Weekly NFT Preview | Stay Bored in This NFT Market

It was a strange week in the NFT space, and a good one to be medium bored. Volume was up on the week but mostly concentrated in Goblins, Goblin derivatives, and other free mints, as the top end sets mostly chopped on the week.

OpenSea saw an uptick in daily volume, averaging $45.7M per day ($320M on the week), up nearly 50 percent from last week's average of $30M per day average. So combined with the revenue from X2Y2 and LooksRare, NFTs are back to doing ~$70M per day- not that far away from that magical $100mm/day "bull market" liquidity metric.

A quick note on volume - X2Y2 is quietly crushing it with their low fee incentives. They consistently generated $20mm-$25mm in daily revenue in the past week, punctuated by Sunday's ATH of $29.6mm. With this uptick in volume, they are capturing about 30% of overall NFT trading marketshare (almost entirely stealing from OpenSea as LooksRare lags far behind with wash trading removed).

So that volume uptick is a positive, but not for the top end NFT sets which all mostly traded within a -10% to +10% window on the week on relatively low volume. The volume was mostly concentrated elsewhere this week, as the market most played new project hot potato and seven of the top 10 movers were projects that didn't exist 3 weeks ago.

The top mover on the week was Goblintown, trading 17K ETH on its airdrop and Yuga rumors (which were squashed this weekend once and for all) and holding a 6 ETH floor at time of writing (up a whopping 134% on the week). They dominated all the headlines, spawned dozens of derivatives and seem to have amassed a cult following.

A new niche style of mint seems to have spun off from the Goblins launch style as well (free mint, no discord, no roadmap), and We Are All Going To Die seems to have captured that zeitgeist the best. It traded ~6k ETH on the week, with its floor surging past 1 ETH at peak before falling back to 0.5 ETH. Others have tried this style since (Hobotown, Tower of the Occult) but with less success.

Derivatives made a big splash this past week as well, led by "ill poop it" and Goblin Grlz, each of which did over 2k ETH volume and saw their floors reach 1 ETH or close before falling substantially.

Notable winners on the week included Boki up 90% to 0.74 ETH floor, Murakami Flowers up 48 percent to 4.3 ETH floor, and MAYC quietly up 12 percent on the week to a 19 ETH floor.

This all occurred against a crypto market backdrop which appears to be stabilizing (at least for the near term), with BTC recapturing the $30K level and sitting up 3 percent on the week at $31.3K. ETH was up one percent on the week and sitting at $1,900, but its down bad against BTC as the ETH/BTC ratio is at its lowest level since October of 2021 at just 0.06 (16.6:1). This will be an important ratio to track, as ETH-based NFT traders now see a real alternative to sell and rotate to BTC on its relative strength.

What does all of this mean for the short term NFT outlook? Well, expect some continued focus on free mints (though the hype windows are getting shorter and shorter and measured in hours) and a beginning shift of focus to the top end sets as they prepare for NFT NYC in just two weeks. As most of the new mints are doing stealth drops, the schedule is a bit light for this week, but we still have a few planned drops and announcements which should draw attention this week.

Focus for this week:

• Art Blocks Factory and Curated drops
• NBA TopShot - Magic Johnson Moments
• mfers Roadmap Update on 6/9
• Most Hyped Drops

Let's get into it.

Art Blocks Factory and Curated Drops

Last week saw another very successful Factory trading opportunity, as the project Daisies debuted its 200 supply for 0.1 ETH, minted out in four minutes, and quickly ran to 0.65 ETH on the secondary market. This market action highlights a recent theme of Factory projects outperforming Playground and Curated, and will be a theme worth watching, especially as this week features the latest Curated drop.

Today we have the newest Factory drop, "Divenshire" by Emanuele Pasin. From the project page, "Divenire represents life as a constantly changing experience made of decisions, boundaries, and contaminations." The art style is ongoing and "endless" animation (i.e. motion), a style we've seen have some success with Art Blocks. With just 222 supply and a fixed 0.11 ETH mint price, Pasin appears to be following the Daisies blue print, and thus this will be one to watch - especially if it mints out quickly.

