NFTs Roar Back To Life🔥
Featuring Wemby's debut on Top Shot, the NHL trading feature, and UFC Series 2.
Well. All of them that aren’t sports related that is, lol.
For the last few weeks, crypto has been on fire as the rumors of a Blackrock ETH ETF approval has gained traction, with the confirmation of its filling coming late Thursday.
Blackrock is not the first to do this - many others have in the last few months, including Grayscale and VanEck. But Blackrock is the world’s largest asset manager (rather than just a crypto fund) and this move could easily lead many other non-crypto focused funds to apply for a similar feature.
Blackrock also submitted for a Bitcoin ETF last June, which may be approved in the coming months and actually go live.
TL;DR - the world’s biggest asset holding company will offer a publicly traded Ethereum ETF on the Nasdaq. The approval would likely come in mid 2024.
Naturally this has brought the NFT scene back to life, with a surge of liquidity entering the market across all major collections. Look at those 7 day charts!
This also spurred many whales to sweep floors, including a Bored Apes founder spending over $1.5M across the ecosystem in the wake of a victorious lawsuit.
NFTs are now back to trading volume scene well…just 3 months ago. But hey that’s still cause for optimism, as even just a bit of money coming back into the ecosystem is still better than no money coming back.
Yep, that little blip on the right of the second chart is current NFT volume, which resembles the volume from the summer of 2022 following the big crash (the low blue part of the chart).
In the sports world, this surge in liquidity hasn’t meant much though. Nothing is up.
It’s not for lack of interest; rather I think its for lack of succinct grails on either platform, or even a sweep-able floor. Platforms like Top Shot and Sorare don’t have clear market indicators other than volume, and that statistic for both hasn’t changed alongside the rest of NFTs. It’s just not a place the whales want to be at!
But that doesn’t mean our NFTs aren’t thriving. The last month has seen tons of actions across all platforms as sports entered their prime time season. These platforms continue to iterate, experiment, and spend their hard earned capital on app development and user growth. Hopefully they find that right formula by the time the real bull hits again!
Now onto the main stories of the week.
💥 Wemby Debuts on Top Shot
As of this writing, Victor Wembanyama’s debut moment is sitting at $290, with over 400 sales since its release this past Tuesday.
The other top rookies were also released, with Chet Holmgren a clear second at $94 and the rest of squad sitting below $36 (packs were $79).
The #1 serial (which is also his jersey number) was pulled from a pack bought off the marketplace on Wednesday. This is his most coveted single moment so far.
And as of Saturday night, there was a $6,000 offer on the #1 serial from Schmoe, who is the same dude that bought my HOLO S2 pack last year when I auctioned it for the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Pack Marketplace Reveal Feature
Just in time for the biggest drop of the year, Live Token released a Discord Bot Tool allowing users to see what was in the pack they sold on the marketplace.
And even before you ask, yes I did sell some packs on secondary and yes someone did pull a Wemby from one of them. Oops!
🏒 NHL Breakaway Launches Trading Feature
I’ve been praising Breakaway’s efforts this season, and one of the big reasons for that has been their gifting feature, where collectors can send each other NFTs as they please and at their own risk (very crypto, which is good!).
But this week they took that feature a step further and launched an official trading tool where you can make and accept specific trade offers.
According to a source, the feature generated over 500 trades in the first 24 hours and they are still flying!
🥊 UFC Strike Announces Series 2
Long overdue, UFC Strike has finally announced mild plans for the launch of Series 2, which will feature new pack designs, new rarity tiers, and 30x different “Emerald Key” NFTs that each unlock a 1/1 Moment and tickets to UFC 300.
The Series is being named “Fresh Faces” and will likely launch very soon, although no concrete plans for drops or dates have been released.
Update: They actually released a full blog on Friday afternoon, with a breakdown of the six (!!) rarity tiers in Series 2 and details on the content.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
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