It’s OpenSea-son for NFT marketplace, with X2Y2, Magic Eden and even LooksRare joining in on the hunt! While there were signs that OpenSea’s dominance was already slipping, no one questioned its hold over the top spot, and certainly no one predicted how it would lose its crown in such an abrupt and complete manner…
Source: DappRadar; Snapshot taken 27 June 2022
OpenSea only managed to amass slightly over $18M in total volume in the past 7D, a far, far cry from the ~$500M weekly volume it was pulling in just 3 months ago, and almost unbelievable when compared to >$1B weekly volume in the beginning of this year. Sure, a large part of this could be chalked up to a slumping market but there’s more than just macroeconomic factors at play here for OpenSea. Its latest weekly volume is only a quarter of Magic Eden’s ($76M), and even less when compared to X2Y2’s $138M. Even LooksRare managed to put up a higher weekly volume than OpenSea, knocking the previous king of NFT marketplaces down to the #4 spot.
From the ashes of OpenSea and the NFT market, Magic Eden and X2Y2 have emerged as the new frontrunners for NFT trading. Magic Eden is riding on the rising popularity of Solana NFTs to surge ahead of the pack. X2Y2 on the other hand has managed to somehow pull in users from its rivals on Ethereum, cementing itself as the #1 marketplace for the third consecutive week…but is this achievement sustainable?
Stronk or Sus?
Source: X2Y2
A quick scan of the top traded collections on X2Y2 features some…unusual entries, whereas usual suspects such as BAYC and CryptoPunks are oddly missing from the top of the leaderboard. Did More Loot really generate over 60k ETH in volume in the past week? Let’s have a look.
Source: X2Y2
Oh wow, More Loots are being traded for a whopping price of 900-1600 ETH, seems like LOOT might be making a comeback after all? But wait, these transactions are all the same NFT - Bag #666688… And hold on, it’s just being sold back and forth between the same 2 wallets - 0xA854772db43b52D7b456c2B5a40bd41627B316c2 and 0xc935aaa23734FcE35843829d2a39c3920172A0d6.
🤔Something is REAL 🐠 🐟 🎣 🐟🐠 going on
It seems that we have stumbled across another classic case of “wash trading”. Remember when LooksRare was hauling in record-breaking volumes when it first launched? The same phenomenon is now happening on X2Y2. By staking X2Y2, users will get to earn a share of the market fees generated by the platform. This coupled with the fact that X2Y2 is currently running a 100% rebate for all platform fees means that users (or whales in particular) can hoard up a large share of X2Y2, and by extension market fees just from wash trading between their own wallets - all for the cost of gas fees only. So does this mean that X2Y2 is not the “real” top NFT marketplace after all?
Discounting the obscene numbers generated by the Top 3 collections on X2Y2 (More Loot, Meebits, Doodles), the weekly volume of X2Y2 would put it at around the same level as OpenSea in fourth spot, making Magic Eden the official leading marketplace. We’ve seen how LooksRare fell from glory once the incentives ran dry, but the fact of the matter is that X2Y2 and LooksRare do feature a much friendlier fee structure compared to OpenSea. Time will tell if this latest run-up will help these platforms secure more recurring, loyal users.
Top Collections of the Week
Source: OpenSea; Snapshot taken 27 June 2022
With the amount of attention that RR/BAYC has generated due to the video BORED APE NAZI CLUB, the controversial collection is noticeably missing from OpenSea’s Top Collections for the week, but its impact on the Yuga Labs collections was certainly felt. In the past 7 days, interest in BAYC, MAYC, Otherdeed and CryptoPunks waned amidst damning accusations, as volumes across the collections fell 35-55%. Despite all these, Punks, BAYC and Otherdeed still clung onto the 3 of the Top 5 collections, a testament to their dominance in the NFT market. Floor prices in ETH also held up surprisingly well throughout this entire saga and in a week where BTC and ETH rebounded strongly, meaning that they made gains in USD terms as well.
All eyes are now on the lawsuit that Yuga Labs has mounted against Ryder Ripps, with the incident already casting doubt and confusion upon our prior understanding of rights in relation to NFTs. Even now, discussions about the technicalities of the lawsuit have surfaced, with many debating Yuga Labs’ decision to file for a trademark infringement as opposed to copyright and defamation. Then, there’s also the age-old debate about hotlinking and whether this amounts to a violation of copyright law (RR/BAYC NFTs link to the exact same IPFS files of BAYC). Regardless of the outcome, it is already apparent that this lawsuit is bound to set an important precedent that will send a ripple through NFT rights.
