Daily NFT News & Drops for September 2 | LuckyTrader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Friday, September 2. Top stories include new details on the upcoming y00ts mint, more info on the DigiDaigaku airdrop, and a new teaser from The Otherside.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, September 2

This week has been another classic "short-term bearish, long-term bullish" week for NFT news and price action. Floors are mostly down on the week, and new project price cycles seem shorter than ever, as several new mints ran to the 0.1 ETH+ range this week (Prisoner of War, The Phoenixes, Lasogette)  before falling back to .05 or lower faster than ever. 

We had some major news this week though that is definitely bullish for NFTs overall and their adoption, headlined by Ticketmaster's blockbuster announcement that they will be partnering with Flow blockchain to allow event organizers to issue tickets as NFTs on their platform (and has already minted 5M+ NFTs!).

Now we head into Labor Day Weekend, which typically would be incredibly slow for NFT trading, but we have three major drops today that could spike trading in the next few days.

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints and Reveals Today, September 2

Here are the three primary drops on the radar for today, spanning both the ETH and Solana blockchains as well as the notorious Coinbase NFT:

• y00ts 
• DigiDaigaku airdrop 
• Wu Tiger Clan (Coinbase)

y00ts

The most anticipated Solana (SOL) mint of the year is coming this weekend when Frank (@frankdegods) drops his newest project in y00ts. The final pre-mint buildup hit a snafu when Twitter suspended Frank and all of the team's accounts, which sent markets tumbling.

$DUST fell below $3 on the suspension news, and the DeGods floor on Magic Eden fell from 580 SOL to 475 SOL over the last few days. The price action was likely a combination of panic as well as speculation that the mint would be delayed, which it appears to have been.  But late yesterday afternoon Frank and the team announced that the mint will be "Sunday at like 2 pm", and we saw some recovery, along with several new details about the project. $DUST rebounded to $2.95 (briefly hitting $3.20 over night) and DeGods rebounded to 530 SOL floor. 

New information that came from the spaces last night included that the mint price in $DUST will increase after the 48-hour mint window; the rarity structure will roughly be 90 percent common, 9 percent rare, and one percent 1/1; there will be "double staking" for Deadgod+y00t owners; and y00ts will be minted as vials, with the reveal coming 5 days later.

Again for a quick recap on y00ts, it is a 15,000-character PFP set that aims to experiment with new licensing strategies. They will launch a "y00ts store" as a marketplace for PFP holders to upgrade/customize individual traits of their characters, with the artists that design those traits receiving royalties. To be eligible for the y00ts store, holders will have to stake their NFTs for 30 days to receive the “ⓨ token”. For a full deep dive into what y00ts is all about, see this preview article.

At a 375 $DUST price for the mint (0.75-0.8 ETH range), there is much upside potential for minters, likely in the 2-5x range. DeGods have moved up more than 4 ETH since the announcements of y00ts, and thus that is a decent price target for how the market is valuing y00ts. $DUST should also move when the final mint details are announced, as certainly hundreds of eligible minters have been procrastinating on buying their $DUST.

There will likely be a nice rarity lotto on these, especially given the recent 7,033 SOL ($220K) buy for the rank #20 DeadGod. So that should help pull up the floor if there's a pre-reveal window, but the risk overall on this set is if ETH traders coming over to SOL are going to stay, or just dump and move back to ETH. If that happens, this one probably pops out of the gate but then falls off over the first few days/weeks of trading. But if the ETH maxis stay and hold, this one could have some real legs to run.

Given the 2-day mint window and 5-day reveal timeline, the trading window likely shifts from this weekend a bit to deeper into next week, likely a good thing for the project. Expect this to be one of the top traded NFTs in the next week.

DigiDaigaku Airdrop

Newly infamous NFT villain Gabriel Leydon, the DigiDaigaku and Limit Break founder, has been releasing details piecemeal all week for Friday's anticipated first airdrop. Gabe has reached meme status, as his iconic suit PFP has been passed all around NFT Twitter after his loud entry into the space these past few weeks, calling paid mints over and his "free-to-own" models the way of the future.

His cockiness has been backed up by their recent $200M raise led by a16z, as they look to build on their success in free-to-play gaming with a new NFT twist.

Here's what we know about the free airdrop so far:

• the snapshot for holders will take place Friday at 2 p.m. ET
• the airdropped NFT will be burnable, stakeable, and combinable 
• the NFT will be a spirit NFT that matches the owner's Digi
• spirits will be used to craft Digi Heroes in the future, with three tiers Rogue, Warrior, and Royal
• matched "bloodline" spirits will produce the best heroes, mixed will be second best and spirits on their own can create the Rogue heroes

Typically the floor of the genesis NFT set drops by about the floor price of the airdropped NFT, so expect at least a short-term drop in the DigiDaigaku floor after. But given the recent run-up was mostly driven by the $200M raise announcement, it's hard to pinpoint where the market is valuing these. My gut is in the 2-3 ETH range, with a rare lotto.

Since Thursday afternoon's announcement, the Digi floor has already fallen from 14 ETH to 11 ETH or so, not the best reception to the airdrop news. But given the early indications that the game ecosystem will develop by airdropping NFTs to holders, for free, there should not be a huge amount of ongoing sell pressure. And with the relatively low supply, the dip could be eaten up quickly. Expect this to be the main liquidity attractor for ETH NFTs on Friday, and perhaps even into the weekend.

