NFT Roundtable | Yuga's Bitcoin Buzz
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:
Yuga Joins the BTC Movement š±
Question 1: Yuga Labs made a buzzy move on Monday, announcing TwelveFold, a 300-supply experimental generative art collection on the Bitcoin blockchain. Thoughts on the move, as it relates to 1. Yuga as a company and 2. BTC as an emerging NFT chain?
Logie: I personally don’t think this means much for Yuga Labs, particularly given its “we’re just going to do random stuff that we think is cool” attitude. However, I do think Yuga’s willingness to participate and experiment on Bitcoin means a lot for the NFT collections there. If Yuga, the most important ETH NFT company comes to your territory, doesn’t it sort of legitimize or validate it? I can see that argument.
Ghost: I think it’s exciting to see Yuga experiment with new tech / emerging sectors in the space, and reminds me of Google having ‘X’, which they call a “Moonshot Factory”. It’s good to let innovative people cook on different ideas! I don’t think it means a ton for holders of other Yuga assets, other than the company further spreading its wings.
In terms of BTC, I think it’s absolutely huge. There are still a lot of people in the NFT space that feel Ordinals are a fad, but Yuga releasing a collection there will definitely open some eyes and give some more legitimacy to the BTC NFT movement.
Jason: Logan is spot on. This means almost nothing for Yuga Labs, but it means a lot for Bitcoin’s emerging NFT ecosystem. If Yuga Labs is willing to participate in that ecosystem, it grants it credibility, even if the participation is certainly (sorry, folks) a cash grab.
Tyler: This move for Yuga? I really want to call it a cash grab from a company desperate for some revenue streams after their 2nd 100k land sale was cancelled and the price of $APE tanked after land sale 1. But have you seen their royalty numbers in the Blur farming era? They’re raking it in. So they prob don’t need the cash (that bad).
As for Bitcoin, I think it will be a net negative. BTC maxis still aren’t adopting the movement. No one in the crypto world even cares that Yuga is launching a project on Bitcoin. Where are the headlines and press? Literally zero awareness. What will happen is a lot more scammers launching projects on Bitcoin in the coming days and weeks to cash in on this craze, and when the dust is settled, 99% of the NFTs on Bitcoin will be worthless.
Cash Grab Concerns š°
Question 2: Let’s stay on this Yuga news — what are your price predictions for the TwelveFold auctions? We’ve also seen some negative sentiment on the announcement, calling this a ‘cash grab.’ Are those concerns valid, or unfair?
Logie: Yuga will grab plenty of cash from this, but I don’t think this is a prototypical cash grab. The team already expressed this is purely an experiment and users shouldn’t expect anything but “art.”
As far as prices go, I don’t see any reason why these won’t fall in the 3-5 BTC range right out of the gate. People have been waiting to spend their hard-earned BTC on something…here you go.
Ghost: I’ve heard 3-5 BTC estimates (which is mind-blowing), so I’ll stick with that. In regards to a cash grab — I couldn’t feel more strongly against that sentiment. I am all for companies trying new things, and an auction format allows the market to set the value. If Yuga were selling these at a super-high fixed price, that would be another story — but they’ve been very explicit in saying that this is just a generative art project and has no further utility.
If collectors still see the value and want to pay for it, I don’t see the issue. Are companies not allowed to release new products without being labeled a “cash grab”?
Jason: I read ahead and answered ahead… this is a cash grab. Yuga Labs likely had no plans to launch a Bitcoin-based NFT prior to the Oridinal Punks run-up. This doesn’t benefit Bored Ape Yacht Club holders in any way, unless the team uses the funds to further the brand. Either way, it’s a cash grab. Usually when you hear, “users shouldn’t expect anything but art,” from a team, it’s because the project has no future plans. When that “art” is coming from a company, especially when it is associated with a new NFT trend, it’s a cash grab. Sorry. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done it; I’m just calling a spade a spade.
Tyler: Autoglyphs are what, 250 ETH? That’s my price target. 10-20 BTC. Load up the wagons for the auction on Friday (or whenever it happens). The whales are already loading up. But good luck selling them to someone for a higher price in the future.
