While almost all Crypto players are waiting for Bitcoin to hit a new all-time high, almost all NFT players are also waiting for NodeMonkes to hit a new all-time high in Bitcoin-based pricing. The first Bitcoin NFT series in history with a unit price exceeding 1 Bitcoin, NodeMonkes is almost certain to happen in everyone's expectations.
It only took NodeMonkes more than two months from its birth to becoming one of the top three NFT projects in the Crypto world by total market value. Two days ago, according to @punk9059 's tweet, the total market value of NodeMonkes has exceeded 500 million US dollars, surpassing Pudgy Penguins and ranking only behind CryptoPunks and BAYC.
Yesterday, an NFT player spent 53.452 Bitcoins (approximately $3.25 million) to purchase 6 NodeMonkes with "alien" features. Amidst the clamor of ETH NFT players shouting "ETH is dead" and rushing into the Bitcoin market, no one seems to be much surprised by the news from NodeMonkes.
Looking back on the journey of NodeMonkes in less than 3 months, I believe you will also sigh, "Every time comes with the same force, but there is no freedom to bring heroes."
Born from controversy
On December 23, 2023, after about 30 hours of Dutch auction, NodeMonkes was finally sold out when the price dropped to 0.04 Bitcoins, and the project party finally received sales revenue of about 240 Bitcoins.
NodeMonkes first sparked huge discussion when it announced that it had rejected $5 million in investment from VCs and insisted on being a Free Mint project. However, the popularity of the project continued to increase, and the project team continued to change the sales plan and reneged on previous commitments. From announcing Free Mint and no whitelist mechanism, to announcing that it will adopt a whitelist mechanism and fee-based minting, to all Dutch auctions without a whitelist, its claimed investment of US$5 million has also been questioned.
Many early Ordinals players were quite dissatisfied with NodeMonkes's repeated jumps during the launch stage - you can certainly make money, but it's a bit too ugly to watch. Moreover, early Ordinals players were obsessed with the "fairness", "freeness" and "sincerity" of the Bitcoin ecosystem. It is precisely because of this that Dr. Jin Dog ( @ordjingle ), who led the Chinese translation of the Ordinals protocol white paper, voluntarily resigned from his position as NodeMonkes Mod.
Afterwards, NodeMonkes announced that the minting revenue will be stored in a multi-signature wallet composed of Bitcoin mining CEO @hash_bender, Taproot Wizards CTO @rot13maxi, Mining Galaxy VP @bitcoinbeezy and others, which partially calmed players’ concerns about the project. question. But not long after the sale was completed, another wave of ups and downs occurred. On December 24th, NodeMonkes experienced an uneasy Christmas Eve - Discord was hacked...
After nearly 3 weeks of struggling, NodeMonkes finally decided to set up a new Discord server. During this period, NodeMonkes conducted an auction at Sotheby's, and the "hammer" was eventually sold for $9,525.
At this point, the controversy about NodeMonkes is basically over. The next thing that really detonated NodeMonkes was its "strongest shovel" effect.
"The Strongest Shovel" and the Mysterious Founder
The assets with the best performance in this round of Bitcoin NFT can actually be summarized by the word "shovel". One is the Rocktoshi series and the other is the Bitcoin Puppet series. Although you may disagree, for example, NodeMonkes dug into the roots of Bitcoin Frogs and stole the unique narrative of "the first original 10K Bitcoin NFT series". Or maybe NodeMonkes is the first project to attract large-scale attention from ETH NFT players and really like its art style. But I think the current Bitcoin NFT market is a bit accelerating to follow the old path of ETH NFT. Assets that can "earn interest" are good assets. Think about the BAYC and CyberKongz on ETH?
On January 22, “Rune Miner” RSIC was quietly airdropped into the hands of a group of Bitcoin NFT players. One of the player groups that will benefit the most from this airdrop is NodeMonkes holders. Active addresses holding NodeMonkes even received up to 5 RSIC airdrops.
The price of RSIC basically broke through 0.01 Bitcoin at the opening, quickly rose to 0.05 Bitcoin 2 days later, and then fell back to 0.03 Bitcoin and remained stable. Entering February, RSIC has basically been rising all the way, breaking through 0.1 Bitcoin at its peak. The current floor price is still above 0.1 Bitcoin, and has a tendency to hit new highs.
RSIC not only created a wave of "rune" projects, but also opened up NodeMonkes' "Rent and Governor". The "shovel" effect of NodeMonkes began to be activated, and soon became the "most popular" among the Bitcoin NFT projects. Strong shovel".
Who created RSIC? This goes back to the concept of "Rocktoshi series" we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Because the funding sources for burning Ord Rocks (a very, very old Ordinals project, similar to Ether Rocks on Ethereum) and RSIC point to the same address - bc1pce53d78cuyw4fkuhh95ppc8h8v4wjc00nqulj2gff2474qg0xyns9krcq5.
In addition, NodeMonkes is the biggest beneficiary of the RSIC airdrop, so many people in the Ordinals ecosystem believe that Rocktoshi is the operator behind the three projects of Ord Rocks, NodeMonkes and RSIC.
Players who have made money must love Rocktoshi very much, but if you look at the overall Ordinals ecosystem, his evaluation is not so good. At least, in his previous Beef with another Ordinals big V @cbspears , many people chose to side with @cbspears. In January, @cbspears accused Rocktoshi of trying to blackmail and threatened to sue him in the past six months. He even bluntly stated that NodeMonkes is Rocktoshi's project, and expressed his dissatisfaction with Rocktoshi's continued use of the wealth and influence he earned to attack others. Worry.
Maybe people who are capable of creating such a successful project will have some "artist qualities" in their personality. This may be the kind of quality that inspired Rocktoshi.
On the last day of last year, after I used my Twitter to criticize NodeMonkes for "repeated jumps" during the launch phase, I unexpectedly received a private message from NodeMonkes' Official Twitter. I don't know if the person opposite is Rocktoshi, but he expressed his dissatisfaction to me, saying that the release of NodeMonkes was not to make more money, and that NodeMonkes was "a victory for Ordinals." Firstly, I was surprised that a person with little influence would receive private messages. Secondly, I felt that my attitude had never changed and would never change, and I was a piece of shit...
As the man behind the screen, probably Rocktoshi, says, "Get over it." Although my attitude has not changed, and this attitude has prevented me from ever thinking about buying NodeMonkes, the prosperity of the Bitcoin ecosystem is already before our eyes. Ten thousand years from now, these will be trivial matters that will not be counted as dust. There will be no trace. For me, I think this article also keeps my promise in this conversation, not to judge NodeMonkes with any subjective emotions, but to faithfully narrate some stories.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that NodeMonkes is currently the most successful Bitcoin NFT project.
At the narrative level, it has unique narrative scarcity, and it is impossible for another project to take away the "First Original 10K Bitcoin NFT Series" label exclusive to NodeMonkes.
At the artistic level, it is the first time that ETH players have a change in the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem. At least from my observation, NodeMonkes is the first project to attract ETH players on a large scale and allow ETH players to say "I will buy it."
At the level of "creating wealth", RSIC was a great success. It not only pioneered the "Rune" project, but also later attracted a large number of airdrops for NodeMonkes. It also made its community full of expectations for Rocktoshi, becoming the "star of the Bitcoin ecosystem" in one fell swoop. The strongest shovel".
No matter how the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem develops in the future, NodeMonkes has left a mark in the history of Bitcoin NFT.
However, would you have thought that the rise of Bitcoin was so fast and so fierce, and that the small picture would be in such a situation with FOMO?
"Every time comes and goes with the same force, but heroes are not free when things go."
