NFT Brew #37

Your 10-minute overview of the NFT space as you enjoy a nice brew, sponsored by QUEEN ADA. To access the Premium Brew, become a CT793 member. Due to its length, the full version of the newsletter can only be read online.

News

Goombles Launches

Goombles is an upcoming mobile tower defense game and brand built on Cardano. Although not without a hitch, Goombles launched and successfully sold out their 5,000 NFT collection on Tuesday. The project, led by Farmer Nash, has generated a lot of excitement over the past few weeks and has traded for over ₳1M on the secondary market at the time of writing. Even JPG.store got in on the celebrations with a pfp change. They also announced a staking partnership with Derp Birds today (Friday).

The celebrations were temporarily overshadowed by minting issues, including some delays and duplicate issues. The Goombles team partnered with XCS Labs for the mint, and all issues were resolved in the end.

JPG Store Teases $JPG & Supports CIP-68

The largest Cardano NFT marketplaces teased what appears to be their utility token, $JPG. As far as we know, there has been no additional info on the utility or distribution of the token, causing widespread speculation within the community.

Although mostly positive, some community members have been more skeptical about their plans, going so far as to call them hypocrites.

JPG.store also announced support for the CIP-68 metadata standard, allowing NFT creators to take advantage of it moving forward. A bigger discussion regarding the benefits of CIP-68 and how standards are set within the Cardano community has been taking place over the past few weeks.

Clay Nation Partners with Sandbox

In an effort to push interoperability in Web3, Clay Nation has become the first major Cardano NFT project to be integrated into the Ethereum-based Sandbox metaverse. Sandbox is one of the largest decentralized virtual gaming worlds on any blockchain. This might be the largest cross-chain collaboration in the history of Cardano NFTs.

They also announced The Stand - a platform that will allow Pitch holders to create customizable virtual environments, such as commercial spaces.

The Ape Society Announces Citizenship

Cardano's largest NFT project released a teaser of their upcoming membership program, Citizenship. The announcement explains that NFTs will be used as identities and link to an NFT from any chain. More information will be released soon, according to the team.

It appears that this announcement caused some unhappiness within the Old Money camp, judging by Trixson's (co-founder) latest Tweet.

Cardano Whale Disappears

One of the largest and most beloved Cardano influencers and thought leaders, Cardano Whale, has left Twitter. With over 120k followers and fans, his presence will surely be missed by the community.

Marketplace Drama

JPG.store has enjoyed a nearly 99% market share in the Cardano NFT space for a while, but several projects are attempting to change that. Plutus.art recently launched their marketplace and introduced several new features, like their XP leaderboard. Plutus.art's co-founder, Fettuccine, has been a long-time critic of JPG.store's alleged anti-competitive approach (See JPG.store news section above).

Flipr, developed by the Ghost Chain team, is another upcoming marketplace that appears to be coming after JPG.store. Not only did they imply that JPG.store copied some of their design, but their Ghost Chain project description also caused some tension when JPG.store removed the underlined section below without the team's knowledge.

Nucast Film Festival

Nucast, Cardano's first video streaming platform developed by the Lovelace Club team, announced their upcoming Film Festival. This will be the first decentralized film festival on Cardano and possibly beyond, and it has generated a lot of excitement. The Nucast team partnered up with NMKR and was promoted by the Cardano Foundation in a recent Twitter Space. Read more about the Film Festival, including decentralized voting and prizes, here.

CNFT Tools Vault

CNFT Tools is one of the most popular Cardano NFT tool suites. They recently announced The Vault, an invitation NFT that grants access to an exclusive Discord community with exclusive analytics. The Vault was airdropped to select individuals and cannot be minted by the public.

They also announced an upcoming PFP collection, ToolHeads, set to mint in Q2 of this year. No further details have been announced by the team at this time.

Cardano DeFi Reaches New Heights

Cardano DeFi enthusiasts seem to remain optimistic despite current market conditions. This week, total value locked (TVL) reached new all-time-high levels for $ADA. TVL is a common metric for measuring the overall health of the blockchain's DeFi protocol. It essentially represents the liquidity, popularity, and usability of the DeFi protocol.

The Mallard Order Releases Bitcoin Ordinal NFTs

Bitcoin Ordinals have become incredibly popular since the Ordinals project was launched at the beginning of 2023. Ordinals are essentially Bitcoin NFTs, where its native satoshis (1 BTC = 100M satoshis) are inscribed with arbitrary content, including texts or JPGs. The Mallard Order becomes the first major Cardano NFT project to enter that space with their Soul Shards.

