For the Love of the Game

(Market Commentary)

Yet another week of NFT lows is in the books, and like each of the previous 6 weeks of declining sales, you’re not going to find many people who seem to be bothered by it.

It’s not that traders don’t want their NFT bags to the moon. There’s just a level of confidence that a big run is still coming, and in the meantime, fungible tokens are keeping people pretty busy.

Major celebrities dropping memecoins continues to be the biggest narrative in Web3 over the past week. Caitlyn Jenner launched a 2nd $Jenner token, this time on Ethereum, while Iggy Azalea released $Mother on Solana. We also saw Floyd Mayweather release a $Floyd token, Rich the Kid with $Rich, and quite a few others dipped their toes in as well. 

Source

The new Pump dot Fun platform on Solana has made creating tokens as easy as a few clicks and a few bucks, so expect celebs who are interested in a quick buck to keep coming to this platform.

All is quiet on the NFT side, except for top-tier ordinals collections who have bounced hard off of their recent bottoms. Bitcoin Puppets and Nodemonkes in particular saw .1 $BTC swings over the past week and gave us more evidence that the NFT run, whenever it comes, will be dynamic over on Bitcoin.

The broader NFT market found another 2024 low for NFT sales, and a fresh new 30-week low to boot. Last week we saw just $114.92M in sales, a -7.23% decline from the previous week, while sellers, buyers, and transactions saw even larger declines. Average sale price and trade profits are the two bright spots this week, with traders’ losses slowing down thanks to sale prices coming up.

We’re in the typical early summer slowdown, or still in the “sell in May and walk away” period. But with Ethereum ETFs trading soon, money pouring into Bitcoin, and TA showing that Bitcoin is looking to explode soon, the slowdown here in NFTs may still be short-lived.

Peep the charts

• Guild of Guardians Avatars has rocketed to the top of the Collection Rankings this week, as the Immutable Zk powerhouse game sales climbed 20.53% to $6.39M.

• DMarket saw sales fall -14.20% but still managed to lock up the #2 spot with their Counterstrike, DOTA, and RUST gaming assets. 

• NodeMonkes and Bitcoin Puppets both saw pretty significant sales and sweeps after falling to as low as .1 $BTC (Puppets), and .21 $BTC (NodeMonkes). Puppets now are hanging around a .2 $BTC floor while NodeMonkes are selling for .29 $BTC.

• Runestones cooked this week right along with their first airdropped rune, $DOG. $DOG has climbed to a nearly $1B market cap this morning, and traders are now scooping up Runestones to prepare for the 2nd rune airdrop. Whenever that is.

• Frucks were a new mint this week that saw its floor price rocket on secondary markets from .004 $BTC to over .024 $BTC. Bitcoin’s “NFT” ecosystem seems to be healthier than the rest, and it’s why many think the NFT bull market will revolve around this blockchain.

• Ethereum is the top blockchain by NFT sales volume again last week with $35.53M in sales, and buyers increasing by over 12%.

• Bitcoin had a slow start to its week, but a late-week surge in top ordinals collections brought Bitcoin neck and neck with Ethereum’s sales and with a lead in buyers (52k vs 40k).

• Solana saw $19.7M in NFT sales last week and was the only top 3 blockchain to see an increase in sales over the week. Buyers also saw a 31.65% increase, besting both Ethereum and Bitcoin.

• Polygon saw sales increase 7.54% this week, up to $15.65M, as L2s continue to thrive in this ever-expanding multi-chain ecosystem. 

Noteworthy Happenings

• Pudgy Penguins announced a partnership with Mythical Games and will be releasing a mobile game in 2025.

• Yuga Labs’ Super Punk World arrived in Nina Channel collectors’ wallets last week, and with it a glimpse at Yuga Labs’ royalty policy. Holders were shocked to learn that they could face legal consequences if they failed to pay the 6% royalties and then took to X to voice their growing frustration with Yuga Labs.

• Pixel Vault’s Reboot ecosystem is no longer moving to Xai on Arbitrum and is now rumored to be moving to Yuga Labs’ Apechain. 

• Rektguy NFT holders are now shareholders of Rekt Brands after a share claim opened up yesterday. It remains to be seen how much scrutiny this will receive from the SEC, but if they pull off this feat, expect to see plenty more NFT projects copying the move. 

NFT forecast

The NFT market continues to lose value, as floor prices in NFT collections just can’t seem to gain any traction in this low-volume market. The CryptoSlam 500 NFT Index reflects a -2.19% decline this week, and the only catalyst for change on the horizon is the new ATH in cryptos. That’s likely coming, so we’ll be watching to see if NFT listing prices are adjusted down to offset any value gained from the increase in crypto prices.

Be smart and keep your finger on the pulse of this market, by keeping your eyes on CryptoSlam and the indexes. You can stay plugged in by fixing your vision on our new daily Web3 live show called Chain Reactor.

Have a MEGA GM!

— Yehudah Petscher

News Headlines

• Optimism is dropping 600,000 $OP to creators and builders during Onchain Summer

• Dapper Labs reached a $4M settlement in their multi-year class action lawsuit from plaintiffs who claimed the collectible NFTs were securities.

• Galaxy and Yat Siu tokenize and collateralize an iconic violin for a $9M loan.

• The Phantom wallet has integrated Bitcoin, allowing Ordinals and Rune trading.  

• MoonPay is launching a new Web3 platform, with NFT services for major brands. 

Upcoming Drops

Vinnie Hager - Still Life
Date - June 4

Blockchain - Bitcoin

Price - .025 $BTC

Benne - Dance of LAVA
Date - June 4
Blockchain - Ethereum
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