Underexposed

(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 kings, queens and fellow pixelated animals. I’m currently violently hungover from our Mint Media happy hour where I downed far too many IPAs. Dom flaked on me but it was a good and humbling reminder that I’m just a guppy in this endless ocean of crypto.

Admin reveal:

Anyway, with crypto proceeding to enter hockey stick mode and incessant bullposting on my timeline, it’s going to be very interesting to see what this means for NFTs across chains and especially AVAX.

Let’s dive into the last week of AVAX action.

Market Update

On a week-over-week basis, combined volume is down ~42% vs. last week. Joepegs is down less, but still about -32% versus last week. Given crypto’s volatility, I’m not entirely surprised this is the case.

I don’t know if this math exactly works out, but I generally agree with the premise. People like to chase coin pumps and rotate out of NFTs to do so. At the end of the day, it’s all about stacking coins so the best time to trade NFTs in general is during a time when shitcoin traders are getting chopped to oblivion.

Even with Avaissance upon us, I wonder if this will hold true over the next few months.

Doggerinos

Doggerinos revealed on Monday, showing off a number of cute doggos.

I aped into this pretty hard pre-reveal and pulled a missing fur boi, unfortunately didn’t snag a golden though. Both give you access to the GMDAO.

The PA played out pretty on-point for pre-reveal / post-reveal, running all the way up to 5 AVAX and have now settled around 2.5 AVAX (still above mint). Anyway - they’re cute, they’re run by Stupifff, Wrath and several others, and they’ll be growing up with a metadata refresh in the near future, which I think will be a strong catalyst for a move upwards. Keep an eye out.

Dapper Dinos

I gotta be honest, these are minting today yet have managed to fly under the radar (for me at least).

It looks like a similar game theory-type project to Plague Game, though the pot will be split between 125 winners out of 2000, whereas the pot for Plague Game was much larger for a much smaller group.

Here’s the write-up of what to expect:

Roughly 50% chance to win each round? I could get on-board with that. I’ve had better (and much worse) luck on Ferdy Flip. Might dabble here.

Musings and Intrusive Thoughts

After reflecting on the past week and a lower volume profile, it feels like we’re starting to re-enter this annoying holding pattern with AVAX NFTs.

For example, I didn’t cover Smol Joes, Peons or OOPAs in-depth today. As we know, the first two are coming out with various art reworks / project expansion plans “soon.”

Before I continue, I want to memorialize the fact that I bought a Smol Joe at the schmico top for 450 AVAX, with two selling for under 300 this week.

OOPAs is also going to introduce their raffle marketplace which might offer new traits for existing OOPAs. I envision these changes coming within the next 4-6 weeks. Meanwhile, OOPAs have grinded down from an 8 to a 5 AVAX floor.

What does that tell me? We may be entering a downswing for AVAX NFTs in the near-term. To me, a month in NFTs is literally several years - it’s a long time to wait for anticipated updates. For the record, this is totally fine.

However, I think NFTs on AVAX are prone to losing a lot of momentum because of this. Let me explain.

Let’s use the analogy of the market being a ball of energy. On ETH, this ball is constantly bouncing around and rotating to the next big thing. This works well because there are a plethora of unique wallets looking to provide liquidity because there is always something going on, whether it’s a new mint or an existing “blue chip” project. Putting it plainly, there is always at least something that commands the attention of a sizable amount of users.

On AVAX, I’ve found that this is historically not the case. Since the NFT ecosystem is so much smaller, these hype cycles become incredibly concentrated and focused on only a few collections where updates or new mints are imminent. When we have lulls in project updates or new mints that get people excited, the result is that our ball of energy has nowhere to go because of the lack of catalysts to drive liquidity elsewhere and fizzles out for a while.

All that being said - did you read the title? You are in fact underexposed.

To me, it’s all about getting out in front of that ball of energy when it comes around next time. And trust me, it WILL come around again when things start to heat up for Joe Studios and other projects like OOPAs and Chad Doge. When thing start to look limp, that’s a great time to swoop in and position yourself well for the next go-around.

I have an accumulation strategy going into the Smol Joe Expansion which I won’t publish here, but you know where to find me. They don’t care now, but they will soon. Very soon.

One last thing to address before we wrap up. Leo put out this poll which was borderline offensive to me.

The answer is not here - it is clearly Mint Media. Shame on you Leo when you are active in our discord every day.

In all seriousness, I’ve belonged to almost all of these chats at one point or another. If we’re talking about “alpha” inside of project-specific discord channels, I think that actually means pumping $MYBAGS.

While I’m obviously biased, the best thing I like about Mint Media’s discord is that we’re both project AND chain-agnostic. We started out with a purely ETH focus but have since expanded pretty rapidly to discuss AVAX NFTs. Not being housed within a project’s discord allows us to facilitate both highly rational and degenerate discussions regarding NFT projects.

Hit me up if you want in.

Conclusion

Bit of a lighter read this week as I know most of you actually can’t read, so hopefully I’ve alleviated some stress on this fine Thursday. If you’re in NYC, let me know and I’ll buy you a drink if I don’t Ferdy Flip it all away.

Enjoy the weekend.

Cheers,
Chuck