For the Love of the Game

(Market Commentary)

Markets up, down, sideways, to be honest these things don’t matter to me as much as one might think. As an NFT Analyst, who has been a student of Web3 for years, I’m fascinated by the tech and the cultural movement that blockchain and NFTs have ushered in. Milestone moments matter so much more to me. 

Over the past few days, I heard a familiar sound of BRRRRRR, signalling massive action somewhere in the NFT markets. This time it wasn’t Blur wash trades. (I promise that will be the only mention of Blur today). Instead, a new NFT from an industry titan caught my attention and the attention of hundreds of thousands of traders who brought us a new type of all-time high.

To be specific, on Feb 26, the number of unique buyers on the Ethereum blockchain hit an all-time high with 142,432 wallets buying NFTs. This may be a sign of incoming organic growth, but I want to emphasise “MAY BE”. You’ll see why in just a moment.

NFT Global Sales Volume – Source

Etherem Sales Volume (February 2023) – Source

Last week Coinbase announced that they are launching a new Layer 2 blockchain called Base. Along with it, the world’s second-largest CEX (Centralised Exchange) also released a free NFT called Based, Introduced as an open edition for anyone to claim. Initially just a ticket stub to collect to say “I was here”, a double take showed me that the collection’s artwork also updates daily to display a living piece of art that represents Base’s story of building. 

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It’s a joy to see builders and artists playing with the tech, so I’m excited to follow along and see what more this collection could evolve into. 

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Some thoughts about growth. The great Mark Cuban once said “Supply and Demand are undefeated” so without an influx of new NFT collectors, demand for NFTs will remain stagnant. 

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Did Base bring in new NFT collectors, or is this simply the same core group of traders who have created new wallets to skirt the “1 per wallet” claim rule for Base? 

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Watch closely for the next few months to see if organic volume increases across the NFT market. It’s possible that Coinbase will finally fulfill the prophecy that they would be a catalyst for mass NFT adoption, as was foretold about the growth we would see from the launch of their NFT marketplace (That clearly never happened).

Without innovation and new advancements in Web3 tech, we’ll see the current NFT casino continue, where traders cycle into the new hot projects, extract liquidity and put it right back into the slot machine of the next hot NFT project. Let’s just not call that type of action in NFTs “growth”. 

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Have a great weekend Slam Fam and MEGA GMs

— Yehudah Petscher

News Headlines

The Unity game engine adds support for MetaMask wallet integration into games
 

Gaming levels up on Magic Eden with free NFTs for Web3 games

Bitcoin Punks NFTs drawing eyes to Ordinals NFTs with volume

Binance releases its own AI generator to users to create NFTs

Ex Moonbirds co-founder and Daily Dose host Ryan Carson says goodbye to Web3

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