Then Wednesday Curated is back with "montreal friend scale" from Amon Tobin. This "white noise" themed generative project from Tobin is fitting and found inspiration from his musical background, as Tobin is best known as a recording artist in the electronic music industry (see his interview with Art Blocks COO Jeff Davis here). From the project age, "white noise contains all possible harmonics/notes/chords. by filtering out narrow frequency bands from the noise, pure sine wave “notes” become audible". This project has supply of 500 and will mint in a dutch auction starting at 3 ETH with final resting price of 0.2 ETH. Given recent struggles with Curated drops (the most recent Colorspace" holds just a 0.35 ETH floor), this auction is likely to reach the low end of the price range, but certainly, one to watch.

NBA TopShot - Magic Johnson Moments

On Tuesday NBA TopShot debuts its special new collection "The Anthology: Magic Johnson", which will feature 1,600 Magic Johnson NFTs highlighting iconic plays from his career. TopShot's "Run It Back" moments as "blasts from the past" have always hit different, and Magic Johnson will be one of the most legendary NBA players to be featured. With just 1,600 packs (low supply from NBA TopShot???), expect some real demand for this one on the secondary.

mfers Roadmap Update

Memes are back in the spotlight, mostly driven by Goblin mania of the past few weeks. Sartoshi (the mfers founders) is showing some sharpness here by capitalizing on this hype and leveraging the iconic meme date of June 9th (6/9) for his latest update. Touted as "The Next Era", the next phase of this cult meme project will be revealed on Thursday. The project's floor price is up over 100% in the past week on this hype, moving from 1.27 ETH to its current 2.68 ETH price at time of writing. Listings are at a near-all time low with just 5.9% listed, so this market could really move on a bullish roadmap announcement. 

Most Hyped Drops of the Week

There are three additional new projects dropping this week that have amassed large Twitter followings and will be worth monitoring:

• NoNo: The latest onchain play to earn (P2E) drop happens today with NoNos set to launch at 11:00 p.m. ET. This 8,080 supply NFT project will be priced at 0.07 ETH, and collectors will be able to apply to the YesYes DAO, stake their NFTs for $GALAXY and be eligible for future airdrops. With 76K followers on Twitter, the team has certainly built a following and this mint will be one to watch.
• Moonlanderz: With 93k followers on Twitter, this new drop (whose art appears Karafuru-like) starts its presale tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. ET. The 7,890 supply set of "degen frens that come from all corners of the galaxy" will be priced at 0.088 ETH. Learn more about the project and its "flight plan" on the project website at https://moonlanderz.com. 
• CryptoTanks: Another P2E game / NFT project is coming Tuesday when CryptoTanks hits the market at 6:00 a. m. ET. Previews of the game allude to old-school arcade games like "Galaga" and will certainly bring out some nostalgia from players, and has already garnered the support of RankersDAO. This project with 8,000 supply will mint for 0.08 ETH, and with a fully registered White List and 76K followers on Twitter, it certainly appears they have captured some market attention.

Overall this feels like another week to "stay bored" and remain tight with the purse strings. Chasing the daily free mints can be profitable if one is able to mint and sell early, but for anyone buying on secondary the game becomes much riskier. A good strategy for those who choose to play is to "mint or pass", meaning if you aren't able to catch the project on primary, wait for the next one.

Staying away entirely is certainly a safe (and likely smart) option, as we wait for developments from the top end sets and hints at future roadmap updates (or potential airdrops coming at NFT NYC). The market is certainly liquid and the increasing NFT revenue numbers week-over-week are promising. It feels like most market participants are ready to move from this low-cap sector focus back to the large-cap, and the right announcements or hype could get us back there in a hurry. 

Keep up with all the latest project news and info for your favorite projects with the Lucky Trader newsfeed and project schedule. Good luck this week, and stay safe out there!