The Great Contingent Staking Debate

Since Charles' first video on Contingent Staking, the Cardano community has engaged in a heated debate on the subject, culminating in a Twitter space hosted by Bullish Dumpling and Rick McCracken. The space was professionally formatted as a proper debate, and a recording can be found in the Tweet link below.

Although the Twitter debate has been heated, causing anger and drama, many people celebrated the civil nature of the debate and Charles' willingness to listen to and debate with the Cardano community.

Eternl Reaches 100k Installs

Eternl is one of Cardano's most popular light wallets. Formerly known as CCVault, the company has led the way in mobile wallet integration and general dApp development.

Split World Abandons Ship

Split World was one of the most exciting projects when it minted 11 months ago. After recently launching their customization platform, they surprised the community by closing the project. This shocked and angered many fans and casual collectors and caused JPG.store to officially label them a "rugpull".

In the next couple of paragraphs, I will describe my personal thoughts on this, as it affects me directly. Please skip to the next section if you are not interested in that.

I was particularly sad to see this happen for a couple of reasons. First, they are only the second-ever project that appeared on my stream on-camera to pull the plug. My goal with streaming is to provide information for the community and put a face to project creators, increasing accountability and trust. I can never guarantee or take responsibility for the actions of my guests and always emphasize DYOR and NFA. I was genuinely excited about their project during our stream and was equally disappointed and surprised by their decision to end the project.

Second, the official cause of the rugpull (explained in their Discord server) was particularly sad. The founder mentioned his poor mental health as the primary reason for his inability to continue the project. Mental illness is a common issue in the space and needs to be openly discussed. Even though mental illness is not an excuse for letting others down, it is always sad to see community members struggle this way.

ADA Handle Emojis? 🤯

Although not officially supported by the $Handle team, several services have begun to support emoji handles by utilizing Punycode. Services leading Punycode support include Handle.tools, Plutus.art, JPG.store, and Hazelnet. This trend accelerated minting, and the team celebrated 200k Handles minted.

Other Cardano NFT Project Updates

Many prominent Cardano NFT projects announced exciting updates last week.

NMKR added fiat payments to their popular minting platform. Creators can now sell their NFTs for fiat currency.

Chilled Kongs are preparing for their Magic Shrooms drop, promising a launch on JPG.store on March 31st.

Stag Alliance, one of the largest upcoming Cardano NFT drops, announced its mint date last week. The mint will happen on March 22-23rd.

Her Monsters Gang recently announced that current holders of their OG Apartment NFTs will be able to nominate a friend for a WL spot in their upcoming main collection as of March 4th. Her Monsters has been building up to their main mint since mid-2022 and is one of the top projects minting this month.

Adanauts has rebranded to Clay Force. The project, created by @Brrrbon and minted in the summer of 2022, recently allowed holders to burn their Cardano NFTs and inscribe them on BTC as an Ordinal.

Danketsu released their 8-step $NINJAZ token plan and announced an exciting partnership with Yepple for their Danketsu launchpad mints.

Brave Dogs announced their Xperience pass mint, which will include various perks such as BraveLabs revenue share and BraveMint credits. The pass is essentially an upgrade from their Genesis Dog pass, giving more utility and exclusive perks.

Raccoon Syndicate is getting closer to launching its Leaderboard game. The game will utilize a unique Hold To Earn (H2E) model that doesn't require active playing time.

KWIC has released its Phase 2 Roadmap, including IRL events, the launch of the KWICverse, plans for CNFTcon 2023, and more.

Dead Rabbits Resurrection Society announced the date of their upcoming Weapons mint. As part of their Mole Wars Battle App vision, the Weapon NFTs will grant bonuses that will allow players to rack up more $DEAD and even earn the ability to equip your DRRS NFT with your weapon permanently. Read more about Weapons and Mole Wars in their whitepaper.

Goofy Gophers has opened up for wallet registration for their main sale. The project is unique as it grants membership to a mining operation and a share of its revenue.

Prime Kings is one of the most exciting upcoming projects minting on Cardano this month. They recently opened their doors to Discord and held a celebratory AMA hosted by yours truly. A recording of the space is available below, but the first 30 minutes consist of me asking the project founders some important questions.

Phoenix Arena released a fresh sneak peek at their upcoming play-to-earn game. The team will release a demo "soon," which has Cardano NFT gamers excited.

Book.io Releases App & Mints Mark Cuban's Work

Book.io, a leading marketplace for eBooks and audiobooks on Cardano, recently launched its Android app, promising an iOS app soon. They also teamed up with Mark Cuban on the 10th-anniversary edition of his "How to Win at the Sport of Business" book, which will soon be available on their platform.

