Daily NFT News & Drops for September 9 | LuckyTrader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Friday, September 9th. Top stories include a puzzling y00ts delay, ENS mania continuing, a major reveal for the DigiDaigaku ecosystem, and a big weekend of generative art drops.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, September 9

NFT trading volume is back on the rise after reaching yearly lows this past weekend. ETH is back up after Tuesday's crash, now trading at $1,700 with the Merge back in focus. And the sentiment is shifting back to positive into the weekend.

You love to see it.

This is a solid environment (or as good as it can be in this prolonged bear market) for this weekend's launches and new drops.

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints Today, September 9

Here are the two primary drops on the radar for this weekend, both generative art related and on ETH:

• Art Blocks Factory "Pointilla"
• GM Studio "Catharsis"

Art Blocks Factory "Pointilla"

The Art Blocks eco has some momentum again, after Wednesday's Curated drop RASTER did a 2x on the secondary market, moving from 0.6 ETH to ~1.2 ETH at peak (before retracing). This spawned a flurry of activity, mostly focused on recent Factory projects, which benefitted Avalon (floor jumped 100% from 0.2 to 0.4 ETH) and Glass, amongst others.

This recent action definitely changes the dynamic for today's Factory drop, "Pointilla," which will have more eyes on it now. 

From artist Phaust, Pointilla combines generative art randomness with Pointillism techniques (its namesake), using colored dots to create a variety of "vibrant, luminous scenes." The project description goes further to describe the outputs, stating "The Pointilla algorithm first divides the canvas into columns. It then traverses the canvas dropping dots along those columns. From just a handful of layers, landscapes emerge. They take on a variety of forms: from rolling plains and steep canyons to jagged peaks and dreamy moors."

That description provides a nice visual for the form of these outputs, which are animated in how the final image is "revealed", somewhat like a puzzle.

The 200 supply of this set is definitely a plus, though its mint resting price of 0.15 ETH is a bit high for the recent Factory market. But given the trading action this week, this one should mint out. This set has some very nice aesthetics, and there is likely to be a rare lotto on this one for some of the top outputs. This will definitely be the art drop to watch today when the auction starts at 1:00 p.m. ET.

GM Studio "Catharsis"

Those Art Blocks tailwinds will likely benefit another generative art drop coming on Saturday when "Catharsis" from Dario Lanza drops from the GM Studio team.

This is the first major drop from digital artist and art teacher Dario, and the 5th now from the GM Studio. Described as "The first long-structure and evolutive art project on the blockchain", this project is unique in that its algorithm actually mutates and evolves while it's being executed.

The evolving code impacts the outputs, which seem to start more calmly before more energy is introduced as more outputs are released. Using the artist's words from the project description, "Starting with a less dense and timid mood, the project evolves towards a more energetic style, involving more paint on the pieces, and applying it with greater ferocity. New features and high-density rarities appear as the series progresses, and new color palettes show up.

Another interesting mechanism in the set is that several outputs stretch across multiple NFTs ("long-form"), enabling a variety of diptychs (set of 2) and triptychs (set of 3) to be made. Which many true collectors love to build.

At a mint price of 0.15 ETH, this will definitely mint out its 999 supply. There will likely be a solid premium on those diptych/triptych sets, and potentially a color palette premium as well. Given this liquid market and lack of drops Saturday, this could steal the spotlight and make a run. Prior GM Studio drops have all run past 1 ETH, with multiple hitting 2-3 ETH. That is certainly in the realm of possibilities for this set, but at a min, it should be an easy 2-3x for minters. For those chasing on secondary, just be careful of the entry price.

Catharsis mints Saturday at 11:00 a.m. ET.

NFT News and Announcements

Thursday was a busier day for NFT news, spanning Solana and ETH, PFP projects, 1/1 art, and marketplaces.

y00ts was once again in the news early Thursday after the team had some challenges with the final waitlist mint in the early, early hours of Thursday morning. Several users reported failing on the mint and then complaining about having lost money on $DUST they had held in expectations of the mint. This led Frank and the team to both promise to make the users whole, as well as take a break from Twitter for the next few days to "solve the issues" they've been having. Another major announcement was that the reveal will likely not be until next Friday, September 16th (vs today as originally planned), which will likely be an incredibly chaotic day in the markets right after the ETH Merge. The y00ts floor has fallen a bit in the aftermath, currently 132 SOL with the full 15K supply now out on the market.

In art market news, top photo-NFT artist DrifterShoots dropped the original piece of his infamous "Where My Vans Go" set with a 100.69 ETH reserve. Thought leader and top collector Punk6529 swooped in with the 100.69 ETH bid almost right away, kicking off the 10-day auction. There Where My Vans Go floor is at 50 ETH for the collection of 125, making it the second most valuable photo-NFT set behind Justin Aversano's Twin Flames (69.42 ETH floor). Drift's prior all-time high on WMVG was 100 ETH, and thus this one will certainly set a new ATH for him.

