Daily NFT News & Drops for August 10 | Lucky Trader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Wednesday, August 10. Top stories include a massive M3 MAYC sale, new contenders for an $APE marketplace, and free mints absolutely surging.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, August 10th

Yesterday saw NFT trading volume over $21M on OpenSea and it felt like $100M. On the biggest liquidity day since July 21, free mints were the star of the show with Rare Apepes reaching 1 ETH, Moodies running from free mint to 0.2, and then DigiDaigaku with the biggest first-day free mint run this author has ever seen, reaching 2.3 ETH overnight before retracing to 1.5 ETH this morning.

Volume is trending up and the sentiment is shifting as well, even with the blue chips mostly struggling up top and in the mid-tier. Now the markets need to get past the major CPI announcement this morning, and if that becomes a bullish event, both crypto and the NFT markets could see some major action.

At a minimum, the success of these recent free mints means there will be plenty more to come and trade - great tailwinds for those projects launching today. 

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints Today, August 10th

Here are the two primary drops on the radar for today:

• 8liens
• Art Blocks Curated "Fake It Til You Make It" 
• Today's Free Mints

8liens

This pixelated art PFP project from a team of crypto and NFT native founders has its public sale today at an unknown time (stealth) after the conclusion of its whitelist sale. The floor is holding at 0.18 ETH with 51 percent of the supply out for this free mint, and thus demand for the remaining supply will be quite high (and possibly botted).

For a quick recap on the project, it's a CC0 alien project inspired by CryptoPunks. It is simply an art project, with no planned utility or roadmap. There are five different species of aliens, including Ethereals, 8liens, Tetrabots, Xenomorphs, Tritons (each of which will have their own rarities), and then a few 1/1 8liens from guest artists which will be "the grails of the collection". The 1/1 possibilities are definitely contributing to the surge in price, especially driven by top artists like Grant Yun tweeting about this set.

Those top-end 1/1s could very well fetch 10-20 ETH, thus this project will have a huge rare lotto ahead of Friday's reveal (speculated date, not confirmed). The most likely price arc will be a dip after the public sale, especially given the amount to botters, and then a slow march up to reveal. If this one can get as low as 0.1 ETH it becomes very attractive from an ROI perspective, so it will definitely be worth watching today. But the recent surge in other free mints has certainly taken attention away from this one, which is a big risk, and the team's ability to get that attention back will be very important across the rest of this week.

Art Blocks Curated: Fake It Til You Make It

The more I've dived into the latest Curated project from Art Blocks, the more I like it. But that sentiment definitely does not reflect the common sentiment for this drop, one of the most controversial drops in months.

Fake It Til You Make It from artist Maya Man "borrows from the bubbly language and pastel aesthetics of text-driven Instagram graphics to scrutinize the promotion of wellness, self-care, and confidence on social media." Maya's algorithm generates a series of outputs using Instagram language for messaging with different styles and backgrounds, but to poke fun at fake positivity and the WAGMI-aspect of IG comment culture. Example outputs can be found here.

The beauty of the project is how those algorithmic messages come together to create sarcastic or even surprising meaning from seemingly random phrasing. And this is what could give this project a cult following which could lead to some secondary success. But with that said, it's certainly different from standard generative art projects, it may not pass the "wall test" for some (or most) collectors and its ceiling is likely somewhat limited. That coupled with a relatively high supply at 700 means this dutch auction likely goes to the lowest levels we have seen in weeks.

This one likely mints out in the 0.5-1 ETH range. If it goes over 1, it becomes much riskier, especially given recent Curated secondary market action (Running Moon at 1.35 ETH from 2.8 ETH mint, Alan Ki Aanhkhen at 0.78 ETH from a 1.8 ETH mint). But if this one can make it to the low range, especially if it goes below 0.5 ETH, it becomes very attractive. With that said, botters and flippers are definitely still present in Art Blocks and likely show up today, so it's doubtful that it will reach the lowest levels.

The project goes live at 1 p.m. ET in an exponential dutch auction, decreasing from 5 ETH down to 0.14 ETH.

Today's Free Mints

It seemed the free mint meta may have been ded as of last week, but we could not have been more wrong. This has been one of the strongest weeks for the free mint performance of all time, and they are most likely here to stay. And given that recent success, the lineup of new drops is increasing. Here are the ones to watch today:

• 247 Comics - 11:00 a.m. ET (5k supply) - 21K followers on Twitter 
• Alien Army - 1:00 p.m. ET (3,333 supply) - 27K followers on Twitter 
• 888 Tower - 1:00 p.m. ET (4,888 supply free then 3,000 for .035) - 70K followers on Twitter 
• Meeps - 1:00 p.m. ET (5,555 supply) - 119K followers on Twitter 
• Doh Doh Diaries - 11:00 p.m. ET (2,950 supply) - 3K followers on Twitter 

There is no perfect formula for what drives success for these free mints, but in a vacuum, a lower supply always helps (5k or less) and more followers likely means more attention at a minimum. The free drops from real teams seem to perform the best (8liens, DigiDaigakus) as well as those which can pick up cult followings (goblins, Rare Apepes). But as always, be careful chasing on secondary, especially given the success of yesterday's projects as it will be hard to replicate today. For a price tag of free though, these are all great risk/reward spots.