Daily ArtBlocks update. Wow, what a day in AB history. Floors got smashed all over the place. Ceilings got smashed all over the place. History was made with the new highest sale of all time (100.69 eth for an eternal pump), and then history was made again about 4 seconds later pic.twitter.com/sDqjAnJZHm
— zeneca.eth (🔮,🔥) @ NFT NYC but w/ COVID (@Zeneca_33) July 26, 2021
At the height of NFT summer, Art Blocks was the belle of the ball. Curated drop dates were circled on calendars, and mints were guaranteed sell-outs as collectors and traders alike flocked to snatch a slice of the sure-win pie. As more and more NFT projects and bluechip contenders cropped up, interests in Art Blocks started to falter, rendering it as a perennial fringe candidate of the top NFT leaderboard. That has changed in these past weeks as Art Blocks continued its resurgence. Floor prices across most Art Blocks collections increased alongside its total volume traded, signifying once again revived interest in the generative art project and its worthy inclusion as a bluechip NFT among the likes of Apes and Punks.
In other news, Primates is featured once again as Solana’s sole representative in the Top 10 spots. But like most of its Solana predecessors, its explosive run-up seems destined to be met by an equally swift drop. At the time of writing, Primates’ 7d volume is down 35% compared to last week, and its floor price has plummeted from 38 SOL to around 19 SOL (-50%) within the same time frame. While it’s impressive that a single collection has been able to prop up Magic Eden’s volume and propel it to the #1 spot, the short lifespan of its featured collections calls into question the longevity of Solana NFTs. Time and again we see traders flipping from one collection to another on a weekly/biweekly basis which begs another question - how long can this last?
And finally, another collection that snatched the headlights this week was of course Doodles and its derivative collection, Dooplicator. A wave of activities surged in for Doodles following the announcement of their next collection, simply known as Doodles 2 (more on this later).
Doodles: The Sequel
During their presentation at their event on the 21st June, the Doodles team had more to share about the next series of NFTs coming to the Doodles ecosystem, as well as the utility behind the recently released Dooplicators that were free to claim by Doodles holders.
While there were only 10,000 Doodles in the original collection, the team has stated that Doodles 2.0 will number in the ‘millions’. Although this could be just a figure of speech, it’s pretty wild to think that there might be millions of completely unique Doodles for everyone. The Doodles team further added that they have not decided which blockchain will be the home of Doodles 2, but transactions to change the appearance of your Doodles 2 NFTs will not cost any gas fees.
Yup, that’s right! In Doodles 2, you can completely customize your NFT with different wearables, animations and even music. Participants at NFT NYC had their first taste of these wearables in the form of Genesis Boxes. Doodles holders (and their guests) were given the chance to reserve a Genesis Box, which contained a range of various wearable NFTs, from clothes, to hats, and other accessories. Only 4,000 reservations were available during the event, but the team has revealed that more boxes will be coming this week via an ‘online bucket auction’.
🎛🤖🌈
— doodles (@doodles) June 24, 2022
The first Genesis Boxes have been reserved!
We teamed up with @Shopify to bring you a credit card enabled minting machine IRL.
Thank you everyone who attended Doodles NFT NYC. pic.twitter.com/7ECSWP1WvB
In addition to Genesis Boxes, Dooplicators will play a key role in switching up the traits of your NFTs. As its name suggests, Dooplicators can be used to ‘duplicate’ any of the wearables found in Genesis Boxes or from the original Doodles collection. The team further stated that this will not be its only use case, and it will have additional utility down the line.
All in all, it seems that the announcements by the Doodles team was well received by the community, as evidenced by the rising prices of Doodles and Dooplicators since the week prior to NFT NYC. While the original Doodles collection was sitting below 10 ETH just a couple weeks ago, prices slowly rose back above 13 ETH right before the launch of the Genesis Boxes and reached a peak floor price of approximately 15 ETH on 24th June 2022.
