NFT Roundtable | Checkmate
Welcome to the Weekly NFT Roundtable, where members of the Lucky Trader team weigh in on some of the most pressing questions, news, and events in the web3 space.
The commentary below is purely opinion —not financial advice!
Recommended Reading:
Checkmate ✅
Question 1: Checks by Jack Butcher is currently everywhere. Massive sales for low serials, VVD’s PepeCheck derivative, Beeple. Are we witnessing the birth of the next top-tier project? Are Checks undervalued or overvalued at this time? Discuss.
Logie: Will I be struck down if I say that Checks are overvalued? I think it can be true that we’re witnessing a fantastic experiment play out and that the price has become detached from reality. Metas come and go quite quickly in this market, and when this one goes, I suspect some will be wishing they *checks notes* booked a 47,000% gain.
Ghost: Strike Logan down. Just kidding — but this run has been absolutely wild to follow. I think that Jack Butcher has done a brilliant job of capturing the attention of the space, creating a piece of art that resonates with a mass audience, and built out an intriguing burn/rarity structure entirely in public. I am hyper-bullish on Checks, and think they have been meme’d/derived into the canon of the space — and aren’t going anywhere but up anytime soon.
Tyler: Every day I show up to Twitter, I fud Checks. Say the Black check is overvalued. Unobtainable. The market is overheated. Every day, Checks price goes up. I’m done calling it overvalued. There is clearly a cult following behind this project now and it has reached escape velocity. Checks to the moon!
Jason: Is Checks a good investment? I have no idea. Is Checks overvalued? Yes. Why? Because value is created with time, not floor price. Calling a project or collection a “blue chip” after a few weeks or even months is the same as sitting down to play another hand of blackjack. You might think you know what you’re doing and have an advantage, but you don’t. Not because you don’t know NFTs, but because no one knows if Checks is here to stay or not. Relax, and read Straight Line Bias and How to Avoid It When Analyzing NFT Trends.
Bitcoin, Canto Enter the NFT Conversation ⛓️
Question 2: Two big trends in the NFT market right now have been on separate blockchains from our normal ETH home — BTC and Canto. Thoughts on both of these current movements, and if either has staying power past the current craze?
Logie: Nearly every “alt-chain” has had a minor NFT movement, but only a few have gotten the love that Canto has received in recent weeks. While it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of the notable Canto NFTs maintain some relevance for a bit longer, I’m more bullish that Ordinals or some other “BTC NFT” can maintain relevance over a longer time horizon thanks to Bitcoin’s prowess as the face of cryptocurrency.
Ghost: I am bullish on the ETH OG builders that have been developing on Canto, and think some of the original or early projects can have staying power. However, with the popularity has come a wave of the same opportunistic scammers and extractors looking to make a quick buck without really developing anything — so I’m weary of the new copycat crap mints continuing to pop up on there.
I also love the narrative that is behind the BTC NFT rush — and hearing about the communities popping up around OTC trades and building the airplane in the air has reminded me of the early stories you hear about ETH NFTs (or even Top Shot in 2020). Whether we like it or not, Crypto still revolves around Bitcoin — so it doesn’t surprise me that people would want to get in on the first NFTs on the most well-known chain
Tyler: I understand an NFT movement on Bitcoin. It’s counter-culture. Anti-establishment. Bitcoin maxis hate NFTs so let’s get back at them by using up their network with NFT transactions.
What I don’t get is Ordinals. The art is Punks derivative. They’re not even the first NFTs on Bitcoin. I don’t see why Ordinals are valuable.
And I don’t think either BTC NFTs or Canto NFTs have any staying power right now until the ease of use greatly increases. Explain to someone how to buy an Ordinal right now in less than a minute - I dare you. And the marketplace on Canto isn’t much better, down about 50% of the time. It’s the wild west out there right now, tread carefully.
Jason: NFTs are leveraged bets on the chain that they’re building on, in most cases. Some projects and collections are going multi-chain to reject this thesis, but for those that aren’t, it holds true. If you think Canto is going to outcompete Ethereum, then sure, buy the NFTs, especially the first ones.
The same is true of Bitcoin, but the situation is a bit more complex. Bitcoin is the OG. It’s not going anywhere. But the NFTs aren’t really a major part of its history, at least not in the same way as CryptoPunks to Ethereum. I’ll be observing from the sidelines for a while longer.
On-Chain Real Estate 🏠
Question 3: News came out on Tuesday that Roofstock has sold its second physical house on the blockchain, after a $180,000 Alabama single-family home sold as an NFT. Are you bullish on real estate NFTs, and are there any other sectors that come to mind that you see being shaken up by the technology?
