Feeling Pretty Good

(Any views expressed in the below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions.)

Gm all. After fading generational wealth on checks I have still managed to have myself a nice and relaxing week yet again. As mentioned last week I’ve been a bit less focused on trading over the last week or two and am doing my best to stay refreshed. Probably a lighter newsletter here before gearing up for what I feel will be quite the eventful February. I still tend to lean cautiously optimistic for these upcoming weeks and believe opportunities will be fruitful. Let’s dive in.

Market Update

Twitter and discord has been popping off the last few weeks. I tend to think this is due to the overall crypto market clawing back from the depths of hell and general sentiment being that we’ve “bottomed” when it comes to fungible coins. Despite this positivity and activity, NFT trading volume has been trending slightly down for the 4th week. Keyword 'slightly' – we’re still relatively elevated going back to October 2022. I see this as consolidation before a big move in the coming weeks, primarily with respect to volume, not so much with respect to price (read: lots of volatility).

2023 has been dominated so far by the Open Edition (OE) Meta. Many of us, including myself, have faded generational wealth on Opepens and Checks and I’m still surprised by the fact that these have really taken off. It’s quite the spectacle to see the volume and interest on these OE’s and watch many of these artists rake in 100k+ in a matter of minutes at this point. Philosophy wise, I’m all for artists making a nice living, don’t get me wrong. However, like all good things, this meta is causing more cash grabs and grifts to appear out of the blue giving me the hunch that we’re nearing the end of this meta soon. When I do manage to figure out what the next 3 week narrative in this space is (yes, we all have goldfish brains), I will share that via twitter or in this newsletter. Until I figure this out, I’ll focus on what exactly I do know comes next. There are 3 major catalysts on the horizon (and the below is inspired by my friend BowTiedGolem and his response to a great thread by Seb. Give them both a follow):

Let's elaborate on this a bit more.

1. Digi Dragons / Super Bowl commercial: I’m quite excited for this as I am a huge Gabriel Leydon fan. Highly recommend the podcast below as I think he has one of the most unique perspectives in the space and I would not bet against this man. Gabe and his team at Limit Break have a live NFT mint during the Super Bowl. This will be interesting to see your normie friends react when they’re watching a game that is the polar opposite of sitting behind your laptop trading pictures. Good or bad this will bring a ton of attention to NFTs and I’m sure we’ll see the talking heads on CNBC seething over “worthless $20K pictures” for the upcoming week. All publicity is good publicity.

2. Yuga Labs and the Sewer Pass Competition are coming to a close. This will be new mint and as we know, every single Yuga new mint is a spectacle. This is without a doubt going to drive insane volume, more than Sewer Passes and Captainz in my opinion. As we saw with the craziness of the 1st week of sewer passes, I believe this will be that on steroids. Interestingly enough, I think this liquidity will pour into projects outside of Yuga (saw this with Sewer Passes already) instead of liquidity from other projects pouring into Yuga (like Otherside).

3. Blur Airdrop: Blur was nice enough to give everyone free money on Valentine's day, since they know most of us will be alone, inside, and staring at pictures of animals rather than finding love. I have discussed this a lot, but I have no idea what the mechanics are going to be, since the general consensus is that everyone will dump the token immediately. Because of how impressed I have been with Blur’s platform, I am assuming they are some smart folks with a few tricks up their sleeve. What’s a good airdrop without some ponzinomics and compelling reasons to hold the token, right? While I’m expecting nothing and Blur bidding has already died down compared to January, in the surprise case we get a nice stimmy check, prices will in turn go up.

All in all, we’re gearing up for a ton of exciting news and I assume the market will look much different a week from today. A tale as old as time.

Blue Chips

Big week for the Blue Chip PFPs (10K). Prices below are from Tuesday Feb 7th, early in the morning EST.

Here are MY thoughts:

1. Everyone who told you Monkey pictures at 100k are dumb, are in fact, the dumb ones.

2. Punks are a stable coin but can't gain a leg on the Monkey's.

3. Ugly Monkey pictures are now 1/5 of regular Monkey pictures.

4. Azuki is the clear #1 PFP outside of Yuga.

5. Proof FUD continues to seep into Moonbirds community, a relentless slow bleed.

6. Penguins won't spend more than 24 hours under 5 ETH.

7. Doodles holders, especially whales, are losing confidence in the team. Consolidating at 5 ETH for some time, gearing up for big move (unsure of direction).

Say what you want, but the Yuga team are truly the masters of creating hype and this is reflected in price. Azuki is still in a category of its own and doesn't seem to be slowing down. The Moonbird/Doodles/Clone X meta of 2022 is weakening week-by-week. There is a ton of conflict around whether to buy these while down-bad, or will they just keep bleeding? The general consensus is that everyone wants to bet on Luca but believe Penguins pumped too quickly and are waiting for a dip. That dip was the 2-3 times Penguins went under 5 ETH in the last 6 weeks, and this won't happen again.Musings

I’ve been holding my *longer-term* bags since November and have freed up some ETH for some new mints as well as some degen plays

I’ve been holding my *longer-term* bags since November and have freed up some ETH for some new mints as well as some degen plays. The OE edition meta has dominated the last month, with the attraction of turning 1 ETH into 20 ETH+ if only you minted the right picture. I think this is ending, but I’ve freed up some ETH because I think 1 ETH can turn to 10 quite seamlessly if put in the right places over the next few weeks. This is what’s so alluring about NFTs, a free mint with gas that costs $7 can turn into $1000+ in a matter of a week. It is truly the world's greatest casino.

I also believe we’ll see some *decent* new mints that will provide some flipping opportunities in the coming weeks as “moonboy” sentiment has returned, mainly due to the OE meta. If you’re like me and experimenting in CANTO NFTs, I think this is a solid place to be. The hard part about CANTO NFTs is that you can hit a 4-5x in a matter of minutes since there’s barely any liquidity. In the same amount of time, these can go to 0 for the same reason. So if you’re a skilled rotatooooor, then it would certainly be wise to educate yourself in this realm.Lastly, outside of Sewer Pass, where the heck is all the web3 gaming? I feel like gaming was supposed to be the meta of 2023 and it's still yet to appear. I'm still on high alert for anything interesting, especially if it's not ponzi related, but I'm quite surprised with the lack of hype here so far (all things considered the hype in 2022). Maybe good things just take time.

Finally, as things heat up, it’s important to stay safe and vigilant. Would definitely recommend checking out the below and following TheChild. Twitter can be dangerous, and we’re seeing scams pop up left and right and of course, a wallet draining minting every other day. Use a burner and never click on suspicious links.

With that, I hope you all have a great week. It's time to prepare for battle. The sounds of normoids (shoutout to Che) returning soon to buy your bags are echoing in the distance. If this is the case, it would be wise to have them packed. Cheers,Wilson