NFT Weekly Recap - March Week4

Hello guys,

Hope you all had a great weekend. Welcome to this week's NFT market recap, covering 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

As usual, let's begin with numbers.

NFTs are green again!

OpenSea trading volume (as measured in ETH) has been up two weeks in a row. Compared to the 22% increase last week, it increased by another 5% this week. The 7-day moving average is ~42k ETH, up from ~32.5k ETH two weeks ago. The number of daily active traders also climbed back to above 50k. It increased 6% WoW.

As you can see from the chart above, the trading volume bottom (bar chart) was about two weeks ago, and the trader number bottom (line chart) was one week ago.

In terms of floor price, Azuki is the king of the week. It finished with the highest volume and a 45% floor increase. Other projects experienced mixed results. Most blue-chip projects saw a ~5% increase in floor price. However, newer projects such as 3landers and Tasty Bones were unable to join the rally and ended the week in red. Similarly, less popular veterans such as Phanta Bear and Pudgy Penguins also closed lower than they opened. This indicates a concentration of liquidity among the top NFT projects.

Source: flips.finance

Notable Events

Azuki Making a Comeback

NFT flippers FOMO'ed into Azuki, as rumors about its upcoming big announcement were all over the place. Azuki took back the No. 1 spot on volume charts from BAYC and broke its ATH floor price record.

No one knows for sure what ZAGABOND (Azuki founder) will announce at Azuki's first IRL event on March 30th. But Azuki is the most likely to launch a token among tier 2 NFT projects (Azuki, Doodles, Clone X). Its official website states clearly in the mindmap that the Azuki team is exploring the possibility of $BEAN. Therefore, $APE holders aped into Azuki, causing a rally in its floor price. On March 24th, 0xwave.eth spent 52.517 ETH to buy 4 Azukis; pyeongyang.eth spent 58.87 ETH to buy 4; dingaling.eth spent 99.13 ETH to buy 7.

However, at the time of writing, Azuki floor dropped from 19 ETH to 15.7 ETH in just a few hours, making the rally look like a classic shitcoin pump and dump. I'd have expected the dump to come after March 30th, not today. Maybe someone knows about something that I do not.

While BAYC and CryptoPunks are undoubtedly the No. 1 and No. 2 in NFTs, respectively, which project would emerge to challenge MAYC's No. 3 spot remains to be seen. I am still betting on Clone X. But Azuki and Doodles are also powerful candidates. World of Women, Cool Cats, and VeeFriends also have a chance.

World of Women Released WoW Galaxy

World of Women released World of Women Galaxy last Saturday on March 26th. World of Women holders could get a World of Women Galaxy for free. WoW Galaxy has accumulated insane volume on OpenSea since launch and currently sits on a 1.48e floor.

Source: WoWG #6610

Launching secondary collections is becoming natural for PFPs. Karafuru announced last week that it would launch a second collection of 15,555 NFTs, from which the existing 5,555 Karafuru holders can get one for free.

It is a good way to expand the PFP community, especially if the original collection only has 10,000 pieces and has become too expensive. BAYC had huge success with MAYC and BAKC. CryptoPunks had Meebits. Even Cool Cats had Cool Pets.

We will surely see other top PFPs launching their own secondary collections. Maybe Azuki will announce theirs on March 30th?

Other News

Some other news you might be interested in learning more:

• Upshot, an NFT pricing protocol, closed a $22 million round of funding led by Polychain Capital.
• GameStop will launch its NFT marketplace on Loopspring, an Ethereum L2.
• Krafton, the studio behind PUBG, has announced a partnership with Solana Labs to develop bloackchain games and services.
• Cool Cats, an NFT Collection, signs with CAA to expand use of the characters across licensing and merchandising, animated content, brand partnerships, live events and publishing.
• BAPE, the Japanese fashion brand, launched and sold out its own NFT collection, (B)APETAVERSE (1.72e floor), with reveal TBD.

Ending

I will echo what I said last week. The short term outlook for the NFT market is still a 50/50 split between a bull and a bear. Volume and trader headcount have recovered, which is good for the market. But crypto overall is picking up steam as well. Shitcoins during crypto bulls will attract liquidity away from jpegs. The real NFT bull may not come until ETH goes up and comes back down one more time.