TLDR 📃

• General market sentiment: ETH surges to $2,000, NFT collections' ETH floor price drops.
• Collections maintaining ETH floors: Cryptopunks, Azuki/Beanz, Memeland, Pudgy Penguins, DeGods/y00ts.
• BAYC/MAYC fall in price as whales are forced to capitulate.
• NFT Now Top 100 controversy: Nicole Behnam removed from list due to unethical behaviour.
• Franklin and Machi Big Brother stop Blur Farming; Franklin forced to sell BAYC.
• Azuki sees impressive grail sales; Beanz announces partnership with IPX.
• Memeland's Captainz collection hits 7 ETH; Truth Labs upgrades smart contracts.
• IPG returns 500% to minters (we were right and we’re here to claim our clout).
• Upcoming Mints: Smurfs' Society, Code.Lawless, Ether, Taproot Wizards, Oh Baby Games, Star Symphony.
• Share this digest with family and friends!

Disclaimer: Not financial nor investment advice. Any capital-related decisions you make are your responsibility and yours only.

Market overview

Here are the Top 12 NFT collections by 7-day trading volume:

People are really backing Azuki and Beanz, and a big announcement this week has pushed Chiru Labs to the number two spot in the Web3 world, just behind Yuga Labs. Memeland's Captainz collection has been steadily rising, hitting a 7 ETH valuation recently.

On the flip side, BAYC/MAYC, CloneX, and Doodles collections didn't fare too well this week. BAYC/MAYC took a hit as a major holder had to sell up, while CloneX and Doodles both fell under 3 ETH. Their teams' recent failures have left investors feeling uneasy.

As expected, The Otherside and DeGods/y00ts collections gave short-term investors a nice little boost before prices settled down when Web3 attention shifted elsewhere.

General market sentiment

ETH's price shot up $300 to $2,000 this week, and when that happens, NFT values in ETH tend to drop, even if their USD values stay the same. This isn't great for NFT traders, as they'd have made more profit just holding onto their ETH rather than investing in NFTs.

With the ETH floor price dropping for most major collections, traders are rushing to sell and hold onto ETH. During times like these, it's wise to keep an eye on collections that can maintain their ETH floors, as it's a sign of strength. Collections like Cryptopunks, Azuki/Beanz, Memeland, Pudgy Penguins, and DeGods/y00ts have shown this kind of resilience, making them solid mid to long-term investments for collectors with conviction.

NFT Now Top 100

On April 11th NFT Now released their new Top 100 list.

The NFT100 is here 🏆

We are excited to unveil the 2nd annual NFT100, recognizing 100 influential creators & 100 community leaders for achievements over the past year in web3.

View the full list: https://t.co/GfY7AencIr pic.twitter.com/nX5Moz9G3o

— nft now (@nftnow) April 11, 2023

This ran into some controversy as Nicole Behnam (cited in the list), was found to have behaved unethically. She did not disclose her holdings while promoting a free mint, which she then subsequently sold en masse on the open market.  

Thank you to everyone who supported the Blocky Doge 3 free mint yesterday.

There were mistakes made in a wallet that I controlled.

This morning that same wallet swept the Blocky Doge 3 floor. All the NFTs purchased will be transferred to the studio wallet.

— Nicole Behnam (@NicoleBehnam) April 12, 2023

She later apologised but NFT Now decided to remove her from the yearly list.

Marketplace news 🏪

Franklin and Machi Big Brother step away from Blur Farming

As predicted last week the biggest Blur Farmers can no longer justify their losses and have decided to stop artificially bidding on the top NFT collections. The extension of season 2 incentives until May 1st meant these whales would have to double their losses to maintain the percentage of Blur tokens they would be eligible for. With Machi Big Brother down over 5000 ETH and Franklin losing over 2000 ETH this was untenable.

To take steps further Franklin was forced to sell a larger number of BAYC’s on April 13th.

Gm. Due to an unfortunate IRL issue, I have had to sell off a lot of BAYC apes to pay off BendDAO loans while the liquidity was available. I won't get involved in NFT trading/twitter for a while, and will just focus on my private life for the time being with my remaining apes.

— Franklin (@franklinisbored) April 13, 2023

As someone who previously held over 70 BAYCs and is the de facto market maker for the collection this had a big impact on the BAYC floor. Falling from a high of 73 ETH to its current position of 54 ETH. Without Franklin’s consistent bids on floor apes it remains to be seen whether the collection can rebound. 

Important NFT updates 🖼️

Azuki continues to go from strength to strength

A healthy NFT collection often has a good number of consistent high-value buys, known as grail purchases. This shows that NFT whales have strong belief in the project's long-term prospects. For example, on April 10th, there were four grail sales of over 160 ETH each, which is a pretty impressive sign of confidence.

A crazy amount of grail Azuki sales the past few days. Another spirit sold last night for 187 ETH.

Gold Skaeboard: 200 ETH Spirit Gold Ticket: 187 ETH Triple Water: 165.5 ETH Devil: 160 ETH pic.twitter.com/svkHfIqWDX

— NFTstatistics.eth (@punk9059) April 10, 2023

There was also a major trade between Dingaling and Free Lunch Capital which is amazing in the current financial climate.

