Return of the NFTs?

The vibes are back and so are non-fungible tokens (NFTs). That’s right, while we’ve been speculating that NFTs feel like they may have turned a corner, now the numbers confirm it. Last month’s total NFT transactions and unique sellers reflect that we had our highest month of NFT transactions in well over one year, with nearly 9 million unique transactions in May. Only January and February 2022 were higher with 11.2 million and 10.3 million transactions.

Before we get too excited we need to understand that the NFT landscape is vastly different from last year. Today, we have projects like DMarket’s gaming skins on Mythos Chain, which did over 2 million transactions in the past 30 days alone. Still, growth isn’t measured in just sales, and the May turnaround just might indicate that mass adoption is happening right under our noses.

Speaking of growth, it’s happening in every corner of NFTs. From Bitcoin to art, and even a new reputation ranking system driven by crypto, Web3 is evolving at a blistering pace.  

Remember, if you build it, they will come. So let’s get into what is being built in NFTs.
 

Noteworthy Happenings

Nike and EA Sports are teaming up in a new partnership, and NFTs are acting as their handshake. Nike’s newly launched Polygon-backed. Swoosh platform, home of their virtual wearables, recently made news when they sold over US$1 million worth of digital shoes. Their new partnership with EA will bring select virtual shoes to future EA Sports games, where players can equip their shoes to use in-game.

While the news is not market-impacting yet, it is another indicator that NFTs are growing and highlights why traders are so bullish on the Polygon blockchain and the class of NFTs they attract. 

Bitcoin’s $OXBT is still hanging out at the top of the NFT Collection Rankings by Sales Volume leaderboard for the week, and at the same time leaving its mark on the NFT space. Orange PFPs are all over Twitter, and the space is buzzing from the potential of a growing Bitcoin ecosystem that revolves around the new payment token. The creator of $OXBT, BitGod, has teased the first project building off of the new BRC-20 token called O.R.D, and while not directly connected to the $OXBT team, shows how an ecosystem can bloom once a seed is planted.

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For all those asking:

O.R.D. is not our discord server, but they are the first to be building atop $OXBT 🫡 pic.twitter.com/WtASNzs38s

— BitGod (@BitGod21) June 1, 2023

Opepen by Jack Butcher (and a growing stable of artists) continues to pick up traction as people unravel the next-level mechanics of the PFP collection. The project is impossible to explain in just a few sentences but that my friends is exactly why it keeps picking up steam. Stick a CryptoPunk, Pepe, and incredibly well-thought-out traits and game theory in a blender and you have a basic understanding of what Opepen is. As collectors unravel the project’s mechanics, they can barely resist taking take a position in an ecosystem that feels it came from the distant future of art collecting. I think you’ll be hearing about this project for a long time to come.

While not yet in the seven-day top 10, a new project called The Grapes has done what few new projects have been able to do in months; sell out and then command a 10x floor price. The Grapes minted on OpenSea on May 30 for just over .03 ETH (US$56.73), and at the time of this writing have a floor price of over 0.3 ETH. The project is talking about upcoming plans to partner with Fortnite, though likely by creating assets in Fortnite Creative 2.0 instead of a true partnership. Regardless, it’s fun to see that NFTs have captured collectors’ attention again, and even if only fleeting, have brought back the vibes.

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🍇 Grapes x Fortnite 🎮

Holders share in the commercial success with GrapeCoin

Gamers, are you ready? pic.twitter.com/fLxTvr4RMA

— The GRAPES (@JoinGrapes) June 1, 2023

Nakamigos has had an impressive resurgence, thanks to a shopping spree by ben.eth, the creator of the $BEN and $PSYOP tokens. Ben currently holds over 500 Nakamigos, which is more than 2.5% of the massive 20k collection. In the short term, he helped rocket the floor price up to over .7 ETH, but the collection has since come down to under .4 ETH. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but their community is strong, and the attention economy rules everything at the moment. 

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ATTENTION ECONOMY CHECKLIST:

Buy $BEN Coin? ✅

Buy the $PSYOP presale? ✅

Buy the $LOYAL presale? ✅

Buy a @Nakamigos NFT? ✅

Let the $PSYOP devs cook ✅

What am I missing @eth_ben?

— CryptoKip (@CryptoKipTweets) June 1, 2023

The NFT community was gut-punched this week when an artist named hopeexist rugged her fundraising project, Pixel Penguins. Hopeexist was supposedly raising funds for cancer treatments and was somehow able to convince the highly reputable Andrew Wang to promote her cause. After reeling over 200 ETH worth of NFTs sales, hopeexist deactivated their Twitter account leaving the NFT space reeling and questioning how we keep falling for this. 

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In the aftermath of the rug pull, many are wondering just how low web3 can sink.https://t.co/23o58CTwpL

— nft now (@nftnow) June 2, 2023

NFT art platform Superare is launching a controversial new social reputation system that lets $RARE holders stake their platform tokens to pools that are tied to anonymous wallets for each artist/creator. In theory and over time, this will help artists build a reputation based on their work without any other factors. Anonymity is important to many, and even if this isn’t the final solution, it’s a major step toward finding that solution.

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You can think of Rarity Pools as a decentralized reputation system. A Rarity Pool is a smart contract in which a $RARE holder locks up tokens to signal support for another ecosystem participant – conferring off-chain reputation to an on-chain entity.

— SuperRare John 💎 (@SuperRareJohn) May 31, 2023

Peep the charts

There’s lots of green to be seen on the seven-day NFT collection rankings by Sales Volume. A Bitcoin project is still king, but the reigning king of NFTs, BAYC, has had some significant sales this week, as some collectors are securing grails ahead of a possible entry by Chinese collectors.

BAYC, MAYC, Azuki, Opepen, The Captainz, and Nakamigos are showing us that the demand for PFPs is still strong, as they represent Ethereum’s stake in the top 10.

DMarket and Gods Unchained represent NFT gaming and occupy the middle of the chart.
 

The blockchains by NFT sales volume rankings show the battle for the third spot still raging on, with Solana holding it down at almost US$10 million in sales volume. Ethereum and Bitcoin are still top dogs, and nobody is expecting that to change anytime soon.