NFTGo Research

Posted on Apr 21, 2022Read on Mirror.xyz

Moonbirds Analysis: More Than PFPs

Key Takeaways

  • April 16-18 saw Moonbirds' trading volume accounted for 25% of the entire NFT market. This was accompanied by a rapid rise in Moonbirds' prices and good performances in terms of entry orders and whale participation.
  • At present, Pass+PFP projects are becoming a new trend, and projects can consolidate the floor price by creating a diamond hand mechanism. In the future, the NFT market layering will be more obvious.
  • As of April 19, the average number of positions held by a single address was 1.5 Moonbirds, which is a high degree of distribution. Among the top 10 holders, 5 of them are whales.
  • Top project developers grasp market rhythm and go through cyclical surges with projects that lower community threshold → obtain users → seize the market, and strategies such as staking and incubation.

Moonbirds trading volume skyrocketed

Compared to last week's numbers, the trading volume of the NFT market has rebounded considerably during the past two days.

Trading volumes of the past 2 weeks. (Source: NFTGo.io)

Moonbirds launched on April 16th and its trading volume occupied nearly half of the total trading volume of the entire NFT market. Even though the numbers dropped in the following two days, Moonbirds still managed to make up 20% of the total trading volume on April 18.

The trading volume of Moonbirds versus the total trading volume of the market. (Source: NFTGo.io)

In the meantime, Moonbirds' single-day trading volume recorded the highest in history. Four days into its launch, the collection has already surpassed the 7-day trading volume of any single blue-chip NFT. As of now, Moonbirds' market cap rank has risen to 9. From both the project's background and market performance, we may consider Moonbirds as an outstanding blue chip.

The average price of Moonbirds has been riling up to the right with a single minor fluctuation. The general trend tends to be upwards. The charts below display the daily average trading price for Moonbirds and BAYC through the four days after launch. Four days after launch, BAYC had an 83.4% increase in price, from below $500 to a peak of $2.6K. On the other hand, although Moonbirds started at the substantially higher price of $3,0617, it has gone up 50% in total since its entrance. This could be because of the astoundingly higher mint price of Moonbirds.

Daily Average Price Of Moonbirds Vs. BAYC (Data Source: NFTGo.io)

Moonbirds Analysis: Creating A Diamond Hand Mechanism

With a total of almost 10,000 Moonbirds on sale, 6,634 wallets have been held by NFT as of April 19. The NFT has a wide distribution averaging out to 1.5 Moonbirds per wallet. Also, five of the top ten holders are whales.

Data Source: NFTGo.io

From the holder trends chart, we can see that there is a slight drop in NFT holders since the end of the sale on April 16, but the number of whales has been rising since then and the growth rate has started to slow down. Again, this indicates that whales are facilitating the price increase of Moonbirds.

Data Source: NFTGo.io

According to transaction data, 92.8% of buyers did not sell within the first 24H since Moonbirds' offer ended. Holder stability is gaining ground as we see the number of traders drop exponentially. These data indicate that the vast majority of buyers are aiming to hold rather than sell outright.

As seen from the chart below, Moonbirds holders reached a consensus quickly which caused Moonbirds' liquidity and trading volume to stabilize soon after the launch. When compared to other programs launched at the same time, the lines representing transactions and liquidity fluctuate for longer periods of time and with greater amplitude than Moonbirds, indicating that holders of this project take longer to reach consensus.

On-chain data. (Source: NFTGo.io)

On-chain data. (Source: NFTGo.io)

By analyzing investors' open positions, we can see that majority of them choose to keep the NFT instead of selling it. To a certain extent, Moonbirds' high mint price serves as a filter for holders, and nested NFTs also constitute a reason for holders to hold longer. Add to this the fact that mint price can reach as high as 2.5E, holders generally share a strong consensus.

Now Moonbirds' price has also skyrocketed from its mint price of 2.5E all the way to nearly 17E. According to user profiling metrics, the highest yielding wallet's PnL has reached $1,201,686.11 in just a few days. Of all the Moonbirds NFTs traded, the one that achieved the highest profit is #7473, which has generated 60E for its traders.

The profile of a Moonbirds holder. (Source: NFTGo.io)

The project has yielded thousands of dollars in ROI for the early traders. Some of the Moonbirds have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in returns for the traders in the secondary market. Even though these traders weren't able to buy at the lower mint price of 3ETH, they have realized significant profits. The chart below illustrates the top 10 NFTs that have generated the largest average profits for their investors.

The graph below shows the top ten most profitable NFTs in the Moonbirds Collection, the highest of which is #7473.

The most profitable Moonbirds NFTs. (Source: NFTGo.io)

However, it is important to mention that Ryan Carson, COO of Proof xyz has been trying to keep the collection momentum by letting know the consequences of listing Moonbirds below its floor price.

There were divided opinions from this tweet. Some say that it was floor price manipulation by telling people that they would lose Nesting. The truth is that Moonbirds are creating a diamond hand mechanism by letting the holders know in some way that as soon as they flip their NFT for quick profits automatically, you will be unnested. This targets mostly whitelists, today people who have WL, basically flip the NFT for free money, when they should be the early believers in a project. So, the solution is to force people to hold their NFTs. Perhaps, we should applaud Moonbirds to try something new and good for the ecosystem. In the near future, the market might seek new ways to lock up the NFTs of the early investors to prevent quick flippers.