Just helped this massive deal with none other than @dingalingts himself. 449.69ETH deal ($855k) for these two insane grails now being taken care of by the new king in the block @pimpcapital . Fun as hell to work on one when the counterparty is the two bros @EB7 & @sen_eth .⛩️🫡 pic.twitter.com/yc3uRIF2F1

— Conviction (@ArtofConviction) April 13, 2023

To complete the bullish circle Dingaling would go on to sweep 30 Azuki’s from the floor.

Beanz announces major partnership

On Wednesday Beanz announced a major partnership with IPX.

Announcing @_LINEFRIENDS (IPX) x @BEANZOfficial (Chiru Labs) pic.twitter.com/jpoWtLfFQZ

— Azuki (@Azuki) April 12, 2023

IPX, an expert in IP buildout and monetisation, knows how to turn adorable characters into thriving businesses. Their success with Line Friends proves they can explore various avenues like Netflix series and mobile games. With 200 million active users on the Line App, their partnership with Beanz is fantastic news. In fact, during the announcement, the Beanz collection's value jumped from 0.2 ETH to 1.53 ETH.

Memeland’s Ascension

Memeland, a community-driven NFT project, is led by Ryan Chan, CEO and Co-Founder of 9GAG—a highly successful Web2 social media platform. Ryan aims to bring his SocialFi expertise into Web3. This past Wednesday, the Memeland Captainz collection reached 7 ETH, thanks to rumours of a MEME token airdrop and the activity of a single whale.

Captainz can go on quests to farm maps, which get weekly NFT, ETH, and APE airdrops from Memeland's team. Earlier, the top Blur farmer from season one, who remains anonymous, delisted their 60 Captainz and sent them on quests to farm maps instead of seeking Blur rewards, causing a price surge.

The entire Memeland ecosystem (MVP, Captainz, Potatoz) has stayed strong during the bear market and is now gaining momentum.

Truth Labs Changes Metadata

On Monday, Truth Labs, creators of Goblintown, upgraded the smart contracts for all their NFT collections.

Starting today, metadata for all @goblintown, @secretsociety, @The187 and Grumpls has been refreshed.

We are upgrading the contracts for all ERC-721’s in the Truth ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/WJufX5CNTh

— Truth Labs (@truth) April 11, 2023

Legacy NFT smart contracts can't enforce creator royalties, leading major marketplaces like Blur and Opensea to remove them to boost trading volume. This has caused issues for NFT projects, as they no longer receive the royalty income they rely on.

Upgraded contracts can now enforce royalties, with Truth applying a 5% royalty across all collections. To discourage trading on old collections, Truth changed the metadata (the NFT image). This decision raised concerns about centralization in Web3, as many traders were unhappy they had no say in the matter.

Iron Paw Gang (IPG) Recap

IPG had a successful mint last week rising from a mint price of 0.15 ETH to an all time high of 0.8 ETH pre reveal, as we predicted last week.

The mint and flip strategists were out in full force with the collection now sitting at 0.18 ETH post reveal.

Diamond Hands by Cryptonary

We have just upgraded the art for our Diamond Hands collection! Here is the before and after:

This can be done manually through the following link: https://diamond-entangler.vercel.app/entanglement/wizard

Our Pro Membership claiming is also going live soon. We will keep you posted!

Upcoming Mints 💵

The safest way to ensure short term gains remains the mint and sell strategy. Gaining allowlists and whitelists is fiercely competitive with individuals trying to find upcoming projects as early as possible. Here are the upcoming mints currently on our radar:

1. The Smurfs’ Society (@SmurfsSociety) - Public Auction on April 18th
2. Code.Lawless (@Codelawless) - Open Edition Mint from April 17th - 20th
3. Ether (@Ether) by Viii - Mint Date TBA
4. Taproot Wizards (@TaprootWizards) - Mint Date TBA
5. Oh Baby Games (@OhBabyGames) - Mint Date TBA
6. Star Symphony (@StarSymphony_io) - Mint Date TBA  

Cryptonary’s take 🧠

Here are our takeaways from another eventful week in the NFT space.

If ETH continues to surge expect to see NFT prices fall in ETH denomination while remaining stable in USD. Historically, ETH valuations do eventually stabilise before being followed by the strongest collections making major gains as Crypto Traders look to roll their profits back into NFTs.

This is a great time to snipe bargains if you are looking to make long term investments. We see Cryptopunks, Azuki, Beanz, Captainz, DeGods, y00ts and Pudgy Penguins as the collections to watch. Azuki/Beanz are particularly bullish considering the number of grail sales in the collection and provide a nice entry for newcomers into the NFT space.

Expect to see many more collections upgrade their smart contracts as they work to preserve royalties. We would advise you to steer clear of smaller projects with less funding where financial runway may become a problem. Many mid to low cap projects will go bankrupt before the start of the next NFT bull run sending valuations to 0. 

As always, thank you for reading 🙏