Daily NFT News & Drops for August 12 | Lucky Trader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Friday, August 12. Top stories include rising NFT trading volume, Pudgy Penguins marching back to relevancy, and 8liens set to reveal today.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, August 12

Volume continues to rise, with Wednesday closing the highest trading day in two months with over $25.5M in OpenSea revenue and multiple projects trading over 1K ETH on the day. Thursday slowed to $20.3M in volume, but the past three days are still the highest 3-day period since early June for OpensSea revenue.

ETH has been surging along with the equity markets since the Wednesday CPI news came in below expectations (bullish) and it is seemingly clear skies until mid-September when the next FOMC meeting and now scheduled ETH emerge event.

It is a relatively quiet day and weekend for new drops, but we do have a major reveal event with 8liens coming later which may set the stage for a weekend run of secondary action.

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints and Reveals Today, August 12

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

• Art Blocks Factory "Balletic"
• 8lien Reveal

Art Blocks Factory: Balletic

Art Blocks momentum has clearly slowed, with Wednesday's Curated drop Fake It... minting out at 0.33 ETH (lowest in months) and then falling to 0.18 ETH on secondary.

Well, Motus Art will look to buck that downtrend today with his drop Balletic, coming at 1:00 p.m. ET. This generative animated set features rotating blocks, moving in a "choreographed dance to reveal hidden patterns, shapes, and flowing figures." Reviewing some of the sample outputs draws similarities to other animated sets from artist Loren Bednar, like Parade and Phase, which have seen some success in the Art Blocks market.

From the artist's preview page, we get a glimpse of the different styles (i.e. Waves, Moving Rings, Central Pulses, etc.) along with some idea of rarity, with "3 blocks" and "Largest possible grid" standing out as some of the project's most scarce designs. The pieces all seem to be in black and white, so there will not be any color palettes to choose from which may hurt interest a bit (the last black and white project Alan Ki Aankhen has performed poorly since mint).

But with a supply of just 200 and a bit of a rare lotto, this one will have some upside potential compared to some of the higher supply sets of late. It may not be enough, given the lack of volume in the overall Art Blocks market (just $1.9M total on the week, down 42% from last week). That lack of volume and success may lead to fewer batters and flippers though, and if this one reaches min price at 0.1 ETH or close, it likely has some nice return potential. 

8liens Reveal

Already one of the top stories of the week, the 8liens are set to reveal later today (time still TBD) in what will likely be the liquidity focus for Friday and maybe the weekend if the team can pull off a bullish reveal. These pixelated aliens have taken NFT Twitter by storm, being touted by several top accounts and being swept left and right after the public mint on Wednesday as their price mooned from 0.2 ETH to 0.8 ETH at peak Wednesday mania before setting in the 0.5-0.6 ETH range.

A big driver for this volume surge has been advisor Bharat Krymo, known as an OG and top art collector, who did a quick thread on the project and branded it as the "un-pfp". His logic here is that the team isn't driven by financial incentives compared to most typical projects. In his words, 8liens are "the "un-pfp", because the founder's incentives and the collector's incentives are aligned. There are no primary or secondary royalties and there wasn't a price to mint. This is a decentralized free market in action."

The lack of royalties certainly makes the set more attractive to trade, and thus has likely seen an influx of short-term traders and flippers. Now all eyes turn to the reveal, which will be highlighted by the rare 1/1s from top artists including ACK, Hackatao, Van Arman, and more. Some have been drawing comparisons to the CrypToadz project and early market action, and certainly, this is following a similar path here early on - though in a much different market backdrop. This market feels hungry for strong new projects though, and if the artwork is well-liked on these, the set could make a real run this weekend past the 1 ETH range, and then anything is possible. 

NFT News and Announcements

Thursday was a surprisingly slow day of news after a big uptick on Wednesday, with just a few real newsworthy announcements.

Pudgy Penguins made headlines as they revealed the official selections for its first licensing opportunity with PMI Toys. From the Pudgy Twitter feed "This is the first of many instances where the Pudgy Penguins IP will allow web3 to meet web3. Congratulations to the Penguins who were selected." The team also left a teaser, stating "More is coming, just look..." at the end of their post, potentially alluding to a blurred-out children's book in the image. The Pudgy's have become a darling of Crypto Twitter recently, with top account Kaleo specifically making several threads, including this TA-thread from Thursday calling for $100K upside. Whether that happens or not (seems doubtful), clearly the Pengus have some momentum again.

DraftKings announced a new free pack giveaway for its new Reignmakers platform, a new NFT fantasy sports game coming this season from the daily fantasy sports (DFS) leader. These Starter packs each contain 6 players across the different primary positions for the DFS contest, and owners can use these players to build teams to compete in weekly contests for real $$$ prizes each week this season. 

