volume chart at 4216 ETH, with 6.2k ETH in total volume. Sales opened between 0.6 and 0.8 with a brief fall back to as low as 0.4, doubters were punished when the collection swiftly shot back up topping out at 1 ETH. The Potatoz are still riding a nice steady uptrend and the floor now sits at 0.8 ETH - It's unknown what role Potatoz will play in Memeland but there is speculation that holders will have a better shot at minting the coveted main collection when the time comes
see you next week & use parsec to stay on top of the market with us.
Nice
hoho