Alpha Centauri Kid (ACK) made headlines of his own Thursday, building on the lore of his new ATH sale on "pale blue death (a color study)". After selling over 3K editions in his "pale blue death" open edition drop, the artist swapped the metadata just minutes after the sale completed, revealing a version of XCOPY's famous MAX PAIN airdrop, which ACK titled "max pain v2." The artist later hinted at an "Act III," meaning there is probably one more twist in this story left to unfold. 

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

• Popular OG NFT artist Ghxsts released roadmap 2.0 on Thursday, outlining plans for Creatxr, OG Ghost, Gold, Silver, and Bronze tier holders
• ApeCoin DAO recommended a new election process for its council members, with rolling elections to be held on a quarterly basis 
• Sandbox announced it is now offering token-gated events and $SAND token rewards for select NFT avatar holders in Alpha Season 3
• Jenkins the Valet announced it will be partnering with Tokenproof for its future token-gating efforts, in the interest of community security  
• Coinbase NFT added new search functionality in its latest marketplace update, allowing users to view recommendations for NFT collections, as well as an enhanced buy or list feature
• Leading Solana marketplace Magic Eden announced a new whitelist feature, allowing project creators to easily generate a whitelist direction from the platform
• CryptoDickButts will be integrated into the Worldwide Webb Land game, meaning owners can use their avatars as characters in that metaverse coming soon

NFT Market Action Data, September 9

Thursday notched the most volume in over a week, as nearly 10K ETH traded on OpenSea for $15.8M.

That volume influx was led by Otherdeeds, which had a massive sweep on the day and did over 1K ETH volume, though the floor is unchanged at 1.75 ETH. BAYC and MAYC combined for ~600 ETH, with 72.69 ETH / 12.55 ETH floors respectively.

ENS is the next big leader, in what is turning out to be a huge week for the domains. The top ENS categories combined for over 800 ETH volume on the day, led by the 10K Club (4-digits) which jumped to 3.3 ETH floor and the 100k Club (5-digits), up 14 percent to 0.084 ETH. The 3LC (3 Letters) also pumped 25 percent to a 0.25 ETH floor. This niche market seems to have the most steady momentum of any NFT set here over the last few weeks, and it doesn't seem to be stopping.

Some notable winners include Renga, with their Black Boxes up 15% to 0.73 ETH (revealed at 0.33 ETH), and the biggest winner of the day Dragon Fish Tokyo, up a whopping 178% to 0.71 ETH. Gutter Cat Clones jumped 27 percent on the day to 0.2 ETH floor, as their ecosystem continues building momentum.

DigiDaigaku Genesis also rebounded 12 percent on the day, back to 7.4 ETH floor, with the Spirits up 25 percent to 3.45 ETH ahead of today's reveal event.

Tykes, the real estate PFP project from Ryan Pineda, dipped 14 percent from its recent run, now sitting at 2.45 ETH. Gangster All-Stars also fell 10 percent on the day to 0.23 ETH, 25 percent below their public auction final price.

NFT Market Analysis

While NFT momentum has been building over the past few days, this overnight spike in crypto prices may stop that run in its tracks. BTC surged 9% overnight back to $21,000, with ETH up 4 percent to $1,700. Other coins benefited as well, with SOL up 7 percent to $35.25 and $APE up 16 percent to $5.2.

With the Merge now less than a week away, there is a probable scenario where NFT trading volume takes a back seat to coin trading (or simply holding) as that mega-event unfolds. But there still seem to be two primary camps, the "sell the news" camp, likely looking to dump their ETH ahead of the Merge, and those touting the mega-reduction in sell pressure as too strong of a mechanism to sell into.

The uncertainty and volatility of the Merge make Frank's decision to delay y00ts until next Friday, the day after the Merge, even more, perplexing and likely a negative for market action. Expect a bigger dip on that unrevealed set in the days to come (which may provide a nice entry for those who can hold longer term). The Solana ecosystem seems to be cooling off in general in the wake of the y00ts news and may continue to see a slow decline in volumes until next weekend's reveal event.

Back on ETH, the influx to Otherdeeds was nice to see, but even a 1K ETH day isn't enough to move the needle in that massive set. It remains difficult to see a catalyst that will meaningfully move the floor price of that 100K NFT set (with another 100K potentially coming).

The focus of today may very well be the DigiDaigaku ecosystem and its Spirits reveal, on a day without much action in the PFP or gaming space. It's a big weekend for generative art as well, with Catharsis tomorrow being the major set to watch/play.

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