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

• SupDucks completed an airdrop of Pixel Ducks this morning on a 1:1 basis for all SupDucks holders as of July 17 snapshot (they currently hold a 0.07 ETH floor with no trading volume)
• Cool Cats added a new boss quest to its Cooltopia gaming ecosystem, Angry Bloom in the Flower Forest and The Ancient Cat Spirit in the Dusty Temple
• Cyberbrokers announced an open casting call for new character and lore developments 
• PREMINT will now require KYC for all project creators after some recent scam incidents
• OpenSea added new supports for the WalletConnect wallet for its Android mobile app
• Coinbase NFT added new features to its marketplace, including the ability to browse upcoming project drops, see trending collections and look for featured projects

NFT Art Market Action

It felt like things had slowed down a bit in the digital art and 1/1 world, but Thursday came in hot with two major all-time high sales for some rising star artists.

First, Alien Queen set her new top sale as "Murders and Executions" which sold for 16.9 ETH ($32k) to jabdoteth. This was a massive jump for AQ, as her prior highs sale were 10 ETH and most have been in the 7-8 ETH range. With some continued momentum, she could easily see the 20+ ETH range here soon. This is also very relevant to Degenz Access Pass owners, as AQ is designing a PFP drop for that ecosystem to be released in the near future (details still TBD).

The bigger headline from Thursday was from 0xTjo, who smashed his prior ATH sale with "I hate u" selling to ProteinProsecco for 40.69 ETH ($77.7K). This was a major level up, as the artist's prior high was 16 ETH / $26K, with most of his 17 pieces selling in the 6-8 ETH range. Tjo's iconic blue and red style and patterns make his pieces easily recognizable, a key trait for top 1/1 digital art, and was also reflected in his latest edition drop on Nifty Gateway which was a major success and features a burn event this weekend.

NFT Market Action Data, August 12

Thursday was certainly slower and a bit of a hangover day from Wednesday's surge in action, with only Rare Apepes eclipsing the 500 ETH threshold as they rebounded from a local low around 0.7 and back up 20 percent to 0.86 ETH floor.

8liens were next up on the board with 400+ ETH on OpenSea (though X2Y2 is seeing tons of 8lien volume with their lower fees), with its floor mostly chopping on the day in the 0.4-0.6 ETH range ahead of today's reveal.

Punks and the Yuga trio mostly held on the day, combining for ~1,500 ETH and seeing floors of 74.7 ETH for Punks and 82 / 15.6 / 1.95 ETH for BAYC / MAYC / Otherdeeds which continue a slow decline (though they are each up significantly this month in USD terms due to the ETH surge).

A few winners on the day were led by Pudgy Penguins, which jumped 10 percent to a 2.68 ETH floor on the back of their toy announcement and Crypto Twitter backing. Goblins jumped 20 percent on the day as well, now back to a 1.75 ETH floor, along with CryptoDickButts jumping another 10 percent to 3.6 ETH. Newcomer Babby's was up 200 percent on the day to a 0.14 ETH floor in a solid rebound from the mint.

Some notable losers on the day are led by mid-tier PFPs, with CloneX, Azuki, and Doodles now at 7.7 / 7.8 / 8.5 ETH floors as their decline continues. Recent rocket Digidaigaku dropped 35 percent on reveal day, now at 1.2 ETH from local highs around the 2 ETH range. Psychedelics Anonymous was also down 16 percent on the day to 0.95 ETH floor.

NFT Market Analysis

The crypto markets dipped a bit Thursday and into Friday morning from local highs, though ETH and BTC are both still up nicely on the week at ~$1,867 for ETH (+16%) and $23,700 for BTC (+4.4%). The key BTC:ETH ratio continues to trend down to 10:1, now at 12.7:1 as attention continues to shift to ETH ahead of the upcoming merge. Now that the merge has an official date on the calendar of September 15-16th, it will become the dominant narrative in both coin trading as well as NFT trading, likely with significant impacts.

The big risk to NFTs into the merge event is if collectors and traders decide that they'd instead hold ETH to receive that potential ETHPoW airdrop versus storing their ETH in NFTs. This risk likely impacts the top-end PFP and art market the most, along with the mid-tier PFPs, but is less likely to impact new projects and the low cap sector (a.k.a. casino) that has continued to do well through this bear market.

But in the very near term, expect attention to remain on the newer projects (8liens, Rare Apepes, Potatoz) through this weekend. With a prolonged day and weekend of new projects dropping, whoever of the existing sets can steal attention will have some nice runway to move. 8liens likely has the best shot with their reveal today being the most likely liquidity focus event, but if the Memeland team makes a big staking announcement for Potatoz, they could certainly steal the spotlight. 

This weekend will also be a great liquidity test, to see if the recent uptrend in volume can continue or if it was a temporary blip. If it does continue to trend up, it will bode well for these new sets in the spotlight.

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. Have a great weekend!