As opposed to answering the cash grab question here, I want to ask Yuga a question: What is this Bitcoin NFT launch going to do for my bags? How am I going to profit from this? I don’t see my path to make a return on this trade, and that’s why I’m pissed off.
Digging into Doodles š
Question 3: Doodles announced this week that all Genesis Box NFTs will contain ‘rare or exclusive items,’ with a DoodleMap also on the horizon as the team vows to ramp up communication. Floors surged briefly on the announcement before retracing back. What are your current thoughts on Doodles, and what does the project need to deliver for a successful 2023?
Logie: Doodles has reached this PROOF-like pinnacle of success at which point, nothing it does well will be “good enough” and the bad stuff will be magnified as SUPER bad. In an ecosystem so heavily driven by speculation and sentiment (with seemingly no fundamentals to rely on) – that seems like a really slippery place to be. And unfortunately, despite a successful deployment of the Dooplication and transfer of Doodles 2 wearables to Flow, sentiment is just super poor around the brand. I think success in 2023 for Doodles is delivering a usable Doodles 2 Beta and continuing to build good partnerships – but even if everything is executed appropriately, I think it’s unlikely we’ll see the floor price go up a meaningful amount.
Ghost: I agree with Logie — certain projects (especially ones that held super high floor prices in the Bull Market) seem to have reached an inflection point where it’s extremely difficult to meet the expectations of holders that may be down significantly on their initial investment. Doodles feels like it falls in that camp — and I don’t really know how you turn that around without some sort of significant value transfer to holders, which is harder than ever to accomplish. Focusing on delivering value to the OG Doodles and letting things trickle down to the rest of the ecosystem would be my blueprint for 2023.
Jason: How many times has the Doodles team suggested it was going to ramp up communication efforts? I feel like I hear this once every, uh, six months? Coincidentally, it seems to be every time Doodles says anything about its plans.
Tyler: Doodles is dead in the water and likely facing a Gutter Cat Gang price arc at this point. The millions of people who need to adopt Doodles 2 to make Doodles 1 and the Genesis Boxes valuable are nowhere to be found and likely years away from being here. And without Doodles 2 reaching mainstream adoption, all of their plans seem to fall apart. The art alone is probably worth a 1-2 ETH floor price so that’s my current price target.
Plant Your Flag ā³ļø
Question 4: Let’s do a more open-ended question here. What NFT project, art collection, ecosystem, etc. is capturing your attention right now? Spill the alpha, or plant your flag on a conviction play!
Logie: I’ve been slowly but surely paying attention to the advancement of some web3 games. Last year was supposed to be the year of play-to-earn, and it really fizzled out. But now things might be starting to reach a tipping point. Dookey Dash was a raging success, Parallel Alpha is moving into a Closed Alpha, and now Unity is leaning into web3? I’m not a gamer - but this is a definite area of intrigue for me.
Ghost: I’m a Jack Butcher maxi now. Checks are probably my highest conviction feel since Bored Apes — and even at these prices, I still think they are a sleeping giant. We’ve seen a ton of premium rarities like color bands and gradients getting scooped up, and all it’ll take is one or two parties going for the coveted Black Check for some serious supply shock to hit. I also love the lack of execution risk, as the art resonates with the space and has already been meme’d and derived into the canon of web3.
Jason: This almost feels like a joke in early 2023, but I’m not kidding: Cool Cats. The new branding and direction are exactly what this project needed, and a focus on storytelling allows the team to stick its fangs into the attention economy without breaking the bank. Plus, Cool Cats is an affordable collection now. Laugh all you want, Cool Cats made plenty of mistakes, but it is finding its stride here in 2023.
Tyler: Coinbase and Base, Introduced. I loved the move this week from the Base team to evolve the metadata in a Jack Butcher-esque move. It showed me two things: 1)they have plans for the NFT and it’s not just a POAP and 2) they’ve been paying attention to the big players in the market and what’s successful. I love it. I hope 1M of these things mint; I will still be bullish on them.
Oh and before I go - Pudgy Penguins. We are inevitable.
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).
