Morning Minute | Magic Eden's $700M Airdrop Is Here

TylerD's Market Summary

🎁 Magic Eden Airdrop Is Today

We used to pray for times like this.

Back in the depths of the bear market, when there were few signs of hope, some looked forward to the next big wave of NFT and Crypto airdrops. And they seemed so, so far away.

Well, airdrop SZN is here.

And Magic Eden is starting the party.

What Happened?

Magic Eden is officially set to launch its $ME token this morning at 9 am ET.

And they are coming out firing on launch day:

• CEO Jack Lu likens Magic Eden to "an on-chain Binance"
• Binance announces a day 1 listing
• The ME token soared 45% to $5.80 on Whales pre-market with $4.75M in volume on the day

I'll get to the tokenomics and money part in a bit.

But this Binance comparison is the key here.

The Magic Eden vision is to trade all assets on all chains on their app.

They have effectively pulled this off for Bitcoin (with Ordinals and Runes trading available), but haven't touched the token side of chains like ETH or Solana.

That is a huge market to tap into, and with their $ME token incentives for app usage, they will have one big lever to pull to get new users.

Tokenomics

For a quick overview of the ME tokenomics:

• 1B total tokens
• 125M for airdrop 1
• 225M for future airdrops
• 262M for contributors (with majority locked for 18 months)
• 236M for strategic participants with a 12 month min lock

So with the token trading at $5.80, that means this is a $700M airdrop (and ME will trade at $5.8B FDV).

Of course, we all need to take pre-market prices with a grain of salt and they have been historically high by 30-40% or more.

But the MOVE token launched on Binance yesterday and opened at $10B FDV - so 11 figure launches are happening in this market.

Why It Matters

Magic Eden is not without its issues.

The runes trading experience is clunky. They don't have much ETH NFT market share at all. And their airdrop rollout rubbed about half of market participants the long way.

But per Jack Lu's note yesterday "Growth solves all problems."

If Magic Eden can pull off their vision, and/or if the token can pump similar to other recent launches - all problems will be forgiven.

We will find out soon.

Good luck today!

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

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

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $20M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $3.5M and then Solana with $2.9M
• ETH NFT leaders were mixed again with Pudgy leading; Punks even at 39 ETH, Pudgy +3% at 22.9, BAYC -4% at 19 ETH, Azuki -4% at 6.8; Milady -1% at 5.15
• Realiti (+80%) and Creepz (+30%) led notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly green; Bitcoin Puppets -4% at 0.18 BTC, NodeMonkes +3% at 0.147, OMB +2% at 0.143, Quantum Cats even at 0.2
• The Runes leaders were mostly red; DOG -5% at $820M mc, PUPS -9% at $235M, BDC even at $118M, GIZMO -10% at $33M, CYPHER -20% at $17M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Macro Crypto and Web3

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

• Crypto majors are red this morning after a massive night of liquidations; BTC -1% at $97,600, ETH -3% at $3,740, SOL -5% at $216, XRP -8% at $2.20; MOVE & VIRTUALS were top alt movers
• The Crypto market saw $1.4B in liquidations after yesterday's dip, the largest since 2021
• Memecoin majors are very red; DOGE -5% at $0.408, SHIBA -10%, PEPE +1%, WIF -13%, BONK -12%, MOG -9%
• A memecoin tied to Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO, was the runner of the day on Solana yesterday, reaching $50M on $150M+ volume (now $20M)
• Saylor and MSTR acquired another $2.1B in Bitcoin at an average price of $98,783
• Riot announced a $575B convertible bond issuance to buy more Bitcoin

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $LUIGI (+24,000% to $24M market cap, SOL)
• $MIKO (+13,000% to $75M market cap, SOL)
• $GRIFFAIN (+130% to $174M market cap, SOL)
• $AIMONICA (+85% to $10M market cap, SOL)
• $TSOTCHKE (+80% to $23M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Wrapped Cryptocats (140%, 1.9 ETH Floor)
• Realiti (80%, 1.8 ETH Floor)
• Synthetic Dreams (65%, 3.95 ETH)
• HV MTL (60%, 0.04 ETH)
• Creepz (27%, 2.35 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Folks - my source for daily mints and events has shut down operations.

Given the general lack of interest in new mints on a daily basis, I'll be discontinuing this section of the newsletter, at least for now.

If I can find a good source for daily events, I will look at turning it back on.

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