Prismatics is a 3D fine-art project by the talented Alexia, also known for her work with Angel Baby Hit Squad. This week, her community has been excited about the prospects of finally selling out Season 2, with a rush of mints bringing the total to 94% minted of the 500-piece collection.

The Goat Tribe have been busy securing a partnership with Derp Birds, building the DNA Research Center, and most recently developing a staking platform with Anvil. Although their DNA Research Center mint has been delayed (initially planned for February 14th), they are getting to ready to launch staking at the time of this writing, which will offer their innovative "Franken Address" feature on Cardano. This will allow users to retain complete control over their assets while earning rewards.

Tavern Squad released a sneak peek of their upcoming Grand Chest feature, allowing players to earn rewards through various challenges and claim it all the following week.

Bajuzki Studios announced an NFT airdrop worth ₳5k to holders of its The Attack on Vitalik comic book 3rd issue. The airdrop will take place this Friday at 10 PM UTC.

Largest NFT Dump of All Time

One of the largest NFT whales on Ethereum liquidated most of his massive collection, a total of 1,010 NFTs, in 48 hours. Most of the NFTs belonged to top-tier collections, including BAYC, Azuki, and MAYC.

This is yet another sign of the growing fear, uncertainty, and doubt that has entered the crypto and NFT space lately.

NFT Trading Volume Reaches ATH Since Luna Crash

It's not all bad news for the NFT space, as the launch of the new popular NFT marketplace Blur pushed total NFT volume to $2 billion in February. This is the greatest volume since the crash of Terra/Luna in early 2022.

Brave Dogs Win Twitter

Goofy Crisp (see his interview in Issue 35 Premium Brew) regularly uses the Twitter API to see which project is most often mentioned on Twitter. According to the latest data, Brave Dogs have been the talk of the Twitter town lately, just edging Clay Nation and The Mallard Order.

Minting

These projects are personally curated by CardanoThor or other trusted NFT Vikings. However, this is not investment advice, and we always encourage you to do your own research. For CardanoThor's personal opinions and insights into how much he will mint, read the Premium Brew. *All times are shown in Eastern Time.

Current & Recent Mints

Helmies - Sold Out

Helmies was an art-focused community project collaboration between me (CardanoThor), Golden, and our communities. A huge thank you to all of those who minted, enjoyed, and supported the project in any way. All proceeds of this mint will go back to the two communities.

Goombles - Sold Out (See featured news section above)

METAHIVE - Sold Out

METAHIVE is building a platform for web3 creators, collaboration, and tools. Last week, they successfully sold out their OG 333 drop. The collection is especially popular among OREMOB fans, as it is encased by Ore Ore Ore.

We Are Boomers - Minting

We are Boomers (WAB) is an indie pfp collection made by the talented Pixelado. Pixelado is known for his Ash & Tray comic series, being a graphic designer at Planet Palz, and generally being a talented artist and good human. He is also a long-time Viking Squad member and included a Viking Boomer in this collection.

The WAB collection is hand-crafted (not generated) and full of humor, poking fun at the boomers who are stuck in the past. Mint your Boomer here.

Caricatures - Minting

This community-led project is minting 1k NFTs celebrating some of the most historic moments in Cardano's history. See my interview with co-founder Ken Adams here.

The Perfect NFT - Minting

This unique NFT project is not for the casual NFT degen. Brought to you by Wout (DendroRithms) and Monad Alexander (Unsigs), the minting process has several rounds. It introduces unique concepts to the space, including the ability for buyers to buy an NFT from buyers in previous rounds, thereby adding their fingerprint to it. The project is currently in round 7, where each NFT costs ₳512.

Ragnarök Reptiles - Minting

Ragnarök Reptiles is a Norse mythology-inspired pfp project, infused with sci-fi elements. It is currently minting its second season, Radioactive Reptiles.

Upcoming Mints

Zeitaku Dragonz

Zeitaku Dragonz is a utility-focused project led by Cryptoganzo. Their original 2,222 NFT Dragonz mint sold out months ago, but their upcoming Egg mint will have a supply of 4,444 NFTs.

Their main utility is a Forex arbitrage trading bot, and the team plans to use $400k generated by the mint to fund an account that will use such a bot to grow. It is still unclear what their reward distribution will look like, but tune into the Friday NFT Show tonight (Friday) at 8PM UTC for a possible conversation with the creators.

📆 Date: March 7th, 11AM💸 Price: ₳200📦 Supply: 4,444🐦 Twitter

BeezHive

BeezHive is a first-of-its-kind in the NFT space, offering NFT holders value in the form of honey. Their goal is to build over 1,000 beehives and distribute the proceeds to holders. This will be the first of many drops, with the ultimate goal of reaching 10,000 NFT supply as the project grows.