Logie: I would like to be bullish on real estate NFTs, or anything that dramatically improves a process with lots of middlemen and red tape. But I think the onboarding is still far too difficult for this to be a common occurrence anytime soon. I’m also concerned the immutability of the blockchain (while valuable in some ways) will keep anything like this from viability in the future.
At the risk of taking up far too much space, I’m wondering if something like schooling transcripts or test scores could be disrupted with NFTs or SBTs. My girlfriend just had a nightmare experience trying to get one party to send a thing to some other party and then that party had to mail something to someone else. And yeah…couldn’t we just issue an NFT with some metadata properties that were easily readable? Did I just invent something? Idk.
Ghost: After going through the home-buying process twice now and seeing how outdated and shitty it is, I am definitely bullish on real estate NFTs. Can’t wait to sweep the floor of some neighborhood in the future.
I think almost anything that requires contracts or verification of authenticity is ripe for disruption. We’ve seen some instances of ticketing in NFTs, but in a few years I believe they will be entirely on-chain for sporting events, concerts, etc. I also agree with Logan on transcripts — and in a similar vein to home ownership, I think the process of buying and selling cars could easily be streamlined through NFTs.
Tyler: I am max bullish on real estate coming to the blockchain. The blockchain can remove so many hassles involved in the current state home-buying process (and so many middlemen). Zillow/Redfin + blockchain tech could totally revamp this entire market. With that said, I think we’re still a long ways away. There is still much to figure out - the blockchain user experience needs to improve, security needs to improve, etc. But I hope we get there.
Jason: Yes, I’m bullish on real estate NFTs. This is the original use case of NFTs. It proves ownership via blockchain technology. For many of the reasons already stated, NFTs will eventually infiltrate all areas where ownership documents and provenance currently exist (houses, cars, collectibles, etc.).
I also see NFTs shaking up politics. NFT license and ID verification make voting from home safer, more trusted, and easier. And if politicians used NFTs and blockchain technology to accept campaign donations and vote on bills, we’d have a historical archive of all their prior interests and commitments. Talk about radical accountability.
NFT Stimulus Incoming? 💸
Question 4: The $BLUR airdrop is expected to launch next week, with many hoping it acts as a ‘stimulus’ for the broader market. What impact do you think this will have on the NFT space, if any?
Logie: This week I was pleasantly surprised to learn that both $X2Y2 and $LOOKS hold a non-trivial, non-zero token price. While both have faded considerably from their highs (perhaps not so coincidentally around the time of their airdrops) they still injected at least SOME liquidity into the market. And while it may have not been “new” funds, the redistribution of those funds from VCs or otherwise, provided some blokes like me with some extra funds. I can only speak for myself, but if Blur gives me magical internet money I didn’t have before, I’m probably going to spend it.
Ghost: I think if any of the token drops were going to lead to a ‘stimmy’, BLUR has a good chance to do so. Unlike some of the other marketplace launches we’ve seen, BLUR has gotten real traction and provided a useful alternative to the incumbent OpenSea. Royalties aside, I use BLUR because I think the interface and tools are better — and that creates a much different dynamic for a token launch than other platforms that have dropped the token prior to building a loyal audience.
Tyler: Blur airdrop = full send. The Blur team is smart. They will find ways to incentivize holding the token, along with similar activity that has propped up their market share (i.e. bid pools). The narrative used to be that Blur activity would die off after the farming window, and that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Blur is here to stay and I think this token can do well, as long as macro crypto holds up ok behind the scenes.
Meet the Roundtable:
Ghost: Ghost is an NFT analyst at Lucky Trader. He has been in crypto since 2017, and entered the NFT space via NBA Top Shot in January of 2021 before minting Bored Apes and degenning into the broader market.
Tyler: Tyler is a high-volume NFT trader, having reached the top 100 in NFT sales revenue using NFTBank’s rankings, a Pengu maxi (in Luca we trust), and a writer for Lucky Trader. Tyler’s writing spans market analysis, news breakdowns, project ecosystem overviews, and web3 opinion pieces.
Logie: Logan is a content lead at Lucky Trader and is best known for selling every good NFT far too early. He also maintains an irrational exuberance for clay-based NFTs.
Jason: Jason is an NFT lead at Lucky Trader. He has been involved in the NFT space since CryptoKitties in late 2017, and, like most, he lost a lot of money on Top Shot in early 2021. But nevertheless, he persists (with his Series 1 Legendary From The Top LeBron James Block).
