Author: TechFlow
The NFT track, which has been absent from the bull market feast for a long time, has also become restless recently. First, yesterday Magic Eden opened the airdrop share query, and today the top NFT "Fat Penguin" Pudgy Penguins in the ETH ecosystem also tweeted to announce its token issuance plan for this year.
Although the specific date and distribution details have not been announced yet, the overall token distribution ratio has been released. The largest share (25.9%) goes to the Pudgy community; at the same time, 24.12% is distributed to other communities, and even 0.35% is reserved for $FTT Holders.
According to the analysis of community user @BTCThinker88, the $PENGU token airdrop scale is still considerable, and Pudgy Penguins holders are expected to receive $31,000-$61,000 (7.9 ETH-15.8 ETH) per person. If Abstract Chain also provides token distribution for the Penguin community, this may become one of the largest airdrops in 2024 after HYPE.
Indeed, the biggest positive news for a project is its ability to stimulate price appreciation. With the token issuance news, the floor prices of the Pudgy Penguins and Lil Pudgys NFT series have risen sharply: the floor price of Pudgy Penguins is currently reported at 18.55$ETH (about $72,600), and the floor price of Lil Pudgys is currently reported at 1.91$ETH (about $7,500), with a daily increase of nearly 20%, and the trading volume has increased 3-5 times.
NFT Warming Up, Can Projects Grasp the Trend to Get Out?
With the continued rise of the overall market, the overflowing funds have also come to the NFT ecosystem. According to data from Dune user @hildobby, the total NFT sales volume has started to warm up, with the highest daily trading volume approaching $40 million and the weekly trading volume exceeding $100 million.
The blue-chip NFTs have also seen a pleasing upward trend. According to OKX data, the floor prices and trading volumes of blue-chip NFTs on the ETH mainnet have seen good growth in the past 30 days.
Some projects have ceased operations, while others have been airdropping non-stop.
In the bear market of the past two years, the NFT track can be said to have been even more bearish than Altcoins. In 2021, the blue-chip NFTs like BAYC and Azuki encountered a series of major incidents such as community FUD and whale sell-offs in the bear market, with their prices plummeting to the freezing point. The market has also gradually disenchanted with NFTs, with the use cases of NFTs being more as "expected redemption vouchers" for future airdrops of a project or simply as commemorative certificates, and the vast majority of NFTs have lost their utility as investment/speculative assets. Even some major projects are not immune, with RTFKT, the once-hot NFT brand even acquired by Nike, announcing on December 3 that it will gradually cease operations as the crypto bull market arrives, which is quite saddening.
Except for the occasional project launching new hotspots, only a few blue-chip projects have relatively maintained their heat, and the polarization between NFT projects is becoming more and more severe: some blue-chip NFTs have performed well even in the bear market, with projects like Milady, Pudgy Penguins, and Madlads receiving large airdrops from various popular projects such as Ethena ($ENA), Aethir ($ATH), Zksync ($ZK), and Wormhole ($W) this year, with the total airdrop value basically far exceeding the project's floor price.
Being close to the market is obviously a path
From the current distribution plan, the Pudgy Penguins community is obviously very savvy about the market, and the "customer attraction" skills of the old-school top NFT are indeed impressive. Not only does the community's share account for the majority of the distribution, but the distribution to other communities is also very generous. This distribution plan on both sides accounts for half of the total token amount.
In addition to the large distribution to the community, Pudgy Penguins, born on the ETH mainnet, has also specifically chosen to issue tokens on the currently hottest Solana. Indeed, whether in terms of liquidity or player sentiment, as a cartoon NFT project, Pudgy Penguins' choice of the MEME-crazy Solana is undoubtedly a better choice for the price launch of the project.
How are the other old NFTs doing?
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Current floor price: 20.7888 ETH
Historical highest average transaction price: 340 ETH
90-day average price: 14.21 ETH
90-day trading volume: 20409 ETH
As one of the most popular NFTs, BAYC has been criticized for not keeping up with the times during the bear market. Indeed, since the sky-high transactions and token issuance and new releases in 2021 and 2022, the Bored Ape series has not had any further substantive innovation. In October this year, Apechain announced that it would start its own MEME Pump, and the short-term trading volume of BAYC also increased accordingly, but after the heat dissipated, it fell back again, until the recent overall sector rebound, and the trading performance gradually recovered.
Milady Maker
Current floor price: 6.53 ETH
Historical highest average transaction price: 7.11 ETH
90-day average price: 4.63 ETH
90-day trading volume: 10756 ETH
Relatively low-key but with a strong community, Milady has recently maintained an upward trend, with an average floor price already exceeding the time when Musk issued the Milady-themed emoji "shill" last May, and with ETH price already close to $4,000, in dollar terms, the price of Milady has more than doubled from the previous high.
Azuki
Current floor price: 6.1 ETH
Historical highest average transaction price: 40.77 ETH
90-day average price: 5.222 ETH
90-day trading volume: 8026 ETH
Azuki's current floor price of 6.1 ETH is still some distance from the average price of 16 ETH during the community FUD and cliff-like drop in June 2023, so the current price is obviously not a "recovery", but more of a rise along with the overall market warming up.
Mad Lads — Solana
Current floor price: 43.5 SOL
Historical highest average transaction price: 173.58 SOL
90-day average price: 45.47 SOL
90-day trading volume: 59345 SOL
As a representative project of Solana, Mad Lads can also be considered a welfare project that has received airdrops from various projects, with Wormhole, Backpack and other projects allocating a considerable portion of airdrops to the Mad Lads community. Perhaps affected by the overall poor performance of Solana ecosystem NFTs, the price of Mad Lads has been declining since its peak in March, but with the recent market improvement, the price has also rebounded.
Summary
Choosing to announce the token issuance on the Solana chain, which has the best liquidity, at the time when ETH broke new highs and the market sentiment improved, Pudgy Penguins' token issuance plan is a strategic success, and the market has obviously bought into this move as evidenced by the price reaction.
From the price trend of $APE in recent years, it can be seen that issuing tokens is not a panacea for Non-Fungible Token projects. To avoid the token issuance becoming the last dance for the project party to realize the value, it is also necessary to look at the specific "operation" of the project party in terms of price and token use cases. However, one thing is certain: not only for Non-Fungible Token projects, but for all old projects that want to recover, grasping the trend and getting close to the market is the main melody that should be followed in this bull market. For market participants, no matter how the project blows the sky, maintaining observation and making calm and fully grasped investment decisions is the most important survival strategy in the bull market.
