Author: Greg Oakford, Cointelegraph
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
Wale, a researcher at the NFT project Azuki, recalled his past involvement in NFTs and shared his views on the recent recovery of the NFT market, believing that the interest of new participants is the key to the NFT market's return to its peak, and Bored Apes have begun to enter the ranks of true collectibles.
Wale minted his first NFT in early 2021 and resold it for a few hundred dollars, and was "immediately fascinated" afterwards.
"Before getting into NFTs, I had bought some BTC and ETH, but I didn't pay much attention to them and didn't follow what was happening in the crypto space, and then I discovered NFTs. My friends and family in the real world were not interested in this, but I started to focus on it, minting new NFTs on exchanges and buying from the secondary market."
At the time, Wale was studying at a university in Germany and had not yet graduated. Although he had made a lot of profits from NFT trading, he was hesitant to fully commit to Web3, as he was working for a German automaker at the time.
"Although I made a lot of money through NFTs at the time, more than any job I've ever had. But I also felt that the whole field felt very unreal. I didn't have enough confidence to give up everything else in 2021. So I continued to work in marketing at the German car company. I went full-time in late 2022, by which time the market had not only crashed, but I also started to think more seriously from the creator's perspective, and I was slow to commit fully to NFTs."
Has the NFT market recovered?
In the past month, there has been a huge recovery in NFTs. The prices of many NFTs such as CryptoPunks, Pudgy Penguins (just launched the PENGU token), and Doodles have risen.
But has the NFT market really recovered? Wale believes these phenomena are positive, but still have a long way to go to reach the frenzy of 2021-22, which was led by the cultural phenomenon of the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
The price of CryptoPunks recently broke through $150,000, up from around $50,000 or slightly higher not long ago. Other legacy projects and Pudgy Penguins have also seen huge gains with the announcement of the PENGU airdrop. The NFT rebound has spread across the entire ecosystem, with even defunct collectibles rebounding 50% or more.
Wale believes that "for a true recovery, the market not only needs to be excited about mature projects, but also about the emergence of new projects. We haven't seen that yet. This is similar to the way memecoins work. Many of the best performing memecoins this cycle are not the memecoins from four years ago."
"From a broader perspective, many of the best performing memecoins have actually attracted a lot of new people and new money. If the collections you minted for 0.01 ETH or 0.05 ETH can rise to 4 ETH, that would be a true recovery, but we haven't reached that level of hype yet, although it's encouraging to see early signs of people's excitement and interest in NFTs returning."
Bored Apes have entered the ranks of true collectibles
In the recent NFT surge over the past four to six weeks, CryptoPunks have shown strong momentum for the first time, but what surprised many collectors, including Wale, is that the floor price of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has doubled, despite no catalysts. At the same time, Pudgy Penguins announced the launch of the PENGU token, which will give Pudgy holders a certain allocation, similar to the APE token distributed to BAYC holders in March 2022.
Flamingo DAO member Derek Edwards coined the term "minimal external dependence" as a framework for thinking about certain types of NFTs, to which many art collectibles and punks belong. Apart from the NFT itself, there is usually no promise, no catalyst, no airdrop, no roadmap. Speculation still exists, but it is not built on the external dependencies that strong IP or game-focused NFT projects may have.
In the previous bull market, there was discussion about whether BAYC would fall into this category of lowest external dependence, becoming a collection that people just want to own, rather than because they expect future returns. Wale believes that the Apes may have shown early signs of moving in this direction.
Wale cited two main reasons: one is the launch of the ApeChain ecosystem, where they have found some real things that appeal to the core community, NFT traders, collectors, and NFT enthusiasts.
The second reason is that Apes are indeed becoming more of a symbol of identity, perhaps not yet at the level of Web3 punks, but when talking about mainstream NFTs, 90% of people know the Bored Apes brand, rather than Pudgy Penguins or Doodles. This is closely related to the mainstream attention NFTs gained in 2021 and 2022.
Projects that have continued to build during the bear market
Although a large portion of NFT projects made a lot of empty promises and failed roadmaps in 2021-22, those that persisted and continued to build are now starting to gain attention again.
Doodles' recent large-scale collaboration with McDonald's, where 1.1 billion coffee cups feature Doodles IP, is an example. Pudgy Penguins is another, launching PENGU this week and collaborating with Walmart and other major retailers selling plush toys, and having billions of impressions across all major social media platforms.
"From Pudgy's collaboration with Walmart to Azuki's collaboration with anime.com, many projects are starting to achieve some results. Although we were in the NFT bear market for most of 2024, memecoins and the broader cryptocurrency have actually performed quite well. From the perspective of the projects delivered this year, I think we've done a good job, and maybe we're now seeing the market start to value them in a way it hasn't in the past few months."
Quick Q&A
What NFT project do you think is currently undervalued?
Wale: I'll give a slightly different answer, rather than naming an NFT project. I think the entire Ordinals space is still undervalued. Among the top 5 PFP market caps, there are no top Ordinals projects. I think some projects are undervalued, such as Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, Quantum Cats.
I'm surprised, especially during this Bitcoin rally, that they haven't done better on the floor price, but I would say that relative to NFTs on ETH or Solana, the Ordinals ecosystem is still undervalued.
Which project do you think will achieve long-term success in 10 years? Doodles, VeeFriends, or Pudgy Penguins?
Wale: I think from a attention perspective, Pudgy Penguins will have an advantage over VeeFriends and Doodles. Doodles is also great, but the Z generation's understanding may be a bit less. As for VeeFriends, I wouldn't focus too much on them. They're a bit detached from the daily conversations on NFT Twitter, so I really don't know what they're doing in terms of content.
If I had to rank them, I would choose Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, and VeeFriends.
Related reading: NFT Market Recovery: Major Projects Announce Token Plans, Blue-Chip Projects Become the Main Force of Recovery
