Written by: Babywhale, Foresight News
In the past month, several blue-chip NFT projects have received tens of millions of dollars or even over 100 million dollars in financing, which has attracted a lot of attention in the market. As a "template" for blue-chip NFT projects, Yuga Labs, the development team of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), brought a phenomenal phenomenon in the Metaverse block casting in early May after announcing a large financing in March this year. Performance. And what are the plans of the new blue-chip NFT projects that can allow many institutions to spend real money during the bear market?
BAYC and Otherside
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) series of NFTs launched in May 2021 can be regarded as one of the most successful NFT projects in the entire Web3 field. From the minting price of 0.08 ETH in May 2021 to the peak of the floor price of over 150 ETH in April 2022, the value of its NFT itself has risen nearly 1900 times in the past year.
In the process of rising NFT prices, Yuga Labs successively launched MAYC and BAKC series NFTs, APE token airdrops, Metaverse Otherside, Metaverse block Otherdeed and other new content, constantly stimulating the nerves of holders and the market.
At the end of March this year, Yuga Labs, the parent company of BAYC, announced the completion of a new round of financing of $450 million at a valuation of $4 billion. This round of financing was led by a16z, with participation from Animoca Brands, Coinbase and MoonPay. After that, on May 1st, the NFT Otherdeed of the metaverse Otherside launched the minting and public sale. The NFT minting contract destroyed 26,000 ETH in just 1 hour, and the gas fee once soared to nearly 10,000 GWei. May 1, 2022 is the highest peak of Ethereum daily destruction since the implementation of EIP-1559.
Although there has been a carnival, in fact the NFT market is not optimistic. According to Bloomberg, Dune data shows that NFT trading volume in September has dropped by 97% compared to January this year.
Is there a new narrative for the new blue chips?
At the end of August, after DigiDaigaku announced a $200 million financing, Moonbirds, Doodles, and Azuki followed suit. After the highlights of Yuga Labs and BAYC, what plans did these blue-chip NFTs reveal? (The following projects are ordered by the time of their announcement)
Doodles
On September 13, Beijing time, Doodles announced that it has completed a $54 million financing at a valuation of $704 million. Investors include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, Acrew Capital, FTX Ventures and 10T Holdings.
Following the funding announcement, Doodles posted on its website some of the information about Doodles 2, which was announced in June. Doodles 2 supports the custom styling of Doodles NFT images, and decorates the original image with different clothing and accessory NFTs. The decorated NFT image can be saved on the chain without gas fees.
As for these decorative NFTs, it is the "Genesis Box" that Doodles completed the auction in early July. At that time, Doodles raised 10,160 ETH through the auction. As for the plans after Doodles 2, the team has not disclosed yet.
Azuki
On September 22, Beijing time, people familiar with the matter revealed that Chiru Labs, the Azuki development team, will complete a $30 million Series A financing at a valuation of $300 million to $400 million, but the financing details have not yet been finalized.
Since Azuki completed the airdrop of BEANZ Official (originally called Something Official) last year, apart from fragmenting Azuki #40 into "Bobu" in March this year to explore governance collective governance, there has not been much project progress. .
In May of this year, Azuki founder Zagabond admitted that the team had operated three projects, CryptoPhunks, Tendies, and CryptoZunks in the past year, but none of them were successful. The price of Azuki NFT has also been greatly affected.
According to the information on Azuki's official website, Azuki currently displays illustrations with the themes of "Streets" and "Relics" on the "World" page, but it is not clear how the illustration theme is related to the future planning of the project.
In addition, the Azuki team currently has no specific plans to build a metaverse or develop games, but it said that the Azuki team has experience in the game industry, but making games is very difficult. If Azuki chooses to make games, it will be "coolest".
Moonbirds
In the early morning of August 31st, Beijing time, PROOF, the parent company of Moonbirds, announced the completion of a $50 million Series A financing, led by a16z, with participation from Collab+Currency, Flamingo DAO, SVAngel, Vayner Fund and Seven Seven Six. PROOF also released details about PROOF’s third NFT Moonbirds Mythics: Moonbirds Mythics, with a total of 20,000 pieces, are scheduled to be launched in early 2023. In addition, PROOF has also revealed plans to release a token of the same name, with more details to be released sometime in 2023.
According to Moonbirds' official website, PROOF's next plan, codenamed Highrise, is to build a metaverse, which PROOF describes as a "digital ghost town". However, the official did not announce other details about the metaverse. At least on the surface, the gameplay of the new NFT series, tokens, and metaverse still inherits the successful routine of Yuga Labs. As for whether there will be unique innovative content. unknown.
DigiDaigaku
On the evening of August 29th, Beijing time, DigiDaigaku’s parent company, Limit Break, completed two rounds of financing totaling $200 million. The two rounds of financing were led by Josh Buckley, Paradigm and Standard Crypto. The participating investors included FTX, Coinbase, Positive Sum, Shervinator and Anthos Capital et al. Limit Break said that the newly developed game will launch the Free to Own (F2O) game mode with reference to the traditional free game mode.
According to DigiDaigaku's official website information, DigiDaigaku has opened the NFT synthesis function, and holders of DigiDaigaku Spirits can synthesize DigiDaigaku Heros series NFTs. Among them, using DigiDaigaku Spirits NFT alone, and using DigiDaigaku Spirits NFT with matching and non-matching DigiDaigaku NFTs will synthesize DigiDaigaku Heros NFTs of different qualities.
At present, DigiDaigaku Heros NFT has been launched, but there is no picture yet, so it is impossible to know the true appearance of "Hero". However, the N image of Japan's two-dimensional theme and the success of the game in Web2 are not uncommon. It is expected that the massively multiplayer online game developed by Limit Break will be a game with a story background.
To sum up, except for DigiDaigaku and Moonbirds who clarified the plans of the game and the metaverse, the other two blue-chip NFT projects that have received large financing have not given clear follow-up development plans. But the stories that can make institutions willing to invest tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in a bear market must not be just simple progress such as airdrops and dressing up. In addition to the development ideas that are easier to think of such as the metaverse and games, these PFPs may have more far-reaching layouts in terms of brands, physical products, etc.
source:https://www.bibiqing.com/news/detail/43117