How Many MAYC Does It Take To...

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 and happy Tuesday. It’s official, the NFT bottom is in! Ok, not official but I think most are starting to feel this way, including myself who has been ranting about this for a month now. Overall, things look better than decent and if you were buying the blood when “NFTs were dead” then you are sitting pretty right now. As we know, crypto is a game of rotations, and ideally you rotated correctly from your mooning Chat GPT coin into cute penguin pictures. All in all, various discords I’m in have faces popping up here and there asking if “NFTs are back”. While it’s too early to call bull market, I’m a strong believer that $PEPE and shitcoin szn was in fact QE for Jpeg Summer (h/t snorlax).

Will things be insane like they used to be? Probably not – but when “Bitcoin Miladys” are doing a 3x post-mint it’s time to pay attention. To summarize this feeling, the last month has been full of waking up and scrolling CT for 20 minutes before getting out of bed. Certainly a different feeling than the slowdown we experience post Luna collapse and June of 2022.

Overall the market has been holding up. Narrative wise, Cool Cats, Doodles, and Moonbirds have been forgotten while Clone X seems to be making somewhat of a comeback. Nonetheless this void has been filled by Penguins, Captainz, and Miladys. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for some time, you’re not surprised. Other notable projects replacing the darlings of 2022 include DeGods and 0N1 Force (which I definitely did not see coming). Azuki is a solid #2 right now as well.

All of these collections seem to be poised to capture the hive mind over the next month or so. Add in that Yuga is struggling (seriously has been down-only for 18 months now), MAYC PFPs down tremendously in every aspect of life, and HV-MTL art reveal being underwhelming, there’s gaps for something new to breakthrough and attempt to occupy the throne. Mainly, I feel strongly that by EOY (probably more likely end of summer) Penguins, Captainz, and maybe even Miladys will all be on par with MAYC (probably around the ~8 ETH range – NFA, ever). Yuga still has a ton of cult like followers with diamond hands so if I end up being wrong here then it’s because their psychosis managed to outlast my conviction.

Moving on, If you want more proof that NFTs are “not dead” check out the results from the most recent Sothebys auction. Multiple Fidenza’s selling for 1 million USD. Not bad!

While most of us aren’t buying a Fidenza anytime soon, all of this is useful toward bolstering our narrative’s and legitimization this industry. Or in other words – brining retail back so the same 72 of us aren’t dumping on each other.

One of the main issues we’re facing heading into a new era of heightened intrigue, is lack of participants and lack of new [read: new and also good] projects. New entrants (or retail) who are bag holding from last cycle aren’t coming in and dropping a few thousand dollars on pictures just yet. Until we see an influx of new mints flowing in, it’s going to be the same rotations we’ve all come to know and hate. Now that the ETH from Moonbirds, Clones, Doodles, and Cool Cats has seemingly has been dispersed to other collections, there’s really only Yuga left.

Ordinals seem to be beginning to pop off as well, with Bitcoin Frogs leading the charge. To reiterate, the fact that a Milady derivative called “Bitcoin Miladys” minted out in a few hours on ETH and did a 3x atop the core bull case of “they will be inscribed to Bitcoin” is kind of ridiculous (in a good way if you’re into Ordinals). I’ve been lacking here with my BRC-20 knowledge but plan on diving in this week. I’m sure I’ll get front-ran and dumped on in the beginning but that’s how these things usually work.

Outside of this, it looks like we’re going to be getting new Blend announcements this week. While the pumps are underwhelming, it has been working out (for me) to sell these pumps and re-buy the dumps. The “announcement” pumps can be short-lived though, as we saw with Remilio, while on the other hand Pandas are continuing to go up (could also be post Miami hype). Blend is cool, but similar to bid farming on Blur, I think 9/10 users are going to lose their money. It’s good to take advantage of this and dump into pumps, especially, may I remind you, since somebody is literally financing a picture with 0 value.

Lastly, unless you live under a bridge you most likely saw the Pudgy Penguin toy announcement this week. If you haven’t, I’d suggest you spend some time watching the Youtube video in the link below:

I am a speculator. At the end of the day, NFTs are extremely risky and all we can do is “speculate” on them, not invest. However, I’ve been a long time bull on Penguins and have strapped in for the ups and downs. I have hit long-term capital gains on my favorite Penguin PFP and I really do think (have thought) that Penguins will be the face of NFTs. I’m aware the timeline is euphoric and I’d be lying if I said there would not be pullbacks. That being said, after the culmination of events this week, not only am I more bullish on the penguins than ever before, but I am also am aligned with Luca’s vision that this will be what brings new participants to this industry going forward. Trading wise, Lil Pudgys have alway been my favorite “Low risk, medium reward” trade if you have a little patience, and these were an easy 2x from my article in late April. Things aren’t linear and anyone calling for 10e tomorrow is euphoric or over-exposed, but as I mentioned, I think we’ll see a lot of Yuga holders dumping for Penguins in the near future. I was called crazy when saying this in November 2022, but Moonbird Influencers who FUDed penguins at the pico bottom are now buying the top and writing threads. Feels pretty good, ngl.

I also feel pretty good myself. We’ve been cooking in the discord recently and more importantly having “fun” again. It’s funny how the “we’re so back” times come right after “it’s so over” and everyone leaves before realizing that yes, in fact, we are actually back. For the 8th time, I’m not saying NFTs pump ASAP, but I do feel we’re on an upward trajectory for the next 3-6 weeks, and there will be a ton of 2x+ plays that will look obvious in hindsight.

Just don’t overthink it.

Cheers,
Wilson