PROOF Collective

Another collection most relevant to Moonbirds is PROOF Collective. Based on Moonbirds' official Twitter account, after making its first project announcement to the NFT market on March 19, the official account retweeted an affiliated tweet from Kevin Rose, founder of the PROOF Collective community, on the 23rd. On the 25th, a Twitter Spaces meeting was held and key information about the Moonbirds project was announced: the mint date was finalized to be on April 16, Dutch auction will last for six hours on the day of minting (starting at 2.5E), Moonbirds holders will unlock:

  • access to the PROOF community internal channel
  • eligibility for subsequent airdrops in the PROOF community
  • eligibility to recreate Moonbirds IP
  • early bird qualification and discount in the PROOF community
  • automatic approval for each PROOF Collective holder to qualify for two free mints of Moonbirds

Market cap growth of PROOF Collective before Moonbirds launched. (Source: NFTGo.io)

According to the chart below, the floor price of PROOF Collective went through a sideways market since the beginning of February and stayed around 30 ETH. After Moonbirds officially unveiled their partnership with PROOF to the market on the 21st, there was only a calm period of about 2 days before market demand started to rise on March 23rd. During the following two-week peak trading period, a total of nine whale addresses purchased PROOF and actively promoted the PROOF community on Twitter. The increase in the market value of PROOF also demonstrates the level of confidence that buyers have for Moonbirds PFP project, which eventually contributed to a floor price of 85 ETH before Moonbirds confirmed its launch date.

This shows that traders and whales who were aware of this have already turned their attention to Moonbirds' collaboration with the PROOF community. As soon as the news is confirmed, they make purchases and wait patiently for their PROOF Pass to grow in value.

Floor price changes of PROOF Collective. (Source: NFTGo.io)

Pass+PFP projects might cause a new craze

The "shovel" project type generally means that project developers will offer priorities to holders of their first-generation NFTs when releasing subsequent NFT collections. The first-generation NFTs are called shovels. For example, PROOF Collective and Moonbirds' Pass+PFP is a common shovel combination.

As the PROOF x Moonbirds collaboration ignites the recent market explosion, the NFT market share occupied by shovel projects gradually expands. Based on its successful incubation of the Muri and Niwa projects, Haus has climbed to around 1.2 ETH from its early January floor price. Plus, its sideways market shows that its PASS value is slowly gaining market recognition.

Pass+PFP is becoming the new trend

The PROOF x Moonbirds collaboration system successfully ignited new hype in the market. One of the main factors is the strong background and connections of Kevin Rose, which is incomparable to any other project. Apart from this project, there are quite a few projects of similar concepts already known to speculators.

Floor price changes of hausphases by Haus. (Source: NFTGo.io)

The PASS+PFP track is slowly expanding its market share. Haus has climbed from the bottom floor price in early January to around 1.2 ETH based on its successful incubation of Muri and Niwa, and has shown that the value of its PASS is being recognized by the market through its horizontal price movement. Furthermore, Project Nanopass、0xstudio、Crypto Package Goods、Quantum Keys, and other projects have also announced their empowerment for direct mint pass of subsequent incubation projects. Compared to PFP, perhaps the construction of the incubation ecosystem will significantly increase collaboration opportunities between projects and prevent them from going to zero.

NFT access passes generally show a slow price increase. Compared to PFP NFTs that attract short-term attention and FOMO sentiment with blind boxes and community operation, the value of NFT access passes usually reflects the condition of community construction and holders' access to their rights and interests in the future. Therefore, events that occur during the construction process will eventually affect the price of these projects.

NFT market stratification turns distinct

During a market downturn, projects produced by teams with substantial capabilities and endorsements will be able to capture the market quicker. Not only can they bring in external funds, but they are also capable of attracting users from other projects. Due to this reason, mediocre projects and their teams will lose in the competition and see falls in their prices.

Price history of BAYC. (Source: NFTGo.io)

For established and stable blue-chip NFTs, there is only a little room for price decrease. This is because the price trend of these projects is more defined after experiencing a long cycle. Their support is strong and able to withstand tests (see BAYC chart), thus people are still willing to buy into these projects even when the market is bearish. Budding projects that are close to entering the blue-chip category are likely to be temporarily affected by new and hyped projects. When the market volume is low, limited funds in the market will make the competition harsher.

Such an elimination process is reflected in the actions of these "sub-blue-chip" NFT projects. For instance, in order to increase liquidity, Azuki utilized the ERC1155 protocol to break the NFT into smaller fragments: Azuki#40 was divided into many Bobu fractions for reselling, which generated an increase in Azuki's market cap.

Market caps are associated (Top: Bobu, Bottom: Azuki). (Source: NFTGo.io)

Also, Moonbirds is an additional offering of the reputable PROOF Collective. It continues the path of PROOF Collective in terms of NFT empowerment, team, and even contracts code, which is why Moonbirds also feeds into PROOF Collective's market cap.

These are all instances where the team of a celebrity project "increases liquidity → gets more users → seizes the market". However, without technical support and endorsements of previous projects, ordinary teams can hardly complete the process of additional offering and NFT fragmentation and are more likely to be "killed" in a market downturn.

Conclusion

When the market volume is not high, the emergence of explosive NFT projects like Moonbirds will have a short-term impact on other projects in the market. When market sentiment is high, we can also pay attention to the fluctuation of the floor price of blue-chip and sub-blue-chip projects. The craze of Moonbirds has also brought us our thoughts on the practicality of NFTs. The Pass+PFP style is becoming a new trend. The innovation in staking is one aspect, it may leverage greater benefits with community and resources.