Daily NFT News & Drops for July 20 | Lucky Trader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Wednesday, July 20. Top stories include Nickelodeon's smash success NFT debut, Metamask trying to help prevent hacks, and some exciting new generative art and gaming drops.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, July 20

The crypto markets continue to surge, now with BTC taking the lead but ETH close behind, now at $1,600. And in a tale as old as time, some NFT buyers are lowering their NFT prices in ETH as ETH rips up (although they didn't mark their NFT prices up when ETH fell off). 

The rise in ETH and a generally slow news day on Tuesday led to a fairly quiet market with just two projects crossing 500 ETH volume (and nothing passing 1k ETH). There was a nice surprise with the Nickelodeon drop on Recur, which turned into a 10x+ overnight and gives hope to new projects.

Today things should pick up though, led by the Moonbird Oddities reveal this morning as well as a new Art Blocks drop.

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints and Reveals Today, July 20

Here are the two primary drops on the radar for today along with the two primary reveals:

Drops:

• Art Blocks Factory: "3:19"
• Etherjump

Reveals:

• Moonbird Oddities 
• Parallax Genesis

Art Blocks Factory: "Squares"

Art Blocks had a "heat check" in Monday's Playground drop, with the 400 supply "Latent Spirits" drop minting out in the 0.35-0.4 ETH range (much lower than predicted) and never really trading above that level on the secondary market. It now holds just a 0.26 ETH floor, as traders seem to have quickly lost interest.

That presents an interesting backdrop for today's Factory drop, "Squares". This set of just 196 NFT supply from artist Martin Grasser utilizes simple square shapes at different scales and against various backgrounds to create its outputs. From the project site, "The overall effect is something along the lines of Bauhaus meets Blade Runner, as complex rectilinear forms float untethered through fields of light and texture."

Martin has read the generative art tailwinds and is starting his dutch auction at 2 ETH, exponentially decreasing to 0.2 ETH at the bottom. A few weeks ago this one may not even mint out, but given the surge in attention and low supply, this one should be a safe bet to sell out (though most likely at min price). The secondary market upside is a bit more in question though, with a primary price of 0.2 ETH or more. All will depend on how the early images go over with the collector base, but given Monday's result, this may be one to just watch from the sidelines.

Etherjump

Launching today with Etherjump is the "first fully customizable platform NFT playable on OpenSea" and mobile devices. The founders have built Etherjump on a custom game engine, creating a more lightweight gaming experience with what they claim as "blazing load times". Their level builder allows users to build their own experiences, without requiring coding or game design backgrounds. And it is all combined with blockchain tech.

On its roadmap include:

• Etherjump Avatars, playable in any of the games and free for genesis NFT holders
• Plot Owners, which can early $JUMP when avatars play their level
• $JUMP tokenomics, with several ways to earn the token as both players and builders
• Multiplayer experiences
• Etherjump Worlds, where levels can be combined into their own distinct ecosystem

It is certainly an interesting project with innovative tech, and different from the standard copy/paste PFPs that have been dropping over the past weeks. Early demos of the game give Mario vibes from the early Nintendo days, and if this is really playable on launch, this should command some real attention especially as they have partnered with some major teams in MVHQ and Lllamaverse. 

With just 5,555 NFTs and a 0.05 ETH mint price, this one has some real upside and is worth a hard look today. The presale begins at noon ET with a 3-max mint, and the public will take place 7 hours later at the same price. 

Moonbirds Oddities Reveal

The 60-day reveal wait is finally over for Oddities owners today, as they are finally set to reveal at 12 p.m. ET today. This 10k NFT set from artist Gremplin along with the Proof/Moonbirds team has been explained as more of a "side kick" project for that Moonbirds ecosystem and not a primary set, which has likely capped the upside of this one over the past two months.

Moonbirds is primarily a utility NFT set, and if the Oddities do not have much utility, then their value essentially comes down to the art. And with Gremplin's genesis project CrypToadz at just a 2.4 ETH floor, the market will likely price it there or below.

Recent price action has been bearish, as the set has dropped about 15% from recent local highs and is at 3.2 ETH this am, though rebounding in the last 24 hours from below 3 ETH. There is likely a nice rare lotto in play here, as rare Toadz have commanded 3-digit ETH premiums, and certainly, some are gambling on that. 

There are two wildcards here to be aware of:

1) if Kevin Rose and the team do announce utility, this set could send.

2) the silver nest announcements for Moonbirds nesters should come tomorrow and is also likely to impact Oddities price, one way or another.

Either way, with such a quiet week in the NFT space, Oddities will be able to be the primary liquidity event of the day and maybe the second half of this week.

Parallax Genesis Reveal

The other reveal event today is for the Parallax project, set to reveal today at 10:00 a.m. ET. This set of just 777 Genesis NFTs which offer membership into the Parallax community holds a 0.33 ETH floor at the time of writing. And if this is more of a utility pass than a PFP, the reveal should not have much impact on the price action other than potentially for some rares.

