Morning Minute | A Web3 War Is Brewing
GM!
Take a minute to catch up on the latest in the Web3 space with today's NFT market analysis, top movers, and upcoming mints:
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TylerD's Market Summary
Blur is going on the offensive with its new royalty policy, fresh off its token airdrop.
Is OpenSea officially in trouble?
🥊 The Marketplace War Begins
Blur could have rested on its laurels.
The airdrop was a resounding success. NFT trading volume is pumping, and they came in at a whopping 75% market share on day 1 post-airdrop.
But instead of resting, the team launched a full-on blitz against OpenSea with its new royalty policy.
Their goal - block out OpenSea.
What's Happening?
Pacman posted a "How to earn royalties on Blur" blog yesterday providing creators with 3 options.
- Option 1 - No Block: Don't use a blocklist, settle with minimum royalties on Blur and optional on OS; full functionality on Blur
- Option 2 - Block Blur: Go with OpenSea's blocklist, Blur bids are disabled, OS enforces full royalties and 0.5% on Blur
- Option 3 (Recommended*) - Block OpenSea: Blur enforces full royalties; collection not tradeable on OS
*Recommended by the Blur team, not by me
Whew.
Quite the attack by Pacman, in response to OpenSea's blocklist policy.
They did leave room for compromise though, with Option 4.
Option 4 is "Don't block either," and would result in full royalties on both platforms; BUT, that would require a change from OpenSea. Currently, OS sets royalties to optional when detecting trading on Blur.
OpenSea has not made a formal response yet, but one is certainly needed soon.
They are actively under attack - and losing.
🚀 The NFT Market Sees Biggest Day in 9 Months
We predicted that the airdrop would lead to a spike in volume.
We did not know it would be this much, this fast.
Trading volume breached 40,000 ETH ($66.4M) for the first time since May 2022, fresh off The Otherside mint.
For perspective, the market has only seen 30k+ ETH 4 times in the past 3 months, and the daily average since December is closer to ~20k.
And guess what - today might be even bigger, on pace for 50k+ ETH.
Who Were the Winners:
First, Blur.
Blur commanded a whopping 75% market share on the day, seeing 30,000 ETH itself.
Second, $BLUR holders. The $BLUR token soared 38% to $1.10 in an "up only" day of trading, helped by a huge day in the crypto markets.
As for specific NFTs, basically everyone won.
The entire Blur board is green.
Most floors spiked 10-20%, and there are too many to list. Last week's dip has been fully erased.
The most notable winners:
- Otherdeeds led volume with 9,500 ETH traded; floor up 13% to 2.07 ETH
- BAYC up 11% to 75.4 ETH (after Franklin buys 10 apes with some of his Blur airdrop proceeds)
- 0n1 Force jump 25% to 1.8 ETH on continued take-over hype
- Cool Cats surge 46% to 2.8 ETH (unclear on driver)
A notable loser? Checks.
Jack Butcher "turned on" Blur bids for Checks - VV Editions, and the collection immediately soared from ~0.8 ETH to 1.05 ETH, bringing the Originals collection up with it.
But then the floor fell out, and both sets round-tripped to their prior levels.
Not a great sign of hope, at least short-term, for the darling of the Open Edition meta.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
A few other headlines from a day that was very Blur-focused:
- Sewer Pass scores are officially verified, and metadata is changed to reflect each pass's ranking; top sales were 25 ETH and 20 ETH for ranks 58 and 97
- Sappy Seals are making a move on Bitcoin, hosting a free, gamified mint on the "hot" new NFT blockchain
- Braindrops teases "All AI Art Looks The Same" featuring several notable collection artists in a potential collab project
- End of Sartoshi NFT holders saw their metadata updated, as founder Sartoshi announced another holder snapshot had been completed
- The KillaBears Killa Burn event went live, with the new Volume 2 edition opening at 0.066 ETH and Volume 69 at 1.23 ETH
- Mutant Hounds released their 2023 roadmap, including fusing, a web3 gaming partnership, storytelling, 3D hounds, and more (Hounds up 24% to 0.36 ETH)
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- The crypto market had a massive day driven by rumors of Asia's looming entrance, BTC up 7.3% to $24,500 and ETH up 6% to $1,680
- Lamborghini is following in Porsche's NFT footsteps, launching digital collectibles on Veve this Sunday
- Square Enix announced today that it will release its upcoming web3 project, Symbiogenesis, on Polygon
- GQ Magazine is launching NFTs, providing access to a magazine subscription, merchandise and live events
- Hub71 is launching a $2 billion initiative to back Web3 and blockchain technology startups in the Abu Dhabi region
🚀 NFT Total Volume
- Otherdeeds (9,860 ETH, 2.07 ETH Floor)
- BAYC (5,350 ETH, 75 ETH)
- Moonbirds (4,980 ETH, 7.7 ETH)
- MAYC (3,483 ETH, 16.3 ETH)
- Azuki (3,430 ETH, 15.4 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
- Anata NFT (71%, 1.8 ETH Floor)
- Cool Cats (60%, 2.86 ETH)
- goblintown (30%, 0.7 ETH)
- 0n1 Force (24%, 1.8 ETH)
- Chimpers (20%, 1.46 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a fantastic day to launch a new project. The next major, cool mint to drop will likely do very well.
But I'm not sure if any of the new sets dropping today meet that criterion.
Jen Stark is very well known and widely loved, but a 5k supply generative art mint is a lot of supply to chew through to see ROI.
Expect more liquidity rotation and random pumps (i.e. goblins, Cool Cats) as Blur bidding continues to heat up.
- NFT Yearbook (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Digital Paint by Jen Stark (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Cloud Poppers (12:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's Project Schedule page.