Doodles daily floor price (Source: CoinGecko)
Similarly, Dooplicators enjoyed a 60% climb, from just above 2.5 ETH to 4 ETH on 24th June, which is the day the Dooplicator rarities were revealed. NFT prices generally decrease right after their traits are revealed, as some holders tend to quickly sell the ones that are mediocre, and it seems to be the case here, as floor prices rapidly dropped below 3 ETH. In the past few days, prices for both NFT collections have since decreased, but it seem that the price of the Dooplicators, with their newly-announced utility, may have stabilized for now.
Dooplicator daily floor price (Source: CoinGecko)
With an exclusive Doodles Record coming soon from the their new Chief Brand Officer, Pharell William, the hype train has somewhat continued. As we await further details on the public launch of the Genesis Box, we’ll be paying close attention to what Doodles will have in store for us next. If there really will be millions of Doodles available in the next collection, then perhaps more value will be driven towards these wearables as well as the original collection, rather than the individual Doodles 2 NFTs. While clothes certainly don’t make the man, well in this case, it might just make the Doodle.
What else are we paying attention to
Arbitrum Odyssey
Just last week, Arbitrum Odyssey had officially commenced. For 8 weeks, users will have the chance to earn exclusive NFTs by exploring and interacting with different protocols in the Arbitrum ecosystem to complete certain tasks. These NFTs are designed by none other than prominent CT artists behind the Tubby Cats NFTs, Ratwell and Sugoi, and will be available for claiming at the end of each week on Project Galaxy. For the most determined participants who have collected at least 13 out of the 16 available NFTs, they will receive an exclusive bonus NFT.
For the first week, users had to bridge ETH using any other bridges as shown in Arbitrum’s announcement. Additionally, those who used the bridge with the most volume at the end of the week will receive a bonus NFT. Of course, with such precious (and free!) JPEGs on the line, these bridge protocols got creative and came up with their own brand of NFT incentives in an attempt to claim the top spot. Hop Protocol and Hashflow respectively came up with their own NFTs to reward some of their lucky users.
Hop 💗 @Treasure_DAO
— HopProtocol (@HopProtocol) June 20, 2022
During Arbitrum's bridge week starting tomorrow 1PM EST, 10 lucky hoppers will receive a @SmolBrainsNFT as a special gift.
If you ever needed an excuse to use Hop, this is it 👇 pic.twitter.com/Dr5Pfxt0S3
#hashgang: The @arbitrum Odyssey Bridge Week will be off to the races at 1pm ET - let's get Hashflow to #1!
— hashflow | We are hiring! (@hashflow) June 21, 2022
200 participants who support Hashflow will have a chance to win this limited edition, Hashcraft action figure NFT - redeemable for $HFT at token launch!
The rules👇 pic.twitter.com/VEuAt5KDDT
While it’s only been the first week, the event has garnered much attention so far, with over 320,000 participating addresses, largely due to speculation of an Arbitrum token airdrop. Although the team has not made any guarantees that the NFTs are required to qualify for potential airdrops, it doesn’t hurt to join in the fun (especially if you haven’t bridged to Arbitrum before) and earn some free NFTs along the way!
The Immortal Game
If you’re a fan of the game of kings, you would be glad to know that you can now play-to-earn through chess! Immortal Game claims to be the first chess play-to-earn game and they’ve just released their open beta last week. At the moment, you can earn Action Points and Immortal Points from winning your games, but these are not official tokens yet.
Immortal Game Mystery Boxes (Source: Immortal Game)
The Immortal Game also allows users to purchase NFTs of different chess pieces, known as Immortal, which act as a sort of multiplier upon completing specific tasks in-game, increasing the overall amount of points you receive from winning. These NFTs can be obtained by purchasing various mystery boxes or on the marketplace. For now, the public mint is live and you can purchase these boxes at their floor price until 17th July. But if you want to get some Immortals for free, you can start completing some quests to earn the free Ageless pieces.
Note: We will be taking a break for the next two weeks (Weeks of July 4th and 11th) to prepare the Q2 quarterly report. Normal market update will resume on the week of June 18th.
This article was produced in collaboration with Dillon Yap. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Win Win is an avid gamer, interested in navigating the vast world of NFTs and the cryptoverse. Entering the crypto space in 2020, Win Win focuses particularly on DeFi and GameFi, looking out for the latest developments and projects in the space. The author has lived through the meteoric rise of DeFi as well as the collapse of Terra and FTX. Follow the author on Twitter @0x5uff3r
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