Morning Minute | Azuki Kickstarts Biggest Day of the Year

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.

TylerD's Market Summary

Today is likely the biggest day of 2023 for the NFT space. Find out what's happening, plus catch up on a new security standard from CyberKongz.

🤯 Azuki Leads Huge Day for NFTs

Today may be our Super Bowl for NFTs in 2023.

The biggest mint of the year is happening with Azuki Elementals, a leading artist in Grant Yun completes a major edition drop, and there's a major project drop on Solana.

Are you ready?

Azuki Shares Major Updates Ahead of Elementals

With their Elementals mint looming, the Azuki team did share a major update related to security. These included:

1) There will be a snapshot for Azuki & BEANZ holders ahead of the mint

2) They've added a delegate cash solution to allow holders to mint from a different wallet

Introducing Delegate Cash was the right thing to do, allowing those holding in cold wallets not to have to connect those to mint (and risk their assets).

The snapshot piece is more interesting, and a bit strange. It's unclear why that's needed, and brings a new twist to the secondary market action.

Now we will likely see holders dumping Azuki and Beanz post-snapshot but before mint, leading to some chaos in the market around mint.

And dump they will.

Azuki Market Action

The Azuki floor took a big hit yesterday, falling 13% to 12.82 ETH, as big holders liquidated to raise funds for the mint. Beanz held up relatively stronger, down 8% at 1.17 ETH.

A few takeaways:

• This price action feels bullish for Elementals, as it anecdotally feels like most of the selling is simply fundraising (and not exiting). 
• I think most of the Azuki dump has already happened. The floor is down over 4 ETH from pre-party levels. There will be a dump when the claim window opens for those Azukis in loans, but it's unclear how large that will be. My target is a bottom around 11-11.5.
• Beanz are in more trouble of dumping, and likely face a full 0.5 ETH dump. A Beanz floor at 0.5-0.7 ETH in the hours following the mint will not be surprising.

Last thoughts - while I've been bullish on this mint for Azuki, it does feel very rushed. 

The market action we've seen is directly tied to the tight window holders had to prepare 20,000 ETH for this mint, even tighter considering several of their major holders just traveled to Vegas for the weekend.

Rolling out the delegate cash update less than 24 hours in advance also felt rushed.

And it raises concerns of how smooth the mint will go today.

Personally I'll be surprised if it goes off without a hitch.

But that aside, be ready for some fireworks on secondary with the NFTs able to reveal shortly after mint. 

Today's Other Events

Here are the other headliners for today:

• Grant Yun is back with a physical + digital pairing with "Fall." Each winner of the draw entry (priced at $5,568) will get a print along with the NFT. There are 35 editions in the collection, with the draw ending on Avant Arte at 9 pm ET tomorrow.
• Bodoggos from the Nifty Portal team are minting today in Solana's biggest mint in quite some time. The founders all have huge followings and run one of the biggest Twitter space shows in the space, so they'll have ongoing attention. The question is - how much active demand is there on Solana?

On any other day, that Bodoggos mint is likely the headliner. So we will see if the Azuki mint overshadows it, or if it adds liquidity to the market benefitting the mint.

🔒 CyberKongz Introduce New Security Standard

CyberKongz announced a big development for the NFT space - the re-introduction of ERC721x.

ERC721x is an upgrade of the standard ERC721 token, focusing on enhanced security and user convenience, aiming to fortify asset safety while preserving the usability of a hot wallet.

The upgraded ERC721x brings to the forefront two critical security features: 'Locking' and 'Guarding.'

• Locking: This feature permits users to 'stake' their assets without giving up ownership. While the asset is locked, it cannot be transferred without the permission of the lock registry.
• Guarding: A wallet can designate another wallet as a 'Guardian.' This Guardian has the authority to lock assets in the wallet it supervises, serving as an On-Chain 2-Factor Authentication mechanism.

Security continues to be one of the biggest issues in the NFT space, and every advancement should be applauded.

This "guarding" feature is especially interesting and one I would personally use.

It will be interesting to see how this works in practice, as the Kongz will use this new technology in its upcoming CyberKongz Genkai mint.

So stay tuned.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Trading volume came in over 16k ETH on Monday; NFTs saw mostly red on the day with leading collections down 2-10%, likely tied to traders freeing up funds for the Elementals mint today 
• New mint "Utility Wen" surged over 140% from its 0.05 ETH mint price on Saturday to a 0.12 ETH floor on Monday, as founder Pons teased more news coming on Thursday
• Jack Butcher unveiled the artwork for Opepen 007 on Monday, already reaching the required 2,000% opt-ins to go live (the fp fell 8% to 0.64 ETH)
• Grant Yun's "Fall" edition (of 35) drop on Avante Art closes its registration draw at 9:00 a.m. ET today, with winners getting the NFT and a physical print for $5,568
• GaryVee is hosting a creator challenge with winners able to join him and SnoopDogg for an event combining business, music, and entrepreneurship in Atlanta on August 9, 2023
• ZED RUN introduced XP NFTs, a mechanism that allows stables to increase the XP earned by their racehorses

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• The crypto market was down slightly on the day; BTC +0.8% to $30,550; ETH even at $1,875
• Binance is reportedly having an ‘all hands’ emergency meeting this week in Dubai, perhaps related to several countries removing Binance in coordination
• ESPN's SportsCenter shared pictures and details of the Lamelo Ball GutterMelos to its 35.2M Instagram followers

🚀 NFT Total Volume

• Azuki (6,345 ETH, 12.8 ETH Floor)
• BAYC (2,934 ETH, 37.18 ETH Floor)
• Beanz (2,266 ETH, 1.17 ETH)
• MAYC (1,161 ETH, 7.33 ETH)
• DeGods (444 ETH, 8.9 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase

• GOD by crashblossom (75%, 0.7 ETH Floor)
• Anata (25%, 0.83 ETH)
• Realms (21%, 0.4 ETH)
• Treeverse (17%, 0.35 ETH)
• Sappy Seals (8%, 0.44 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is perhaps the biggest day of the year (at least so far) for NFTs, as described above in depth.

Along with all the major events, any stealth drops have more potential to run with the market being extra liquid (and those who miss the Azuki trade looking for action).

Today is not the day to touch grass.

If you want more, see the full list of today's drops from Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Grant Yun "Fall" (9:00 a.m. ET); $5,578
• Bodoggos (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Azuki Elementals (12:00 p.m. ET); 2 ETH

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 NFT Calendar page.