Weekly NFT Report

6 min readApr 6, 2022

2022–04–06

Summary

Better consolidation of crypto markets for the last few days — overall, market still seems focused on macro backdrop, including geopolitical conflict in Russia/Ukraine and inflation. BTC trading above support of $45k, but has taken a halt, and looks like new catalysts are required outside of LFG’s BTC purchase… Funding remains pretty neutral (BTC 1.2%, ETH 3.5%), but alts’ funding market is bid (SOL 8.2%, NEAR +26%), perhaps reflecting overall bullish view in crypto. Heading into Ethereum merge, we do think that ETH will outperform BTC.

Outperformers in the Top 100 are: SOL (+22%), LUNA (+19%), DOGE (+18%), NEAR (+30%), AAVE (+34%), CAKE (+20%), XEC (+22%), FXS (+56%), CELO (+36%), ZIL (+29%), MINA (+26%)
Underperformers in the Top 100 are: FTT (-5%), ALGO (-7%), AXS (-8%), APE (-16%), WAVES (-34%), ZEC (-13%)

In the NFT space, OpenSea volume (Chart 1,2) and transaction count (Chart 3) are firm, with good bounce. Despite the bounce in NFT interest, NFT prices are mixed (Chart 4,5,6 — blue-chip NFTs are trading rather weak, with the exception of BAYC. However, Azuki continues to assert control over the market following highly anticipated March 30th Garden Party. Two mysterious crates appeared next to each Azuki; initially called “Something”, the crates morphed into BEANZ. Floor prices of Azuki and BEANZ trading strong.

Next up: deep dive

UK Government to mint NFT (…)

Why: UK revealed ambitions to lead the way in crypto by being a global hub for crypto technology and investments. As part of the plan, Chancellor Rishi Sunak asked Royal Mint to create an NFT to be issued by the summer to commemorate its approach towards crypto assets.

Sneakpeak: nftperp

What’s nftperp: a perpetual futures DEX for NFTs; the protocol seeks to solve 2 problems: 1. There is no way to short NFTs at the moment, 2. Blue-chip NFTs are often too expensive for retail community to get involved via a perpetual futures exchange for NFTs that tracks the floor price of NFT collections. The floor price feed will come from Upshot.xyz with Chainlink integration to calculate regular funding payments.

Pudgy Penguins Sold to Netz Capital for $2.5M

What is Pudgy Penguin: collection of cute 8,888 penguin Ethereum NFTs. The sale changed ownership of the project, including its operations as well as future royalties from secondary sales. The sale comes just a few months after the project voted out its founder Cole Villemain in January.
Why it matters: rise of M&A activities in Web3 space, including NFTs! Yuga Labs made headlines few weeks ago when it purchased rights to CryptoPunks and Meebits, and we noted that such acquisition activities might pick up going forward.

OpenSea to launch on Solana in April

What’s the launch: this will be OpenSea’s 4th network after Ethereum, Polygon and Klatyn(?!). Solana’s biggest marketplaces are currently Magic Eden and Solanart. Aside from the Solana launch, OpenSea also rolled out direct card payments on its platform through MoonPay, simplifying the process of acquiring an NFT for those who don’t own crypto. Users are now able to pay directly via Web2 payment service providers, such as Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, AMEX, to purchase NFTs, thus making it easier for non-crypto natives to purchase NFTs.

$LOOKS Compounder Goes Live

How it works: $LOOKS compounder harvests $WETH rewards, buys $LOOKS, and re-stakes $LOOKS, saving users gas and trading fees. FYR, APR of $LOOKS = 137%, APY of $LOOKS = 243%

Following: New Launches

Akuma

What’s the collection: Azuki-inspired Yokai NFT collection
Details: 1.3e floor | 5,555 supply | 0.055e mint | minted 3/31/2022

Gh0stly Gh0sts

What’s the collection: the first Layer Zero NFT, which enables the NFT collection to exist in their truest form on any compatible blockchain. The launch spawned ‘omnichain’ clones.
Details: 0.69e mint | 7,710 supply | minted on 4/3/2022

froyoverse

What’s the collection: froyo-cats by JessieMorii, chief fro-yo maker and creative lead at Crabada
Details: 0.1e mint | 10,000 supply | minting on 4/8/2022

Ledger launches Ledger Nano S Plus — a hardware wallet with enhanced NFT support

What’s the NFT support: users have to clearly sign via the company’s web app when signing transactions such that users are aware of the nature of transactions they are executing

Following: Big Money Raises, and Entrants

Fractal raises $35M; fundraising was led by Paradigm and Multicoin Capital, with participation from a16z, Solana Ventures, Animoca, Do Kwon, etc.

What is Fractal: gaming-focused NFT marketplace, founded by Twitch cofounder Justin Kan. Fractal recently released Fractal Launchpad, which helps gaming companies sell their initial NFT collections to the public. For thesis on Fractal, Multicoin Capital wrote a nice thesis on it.

Polemos raises $14M in seed round, led by Framework Ventures and Delphi Digital

What is Polemos: a GameFi platform and P2E guild; the fundraising led the DAO’s post-money valuation to $100M, and the capital will be used towards staff expansion, gaming investments and tech developments

FTX in talks to invest in Indian gaming startup MPL

What is MPL: Mobile Premier League (MPL) operates more than 60 mobile games, and boasts 5 million monthly active users, with monthly average revenue per user of ~$5. It is now reportedly planning to launch P2E and NFT-based games later this year. It previously raised Series E at $2.5bn valuation

Blockchain soccer game GOALS scores $15m seed funding

What is GOALS: a Swedish gaming startup developing an eponymous online multiplayer game that has play-to-own mechanism for in-game assets such as players, clubs, and skins, making it direct competitor to FIFA

Solana-based Hivemapper raises $18m in Series A led by Multicoin Capital, and participation from Solana Ventures, Craft Ventures, etc.

What is Hivemapper: decentralized mapping service that uses dashboard-mounted camers on contributrs’ cars and incentivizes users to drive around and record their surroundings, built on the Solana blockchain. Users are rewarded with $HONEY crypto tokens for their automatic contributions to the overall map