NFT News and Announcements

Tuesday was a very quiet day in the NFT market, with the exception of one major surprise coming from Nickelodeon. This "blast from the past" set dropped yesterday on the Recur marketplace, selling packs for $50. Those packs, which each reveal a classic Nickelodeon character from the Rugrats or Hey Arnold shows, now sit at over $600 after seeing a surge of volume overnight. This is also a boon for the Recur NFT pass, which had fallen to 0.10 ETH or lower and now sits at 0.2 ETH on secondary, following the major success of this Nickelodeon drop. Find out more about the project at its site.

Top NFT influencer Zeneca had his Twitter hacked, with the hackers posting a very realistic message about a Zen Academy genesis drop with a link to mint. This is the latest in a series of Twitter hacks for NFT influencers, and the Yuga Labs team has been warning of more potential for these to come in the near future. All NFT traders should treat all stealth mints coming from Twitter or Discord at this point as hacks/nefarious links and avoid them.

Doing their part, Metamask has announced the addition of a new design feature that will make it much more clear to users when they are signing transactions asking for permission to access all NFTs in an owner's wallet. From the developers, "This is not the way I would do it with more time, but the timeline has been compressed and there is some urgency to get something out there since this method is so commonly used." But with hacks happening nearly every day at this point, hopefully, this short-term solution is a stop-gap until a more robust solution can be put in place.

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

• The Bored & Dangerous claim window ends today at 3 p.m. ET for holders of the Jenkins the Valet Writer's Room NFT
• NFL All Day airdropped Celebration packs to its users based on their net spend on Tuesday, including common moments from weeks 13-18 of the 2021 season
• Sorare sees $1.5mm in the first 24 hours after the release of its new MLB product and marketplace
• The Parallel PDIV Set snapshot will take place today at 5 p.m. ET, with the reward for holders being the Surge Key NFT
• World of Women teased a "rescue plan" for their recently airdropped green capacitor NFTs (currently holding a 0.12 ETH floor)
• Top Solana project Okay Bears launched its "hibernation program" without much additional detail; find out more here: http://okayhibernate.com.  

NFT Market Action Data, July 20

It was an incredibly quiet day in the NFT markets, with most projects chopping on the day or down as ETH continues to climb.

Punks topped the board with a meager 677 ETH volume, though their floor holding at 82.5 ETH is a great sign. In USD terms, Punks are now at a $130k floor, up from $45k just a few weeks back. The ability to hold in ETH terms is a great sign for the rest of the market if it can continue.

The Yuga ecosystem was pretty quiet, combining for just 800 ETH across its top 3 sets of BAYC/MAYC/Otherdeeds, which are currently at 93.9/17.7/2.65 ETH floors respectively. With The Otherside demo in the rearview mirror, the question now becomes what will be the next attention event/announcement to move this market?

Top winners on the day were led by Nickelodeon NFTs, which surged to a 0.43 ETH floor overnight along with the Recur NFT which jumped 100 percent to 0.2 ETH. The classic CC0 set CryptoDickButts has been on a tear, up 50 percent to 2.25 ETH on the day, and the Doodles Genesis Box has recently rebounded 40 percent back to a 0.38 ETH floor.

Notable losers on the day include Tableland Rigs, down 25 percent to 0.42 ETH after their recent surge, STEPN shoeboxes down 20 percent to 1.55 ETH after their recent BAYC airdrop, and the BAYC-inspired Kingship NFT losing 27 percent to 0.17 ETH after its reveal.

NFT Market Analysis

The crypto markets are on fire, now led by BTC up 8 percent on the day to $23,750 with ETH close behind up 3.7% on the day at $1,600. Their 7-day changes are 23% / 54% respectively, in what has been a banner rebound week. Chatter now is all about whether the bottom is behind us or still to come, with common sentiment still that this is a relief rally/bull trap and that the worst is still yet to come based on the terrible macro backdrop. But with what will likely be a lower inflation print coming in July, and some stabilization in the equity markets, perhaps this rally can have some legs.

The NFT markets are seeing the standard impact of rapidly changing ETH, with listings going up and floors going down. The (anecdotal) rule for NFTs is that they perform poorly when ETH is volatile (moves up or down quickly) and better when ETH is stable. If ETH can stabilize at these new levels, it should be a boon for NFTs in the near future as the "wealth effect" (NFT owners feel richer and are more open to spending on jpegs) takes back over.

Top-end generative art (Fidenza) and PFPs (Punks and BAYC) have held up well in this ETH rally, a strong sign for the rest of the markets. Now the focus will likely shift to Kevin Rose and the Moonbirds ecosystem, ahead of their Oddities reveal today and silver nest announcement tomorrow. If the silver nest is a bullish announcement, that ecosystem could see some strong volume and potentially a catalyst for its next leg up; but an unexciting event or big letdown could lead to potential relegation for this set to the Doodles/Azuki/CloneX tier. So the pressure is on.

The strong success of yesterday's Nickelodeon drop is a good sign that there is still liquidity and an appetite for new projects, a good sign for Etherjump dropping today along with any potential stealth drops or free mints. Though recent hype windows have been increasingly shorter, which traders need to be aware of.

Good luck out there to those minting and trading today and stay safe! Keep up to date with the latest info with the Lucky Trader newsfeed.