Wu-Tiger Clan

Wu-Tang Clan is making its NFT debut with this "members only" community NFT collection the Wu-Tiger Clan. From the Coinbase project description, this set "combines all-things music, philosophy, gaming, tech, entertainment, and movies to create a forever culture!"

The team is hinting hard at the utility, with promises of club membership, brand collaborations, NFT drops, live events and more to be unlocked over time. To be frank, neither the website nor the art appears to have given much time in development, which hurts this project's shot at success.

With the mint price now reduced to 0.05 ETH for the 10k supply, the team is already acknowledging the lack of value. This is bad momentum headed into the mint day and probably spells doom for the mint out. If it does manage to mint out, the most likely scenario is that it follows the price arc of all the low-cost mints from this week, with a brief post-mint surge to the 0.1-0.2 ETH range followed by a quick dump and retrace below mint. 

So if you're a mega Wu-Tang fan, fire away, but from a trading perspective maybe watch this one play out from the sidelines. 

The Wu-Tigers release today at 3:00 p.m. ET and will mint for 0.05 ETH.

NFT News and Announcements

Thursday was a bit of a slower news day, and the primary announcements were related to the DigiDaigaku airdrop and the pending y00ts mint (both covered above). But Yuga did tweet out a surprise trailer yesterday evening to get back into the headlines.

The teaser video features a Koda and is essentially the "prequel" to the original Otherside trailer with the infamous ape on the dock bottle chug scene. In this trailer, the Koda has the mysterious liquid but loses it while battling a black-hole object (similar to the Chaos trait) which leads to the Koda crash landing on what appears to be an Otherside plot and the liquid falling into a nearby body of water, ultimately fished out by the ape.

The accompanying tweet states "The story continues later this Q4", giving holders some indication of a timeline to expect. Otherdeeds were up 3 percent on the news.

Vitalik Buterin announced that his new book "Proof of Stake" will include a digital copy that can be received as an NFT. The book itself is a compilation of writings from his essays before and during the rise of the Ethereum blockchain, and all proceeds from the book will go towards open-source public goods through Gitcoin Grants. To receive the book in its NFT format, order a physical copy, make a donation, and claim the signed, digital copy for free.

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

• Art Blocks announced the next Curated drop called RASTER from artist itsgalo, set for next Wednesday, September 7
• Gutter Cat Gang revealed new details for its upcoming GutterCon event in Las Vegas, scheduled for September 16-18
• LooksRare debuted a new feature called "Quick Look" allowing for a hover-over mechanism that shows trait rarity and pricing
• OpenSea delisted the recently controversial Ragnarok Ronins set due to an IP takedown request
• Cool Cats released new details on the game they plan to roll out with new partner Arc8 

NFT Market Action Data, September 2nd

OpenSea volume dipped considerably Thursday in what may be a bad leading indicator for this weekend's expected volume. The leading marketplace saw just 7500 ETH traded on the day, down from the 10-11K range from earlier in the week.

This lack of volume was reflected on the project leaderboard, as no set traded over 500 ETH on the day. The top mover was RTFKT Forging wearables, which saw 1,100+ sales in the first full day of secondary trading since the CloneX mint window opened (CloneX held steady at 6.8 ETH).

DigiDaigakus were the 2nd biggest mover, trading over 300 ETH though the floor fell 27% to 10 ETH on the day as the airdrop news was clearly not received well by the market. With the airdrop snapshot coming in just a few hours, one has to think the floor will continue to fall further post-drop.

Otherdeeds saw a 150 percent spike in volume after their teaser video last night, though the floor moved just 3 percent to 1.82 ETH. BAYC held steady at 77 ETH and MAYC fell 5 percent to 13.5 ETH. 

A few notable winners on the day included Lasogettes, which rebounded from local lows back to 0.17 ETH, +120 percent on the day. In the Art Blocks world, Gazers jumped 25 percent to a 14 ETH floor and Chromies Squiggles reached a 12 ETH floor on the day, up 2 percent. 

There were no major losers on the day (other than Digis), though Proof Collective fell 7 percent to 54 ETH on the day, as Future Proof hype has started to wear off.

NFT Market Analysis

The crypto markets have held surprisingly strong over the last few days, especially in the wake of the equity markets going down only. ETH is leading the way, currently at $1,590 (+0.8% on the day) with BTC tailing behind at $20,050 (-0.1%). With the Merge just two weeks away, ETH seems positioned to continue leading and for ETH:BTC to reach new all-time highs. 

NFT floors have held up mostly ok with ETH ranging from $1,400-$1,600, but it remains to be seen what a short-term spike in ETH value may mean (likely bad). NFT trading volume continues to decrease, with lower highs and lower lows, and it's doubtful that the trend reverses ahead of the Merge. 

With most NFT teams seemingly punting away Q3 and most of Q4, it seems most are content just to ride out the bear market while "building" and hope to catch steam down the line. The short-term impact, primarily to utility sets and PFPs, is chop and slow decline most likely, as this market continues to be mostly attention/news driven. 

This weekend will likely be a very low-volume weekend, and with the Digi airdrop being an early letdown, the window is wide open for an ETH set to take over and dominate liquidity. This morning the Pengus are throwing their hat in the ring, building on recent hype and speculation of a potential announcement - so make sure to watch them. If y00ts does indeed mint Sunday, they will dominate the SOL market and will likely be the headline next week.

Given the lack of volume and new drops, this will be a great holiday weekend to get outside away from the screens and spend time with friends and family. As always, good luck to those minting over the weekend, be careful out there and make sure to stay up to date with the latest news with the Lucky Trader newsfeed.