NFT Weekly Recap - Mar Week2

Hello guys,

Hope you all had a great weekend. From this Monday onwards, I will present to you a weekly recap of the NFT market. The plan is to cover basic stats and notable news with my observations. If there is anything else you'd like to see in the recap, please let me know. DMs are open.

Basic Stats

Let's begin with some numbers.

OpenSea daily trading volume has been decreasing constantly since February. It dropped another 7% Week-on-Week (WoW), despite the little spike last Friday, which was due to Yuga Labs buying punks and meebits (if you are still unaware of this, you are probably ngmi in NFT. Make sure you download TokenInsight App to be the first to know). The 7-day moving average (in USD terms) is down ~75% as compared to all time high (ATH) achieved on February 1st, 2022.

Not surprisingly, the number of daily active traders has also been down only, which fell another 10% WoW. However, the absolute number of traders is kind of encouraging. It is hovering around 50k, more than the ~48k August 2021 peak and 2x the October/November 2021 bottom. The drop from its ATH is also less scary, only down ~37%.

The good news is, floor prices of most individual projects recovered quite a bit. In addition to the obvious beneficiaries of the Yuga Labs acquisition (BAYC and co.), newcomers such as CyberBrokers, Dour Darcels, and Loser Club significantly outperformed veterans such as Azuki, CloneX, and Doodles. Newer projects always experience such initial hype. Let's wait and see if their success is sustainable.

Source: flips.finance

Notable Events

Yuga Labs Acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs

Undoubtedly the biggest news of the week. Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, now owns the other top NFT brand, CryptoPunks. Commercial rights (unfortunately not CC0) are granted to CryptoPunks and Meebits holders, the same rights that BAYC and MAYC owners enjoy. Yuga Labs' move reconfirms the project's ambition to "build a community-owned brand that extends far beyond NFTs." Punk6529 made a very interesting (and long) thread on the acquisition, especially around the IP rights, which you can read here.

M&A activities are supposed to be curtailed during bear markets, even though assets are cheaper. It is certainly a good time to buy CryptoPunks and Meebits for cheap. Could this timing imply that Yuga Labs believes punk prices won't go lower? Everyday: The First 500 Days by @beeple was sold for $69 million a year ago on March 12, 2021, which sparked the first NFT bull that peaked at the end of August last year. Will Yuga Labs buying CryptoPunks and Meebits set another bull run in motion? We will revisit this topic next week.

Meebits Climb Before the News

I was wondering about the Meebits resurgence last week before Friday (some of you might be as well). Meebits floor had been decreasing like everybody else. But there were four rapid floor increases before the actual announcement came out. Clearly, somebody knew about something and took advantage of it.

Source: flips.finance

This has triggered a range of speculative trading activities in the NFT space, including Coolman's Universe's rise over the weekend, which was caused by a rumor about an incoming Disney acquisition.

Source: flips.finance

As an outsider, it is impossible to predict the wave before it rises. However, it is still possible to catch it when it comes. We all knew Meebits as CryptoPunk's little brother. Just like MAYC follows BAYC, Meebits follows CryptoPunks. If you were to construct an NFT portfolio, you would definitely include CryptoPunks. If you couldn't afford a punk, then it was natural to get Meebits instead.

Also, if you have Meebits, right now might be a good time to take some profit. You can always buy it back later. Its floor price is unlikely to go higher in the short term.

Bobu the Bean Farmer

Bobu (Azuki #40) was fractionalized on March 6th. There were 20,000 pieces of Bobu for 0.01 ETH each. The price almost reached 0.1 ETH on OpenSea post-launch, and now stabilizes around 0.05 ETH. That values Bobu at ~1,000 ETH, comfortably establishing Bobu as one of the most expensive NFTs of all time.

Source: OpenSea

Fractionalization is a key step to allow more people to get involved with a popular NFT project, because not many can afford spending more than 1 ETH on a JPEG. The NFT community seems receptive to the idea of fractionalization. Some people already changed their profile pictures to Bobu and formed a sub-community within the Azuki garden. I look forward to seeing further experiments to be carried out by the Bobu owners, who will surely leave a mark in NFT history.

Source: Twitter @Herb_Castillo

Other News

Some other news you might be interested in learning about:

• Gem.xyz announces integration with LooksRare
• VeeFriends releases Series 2 details
• Immutable X closes $200 Million funding round led by Temasek, with participation from Tencent

• Defi Kingdoms announces their own Avalanche subnet, DeFi Kingdoms Blockchain (DFK Chain)

• Tomorrowland partners with FTX Europe to make the leap into Web3 and NFTs

For a much more comprehensive list of NFT news from last week, you may check out Crypto Gucci's mega-thread here.

Ending

We are not in full bear mode yet. Some new mints did well in their first weeks, which shows that the market is still active. It might be better to use the term "towards the end of the second NFT bull run." But no one can hide from the fact that the entire NFT market is on a downward trajectory. It is clear from the numbers.

This is also affected by the uncertainty surrounding the crypto market and the global economy. The US Fed has a big announcement to make this week. Regardless of the actual bps increase, the Fed has to fight inflation sooner or later, which will cause asset prices to drop further. If crypto goes down, it will probably take NFT down with it.