By Sharon Cheng
When NFT collections dropped last year, people would obsess over which art collection was going to the Moon. With the market still in its infancy, determined collectors were on a mission to find the next blue-chip NFT project.
Fast forward to over a year later, and we have seen these blue-chip projects transform from a few individual collections into interoperable and tokenized ecosystems, like BAYC’s billion-dollar NFT ecosystem powered by ApeCoin. The creators behind these popular projects are launching spin-off collections under their brands.
And more importantly, these projects’ success suggests that this could be a wise first move to expand their NFT universes across web3 spaces.
From the sold-out secondary collections we have witnessed this far, they all share three common characteristics:
- They are offered at a lower, “friendlier” price point than their widely-circulated OG collections.
- They have a much larger supply of NFTs than their OG collections.
- They provide utilities within the associated ecosystem for both OG holders and newcomers.
Now let’s take a closer look at a few projects using this framework to understand how these three qualities made secondary collections, like World of Women Galaxy and Cool Pets, sell like hotcakes.
World of Women Galaxy
Top 3 WoW Galaxy NFTs that are currently available on Opensea.
Source: https://opensea.io/collection/world-of-women-galaxy
Following the iconic World of Women’s genesis NFT collection, WoW Galaxy features empowering female portraits illustrated by WoW’s original artist and founder Yam Karkai.
1. Compared to WoW’s current floor price at 8.4 ETH on OpenSea, WoW Galaxy is priced at a relatively affordable entry point (yes, even at 3 ETH) for newcomers to join the WoW universe.
Original WoW holders were entitled to mint one WoW Galaxy NFT for free plus gas, while those on the allowlist could mint at 0.3 ETH. The public mint was via a Dutch auction starting at 3 ETH (approximately $9,300) with the market setting the price, which gradually dropped in price until the supply sold out.
2. WoW Galaxy has a total of 22,222 NFTs (more than double the supply of NFTs than its original collection of 10,000), which incentivizes new members to participate in their community and universe.
With broader access to the NFT market, WoW Galaxy is still widely circulated and currently standing at a healthy floor price of 1.495 ETH and 23.4K volume traded on Opensea.
3. While OG WoW owners get to claim a free WoW Galaxy NFT, WoW Galaxy NFT holders get to enjoy the benefits of being in WoW’s ecosystem without paying the price.
WoW Galaxy benefits include:
- Full ownership over the artwork’s IP and usage rights.
- Art drops every month from WoW-associated artists
- Access to pre-sale events for upcoming collections
- Invitations to gala events hosted by WoW-associated organizations.
Source: https://twitter.com/The_NFT_Patron/status/1507877413761400832
Cool Pets
Source: https://opensea.io/collection/coolpetsnft?tab=activity
Hatching from an egg, each Cool Pet is procedurally generated based on item interaction.
Source: https://www.coolcatsnft.com/
Backed by the blue-chip team behind Cool Cats NFT project, Cool Pets is an expansion of Cooltopia (the Cool Cats ecosystem) and its tokenized mechanism to earn, collect, and play.
1. Compared to Cool Cats’ floor price of 8.7 ETH, Cool Pets is mintable at 0.5 ETH.
Cool Pets’ affordable price appeals to newcomers in the NFT space who want to get involved in a project developed by a competent blue-chip team.
2. Similar to WoW, Cool Pets consist of 19,999 generative NFTs, exactly double the size of its OG Cool Cats collection.
With an addition of 19,999 Cool Pets generated from 17 million unique trait combinations, Cool Pets were released on January 28, 2022, and now have a floor price at 1.68 ETH with 23.8K volume traded.
3. From this secondary collection drop, OG Cool Cats owners are also offered a free pet, while Cool Pets NFT holders can reap the benefits of being a part of Cooltopia, a tokenized and gamified ecosystem.
All Cool Pets holders can interact with Cooltopia, enabling their NFTs to go on quests and earn $MILK tokens as rewards. There is also an adventure guild system within Cooltopia where you can stake your pets and have them earn you passive income.
Final Thoughts
Within 24 hours after the drop on March 26, the team of WoW announced that they had generated a record-breaking $34 million from initial sales and $45 million from secondary market trading. As for Cool Pets, its all-time average price stands at 2.0 ETH and all-time volume at 23.8K ETH.
Source: https://twitter.com/worldofwomennft/status/1507874098004828170
Not too shabby.
And as their community expands, creators will want to build ecosystems to generate ongoing value and utility for NFT holders.
In turn, collectors want to invest in NFTs that are backed by popular and capable teams who have proven success within the market. With these secondary collections, newcomers can still own high-quality artwork and enjoy the benefits and access within the ecosystem, without paying for the astronomical costs of established blue-chip genesis collections.
Looking ahead, we should be expecting to see more highly-coveted NFT projects launch their secondary collections with similar price points, supply, and benefits. Stay tuned here for more updates.