📆 Date: March 8th, 12PM💸 Price: $50(WL)/$60(Public)📦 Supply: 990🐦 Twitter

UltimateCNFT

Mr. Ultimate is a known Cardano NFT content creator and YouTuber. His upcoming Ultimate VIP Passes will give holders various benefits, including raffle access, alpha channels, WL spots, and more.

📆 Date: March 8th, 12PM💸 Price: ₳420📦 Supply: 777🐦 Twitter

Goofy Gophers Mining Club

Goofy Gophers is the first and only NFT project on Cardano that provides value through a mining operation. Their original mint was only 995 NFTs and sold out months ago. This upcoming main sale consists of 7,888 NFTs and will expand the mining operation significantly. If you are interested in crypto mining but not willing or able to set up your own operation, this is a great opportunity to get involved in a decentralized way.

📆 Date: - March 10th, 3PM- March 11th, 3PM💸 Price: $130📦 Supply: 7,888🐦 Twitter

Astro

Astro is a futuristic and alien-themed project that is attempting to deliver on all fronts: art quality, utility, and community. Their primary product/utility is Flux, a lending platform that will allow NFT holders to get instant loans using their NFTs as collateral.

📆 Date: March 9th, time TBD💸 Price: $61📦 Supply: 5,000🐦 Twitter

Cardano Art Collective Mega Drop

Cardano Art Collective is an initiative where Cardano NFT artists come together to create and mint digital art. This "Mega Drop" consists of 355 NFTs from 71 artists.

📆 Date: March 10th, 4PM💸 Price: ₳50📦 Supply: 355🐦 Twitter

Market Update

Cardano

As expected, the Cardano NFT market bounced back with the excitement that followed the Goombles mint. At the time of writing, Goombles accounted for 35% of the total volume, crossing the ₳1M mark approximately 24 hours after the mint.

Volume: ₳4.9M (+30%) NFTs Sold: 15,828

In general, the market is still in a downtrend and in the last 7 days, only 1 was above ₳1M (Goombles mint day), and only 3 above ₳600k, with an average volume of ₳713k. This is a 30% increase from last week when there were no major drops. On the monthly timeframe, we are down 42% compared to the previous 30 days, or -27% in $USD. February will most likely be remembered as one of the slowest months in Cardano NFT history.

Top 10 Projects

1️⃣ Goombles - Volume: ₳1.1M (-) - FP: ₳285 (-)2️⃣ Clay Nation - Volume: ₳237k (-5.2%) - FP: ₳2,950(-19%)3️⃣ The Ape Society - Volume: ₳247k (-21%) - FP: ₳7.3k (-11%) 4️⃣ Earth Node - Volume: 240k (+233%) - FP (+27%) 5️⃣ Raving Ravens - Volume: ₳198K (-) - FP: ₳130 (-) 6️⃣ SpaceBudz - Volume: ₳169k (+24%) - FP: ₳3.7k (-2%)7️⃣ Alley Katz - Volume: ₳140k (-29%) - FP: ₳310 (+13%) 8️⃣ OREMOB - Volume: ₳107k (+76%) - FP: ₳800 (+18%) 9️⃣ Pavia - Volume: ₳105k (+172%) - FP: ₳140 (-6%) 🔟 Clay Nation x GC - Volume: ₳103k (-17%) - FP: ₳933 (-7%)

Top Sales

1️⃣ Earth Node#619: ₳81.8k 2️⃣ Earth Node#903: ₳79.1k 3️⃣ Earth Node#389: ₳79k 4️⃣ Pavia-4-16: ₳37.5k 5️⃣ Watson Monet (TAS): ₳26.8k 6️⃣ SpaceBud3793: ₳16k

Other Markets

Meanwhile, we are seeing a mixed performance on other chains. Polygon is up 50%, Ethereum is up 2.4% and Solana is down almost 60% in the same 30d period.

• Ethereum: $912M, 259k buyers

• Solana: $82M, 130k buyers

• Polygon: $34M, 92k buyers

• Cardano: $11.8M, 26k buyers

• BNB: $8.2M, 24k buyers

Looking at the general crypto market, the bears and bulls seem to be at a stalemate. This is perfectly captured in the Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index, which is almost neutral. The bulls argue that Bitcoin has reached a bottom and is due for a trend reversal. The bears, however, point to macroeconomic conditions and various factors that indicate that we are experiencing a major recession.

Weekly Dose of Charles

Tweet of the Week

Pic of the Week

Meme of the Week

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Viking Squad Updates

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