NFT News and Announcements

Tuesday had its fair share of headlines, led by the Yuga ecosystem.

Likely the top story of the day was the Mega Trippy Mutant M3 selling for a $3.87M package (ETH + NFTs) including an alleged 2,300 ETH. This marks the highest all-time sale for an M3 in ETH terms. The buyer Lior.ETH is a founder of the crypto and web3 investment firm Eden Block and Mutant Cartel, and announced on Twitter that he "always wanted a trippy" - well he got one, and likely the grail. This may be the second or third most coveted NFT in the Yuga ecosystem, given the rarity of the M3s and the Trippy trait.

The other major headline in the Yuga ecosystem is the competition for an ape marketplace, with Magic Eden throwing their hat in the ring, along with a team from the community, which means the ApeDAO will have a big vote on its hands. This news angered infamous collector MachiBigBrother, who was apparently unhappy with the ApeDAO marketing of these proposals (he proposed his own marketplace) and went on to sell 12 MAYC assets along with a supposed $1M in ApeCoin. One has to assume that Magic Eden has the leg up for the vote, given their proven track record and ability to ship, but who knows with the power in the DAO's hands - but definitely an important vote to watch.

Here is a quick round-up of the rest of the main headlines from Tuesday:

• NFL All Day partners with the Super Bowl winning LA Rams for the 2022 NFL Season, the first partnership for Dapper Labs with an NFL team
• Non-Fungible Films partnered with National Lampoon, the satire magazine with ties to cult films such as Christmas Vacation, which will feature new National Lampoon NFTs, content, media, and more
• OpenSea invested in a new minting platform Fair.xyz, after struggles with its recent Solana-based launchpad
• MetaMask rolls out a new update to make trading NFTs safer via more clear messaging on what a user is signing, to be released in the browser extension with version 10.18
• Nas Academy partners with Invisible Colege to offer token-gated courses and educational opportunities fo NFT holders
• Rumble Kong League released information for its upcoming economy and native token LEAGUE

NFT Market Action Data, August 10

Welcome to our new free mint overlords, the Rare Apepes! Leading the charts today, this project has run from free mint and a 0.01 ETH floor just 10 days ago to the 1 ETH mark and is dominating NFT trading headlines. It seems to have developed a cult following (anecdotally with ties to the BAYC holder base) and there are rumors of Mutantpepes to come in October for holders. The unique owner count is still relatively low for this set of 10K (around 3K owners), so tread carefully to those buying in here.

Two other free mint projects had major success Tuesday, with Moodies by Hanuka seeing 420 ETH volume and running to a 0.22 ETH floor in the first hours of trading. And then the surprise shock of the day, DigiDaigaku running from free mint all the way to 2.35 ETH floor overnight before falling back to 1.5 ETH this morning. The mystery DigiDaigaku project is from two founders who have had major success in web 2 mobile gaming and have apparently raised some major VC funding for their Web 3 venture Limit Break. Their fair launch project had just a few dozen followers on Twitter at the time of launch, but anyone who was able to mint made quite a windfall yesterday. Reveal is supposedly coming Thursday, so expect some more volume to come on this new hot set.

In other action, CryptoPunks saw 1,200 ETH on the day on the back of some nice aesthetic sales, including two 3D Punks moving for 167 ETH and then 199.99 ETH just two hours ago. The floor is holding mostly steady at 74 ETH. BAYC / MAYC / Otherdeeds combined for ~750 ETH on a slow day, with floors down slightly to 84 / 15.5 / 2.05 ETH floors. 

The 8liens floor was down 19 percent on the day to 0.19 ETH, likely as traders moved to the shiny new free mints of the day. And Webaverse held strong at 0.69 ETH ahead of its upcoming English auction for its remaining 8K NFTs (ending today).

NFT Market Analysis

The crypto markets rebounded a bit yesterday, with ETH up 2.5 percent to $1,750 and BTC up 0.5 percent to $23,300. All eyes are on today's CPI numbers which should come out very soon here, and if those come in lower than expected (the market thinks 8.7%), both the equity and crypto markets could see a very nice rally.

After today's numbers, there are not many more major events ahead of September's next FOMC meeting, and there is plenty of room to run. The Merge narrative will become the lead story, and expect more focus on ETH over the coming days and weeks.

It remains to be seen how NFTs will fair in this pre-Merge lead-up. Most likely the top-end sets could struggle as wealthier ETH holders just choose to hold into the Merge. But clearly, there has been a recent uptick in volume and the low cap / free mint sector has been the primary winner. These projects remain the best risk/reward play in NFTs, especially for those who can mint, and it seems they are here to stay. 

But with three major success stories in the free mint market, it feels like we may be set up for a trap today, as traders try to chase those gains with new sets. So be careful out there.

Other major stories to watch will be Ledger's first drop Brick, coming this week, and staking about to start for the Potatoz (time still TBD).

As always, be careful out there to those minting, and make sure to stay up to date with the latest news with the Lucky Trader newsfeed.