Morning Minute | The Burn Wars Begin
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TylerD's Market Summary
Gremplin made digital art and PFP history with his epic burn-to-redeem event Saturday night with Nakamigos. But has he opened up Pandora's Box?
Gremplin Burns The Nakamigos
Just a few days ago, there was speculation that Gremplin (notable digital artist behind PFP collections Cryptoadz and Oddities) was the artist behind Nakamigos.
Well, maybe that didn't sit well with him.
In a massive surprise event on Saturday night, Gremplin did a stealth launch for a new edition called "AN EYE FOR A FRY."
The kicker?
It required the burn of 1 Nakamigos to mint the piece.
This had never been done before, as artists have required the burn of their own editions before but never pieces from another separate and distinct collection.
And history was in fact made, as Gremplin's edition of 69 minted out in just a few hours.
Now the question becomes - what are the implications of this new burn-to-redeem feature?
By the Numbers
Before jumping into why this was so important, let's look at some quick figures:
- 2 hours - how long it took for the stealth drop to mint out
- 69 - the number of Nakamigos burned in the mint (and now gone forever)
- 0.7 ETH - the Nakamigos floor at time of the mint (and thus the cost of the mint)
- 15% - how much the Nakamigos floor is up since this major event (now 0.8 ETH)
- 1.42 ETH - the highest sale on "Fry Harvesters," the new name for the Gremplin collection, as the floor ran fast and hard following the mint out
- 0.749 ETH - the current floor of Fry Havesters (thus below the Nakamigos floor)
It was a tremendous arbitrage/scalp for anyone who executed the mint and sold their Fry Harvester in the first few hours.
And now with the floor below the Nakamigos floor, a holder who wants to hedge their bet with some related art has a chance to do so at a slight discount.
Why Does It Matter?
Let's start with Nakamigos and then move on to the broader impact.
The Nakamigos collection and community just closed an epic 7-day stretch.
In that time:
- Beeple memorialized Nakamigos in an Everyday and promised a Chapter 2 at 1 ETH floor (though he's already included them again)
- 10KTF highlighted the Nakamigos in a "Wanted" poster from their main Twitter account
- Now Gremplin cemented the Nakamigos in art history by including them in his burn-to-redeem first-of-its-kind mint
That's 3 major artists/teams using Nakamigos in their work in 1 week. And the collection is just 18 days old.
Nakamigos are becoming culturally significant in the NFT space through all of this, and are seemingly moving past the "it's just a fad" stretch.
The market is backing this up, with the Nakas sitting at ATH this morning after a weekend of lower volume.
What about the broader market?
While it was Manifold that created the functionality, it was Gremplin who opened the door that might not be able to be closed.
Per Manifold's "Burn Redeem" update:
"Creators can now use any NFT as a burnable token for their artwork, and also change the burnable token for a given redemption at any time."
There are a lot of potential use cases here, including:
- Artists can "clean up" their history, burning old collections they perhaps don't like or want to get on to new contracts (perhaps for royalty enforcement)
- Project teams can "burn to expand," doing one-for-one replacement with new collections vs dilution via airdrop
- New PFP collections could require the burning of other PFPs for minting (i.e. PFP burn wars)
This last use case is the most nefarious and the most interesting.
New Nakamigos derivatives (or any derivative) could require the burning of rival derivatives for minting (providing more relevancy).
Cool Cats could do battle with the Gutter Cat Gang in an H2H burn event, with Cool Pets and Gutter Clones as the stakes.
In fact, GFunk, founder and CEO of Pixel Vault, has already tweeted out a challenge for any collection to go H2H versus PV in a burn battle.
Given the broad over-supply of PFPs in this market, given the number of active participants, this new burn feature could catch some real steam and attention.
One thing is certain - we have not seen the last of the burn-to-redeem feature.
Which major collection will be the first to officially engage in a burn battle?
We will be watching.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of the headlines from a slow weekend in NFTs:
- Trading volume came in at 16.5k ETH on Sunday, with OS Pro seeing 1,206 ETH (7.3% share); Blur holds 63% share
- 33 CryptoPunks were sold in 1 transaction overnight, though the floor is down just 2% so far to 56.5 ETH
- The Otherside completed its Winged Helmet airdrop on Friday, with the floor dipping to the 0.3 ETH area before rebounding over the weekend to 0.65 ETH
- Azuki "grail" sales poured in over the weekend, with top sales including a 200 ETH double gold skateboard sale, a 160 ETH "devil," and a 165.5 ETH sale for a triple water
- XCOPY's "The Burning" sold for 242 ETH on Saturday
- Checks briefly surged 50% on Saturday after Seedphrase tweeted out "Black Check," though they have since retraced (now 0.43 ETH)
- Magic Eden debuted its Bitcoin Launchpad, allowing creators the functionality to launch Ordinals directly through their platform
- Knights of Degen launched their staking function on Friday
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- The crypto market was even over the weekend; BTC +1.4% $28,330; ETH +1.1% at $1,860; APE 0.6% to $4.20
- SushiSwap suffered an exploit resulting in the loss of $3.3M from at least one user, with those who interacted within the last four days potentially impacted and told to revoke permissions; the exploit was tied to an approve-related bug on the RouterProcessor2 contract
🚀 NFT Total Volume
- Wrapped CryptoPunks (5,439 ETH, 56.5 ETH Floor)
- Azuki (2,004 ETH; 14.35 ETH)
- BAYC (1,356 ETH, 59.2 ETH)
- MAYC (946 ETH, 13 ETH)
- Nakamigos (858 ETH, 0.8 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
- Admit One (57%, 3.29 ETH Floor)
- Kubz (25%, 1.36 ETH)
- Ordinal Kubz (17%, 0.3 ETH)
- 0n1 Force (22%, 0.84 ETH)
- Delabs Pass (15%, 0.13 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Slow day of new drops today with just 2 on the list.
The main event here would be the Art Blocks mint coming at 1 pm, with a 200 supply and fixed 0.15 ETH mint.
Given recent liquidity woes with Art Blocks, this is no guarantee to mint out, but if it does sell out then it certainly becomes one to watch on the secondary.
- HeeDong (9:00 a.m. ET); 0.05 ETH
- Art Blocks Presents: ilumz by Wolffia Inc. & Motus Art (1:00 p.m. ET); 0.15 ETH
- DraftKings UFC Reignmakers - Craft & Burn Portal Opens (TBD)
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.
