Solana Spring FOMO Leads to the Solana Summer of Gaming
So . . . I got a little fired up last night and went on a rant as I tend to do sometimes.
DeGods jumped on a rocket to the #1 marketcap project on Solana, and we’ve seen a good amount of strong emotions ripple through the ecosystem.
I’ve been a proud member of the DeGods community after jumping in following the mint. (Like many, I tried to mint and that is now a legendary story of disaster in the lore of DeGods.) I bought this PFP at 5 SOL and identify with it. The euphoria of seeing us grind upwards from a nearly dead project with a small handful of sales per day to the #1 marketcap project on Solana is surreal.
But it does come with backlash. There’s a very small but very loud number of people within the Solana community getting angry over this changing of the guard.
It’s not just DeGods. Projects like SOLgods, Cets on Creck, Famous Fox Federation, Blocksmith Labs, TombStoned High Society, OG Atadians and Astrals all saw huge pumps over the last few weeks. And of course massive props are due to Degenerate Ape Academy for hitting a towering home run with their highly valued and buzzworthy eggs.
It genuinely hurts emotionally to miss the bus on those kinds of gains, especially if you got in on none of them.
By the way: I hold none of the projects above either! I REALLY messed up missing the mints of DeGods Family projects (AKA DeBuilders) Blocksmith Labs and TombStoned High Society, then sleeping on their secondary market value.
Thankfully I’ve got my DeGods so I’m fine! But it makes sense to have frustrated emotions when you miss out on new projects building solutions to existing problems/finding innovative ways to create value for holders. They’re popping up everywhere and establishing high prices so fast that you can miss the opportunities from huge pumps a project can get in the blink of an eye.
This rapid change can feel like a threat to some members of the OG project communities, and that’s just human nature. Nothing is going to activate your automatic attack reaction stress hormones on an instinctual caveman level more than feeling like the status of your tribe/community is being challenged.
It’s caused the Solana space to experience a whiplash effect of growth over just a few weeks, either good or bad depending on what you were able to get in on early. So we all need to take a deep breath, recover for a moment and recalibrate.
I’ve stated this many times on Twitter and I’ll reiterate here:
After DeGods hit #1 in marketcap for the first time with a $80m valuation, the market cycled additional funds into Solana Monkey Business and Degenerate Ape Academy to stock up on the trifecta of bluechips. This left DeGods at #3, with a marketcap $40m higher than #1 the previous week.
Why does #1 matter if your portfolio increases in value at #3? At the end of the day, this is just bickering over the Iron Throne when unity is needed for the greater good.
Side note: I thought the ending to Game of Thrones was fine but . . . wow was the White Walkers storyline wrapup poopy.
(Spoilers here. I mean, if you haven’t watched GoT by now that’s on you and spoiler warnings shouldn’t be necessary. But I’m trying to be polite. Oh, and NSFW captions)
I’m gonna call this the Spring of FOMO. At this early stage of Solana NFTs I can’t remember so many projects accelerating this quickly to the top spots. And it was all earned through building the best utility and communities.
That’s the flag I want to see planted by the Solana ecosystem: defining itself in this space by providing tangible value and innovation that‘s only possible on a network with fast transactions and low fees. It’s coming to pass: in all my alpha channels the question now isn’t what to mint or what to flip, but which projects are building the most under the radar.
The answer is easy but no one sees it: the builders that will produce the next pump are in the gaming space. Moving forward in front of everyone, and yet market prices aren’t noticing.
Before I get to the alpha calls, let’s go over some overall market analysis following up from my last piece on the market dip back in . . . March?
(Really? That was just 30 days ago? When everyone was crying hysterically about a bear market? Wow.)
SOL NFT Metrics: Two Key Data Points
Despite my . . . passionate rant yesterday, there’s good news for the growth here in Solana land. Let’s take a look at some updated charts, courtesy of Cryptoslam.io.
Check the comparison between unique buyers on Solana vs. Ethereum. Note that this lines up Ethereum’s history from the start of the Solana NFT market to make the timeframes equal:
I circled the pivot point on February 23. From here, Ethereum’s unique buyer growth dropped without a recovery. By contrast, Solana recovered quite well, and even reached back up to the previous peak levels for a few days.
This is the first diversion I’ve seen between the two charts. It’s also worth noting that the Cryptoslam data lags, and currently only goes up to April 7th. So it hasn’t captured the volume provided by the DeGods pump over the last few days.
Good! That means the Solana ecosystem was showing strength on its own before the mad rush towards one project. This is the ultimate goal: I don’t just want DeGods to win. I want everyone on Solana to win, and that’s why I do the work I do on this blog promoting projects outside of DeGods.
This is why I went on my rant last night. I see the growth coming. It’s slow and steady, and if you don’t look at the data it’s easy to miss the opportunity to keep rolling the snowball down the hill to get bigger.
There is one more data point I find very bullish.
There’s been a sentiment from some in the SOL NFT space that we are nearing a euphoric top in this market that’s going to crash soon. I find that extremely unlikely.
Sure, a crash can come at any time! But March was nowhere near our biggest month in terms of overall sales, and in fact everyone was crying bear market. Again, because this timeframe doesn’t account for the last four days and the big pump for DeGods, you can argue that what comes up must go down.
But that argument doesn’t hold much weight. We’re looking at an influx of new buyers with large amounts of capital installing Phantom for the first time and becoming familiar with the overall Solana ecosystem and its marketplace. I have to imagine once they’ve filled up on the top projects, they’ll peek over at everything else we have to offer.
That next big wave is getting very little attention with all this euphoria. And very few are stocking up now to ride it when it arrives.
The Irrational Gaming Market
Using that benchmark, the prices for gaming projects right now are stupid low. After months of grinding, the best ones are moving towards full release. And their prices are dropping? Hard to find a bigger disconnect.
I get it! Patience is clearly dwindling with gaming. You want some liquidity to ape into the project that just started pumping, and your gaming NFTs have been sitting there for months doing nothing. More liquidity is needed, and they’re the obvious passenger to get thrown off the boat.
That narrative is going to change this summer. We should see a huge influx of games finally going live on Solana, and it’s going to be their moment to grab the spotlight. If Q1 and Q2 are about the emergence of these new strong communities building amazing things, I expect Q3 and Q4 to be about the emergence of gaming.
The Bar Has Been Raised
Before I drop some of my favorite projects below, I want to provide a quick update on the article I dropped last quarter on my strategy for choosing winners when it comes to investing in gaming NFTs.
We are currently at the NES, if not SNES phase of that market evolution. Games are emerging that raise the bar for quality and execution. Many of them are showing far more progress and capability on Mint Day than other gaming projects that have been staple speculation plays on Solana for months.
Most of what I wrote earlier in the year about what I’m looking for still applies: are they consistently building, can they execute the concept, are they delivering on their promises, providing relevant updates in their Discord to keep their community engaged, and so on.
Now that a few months have passed, I’ve developed higher standards and expectations. My checklist for investing in a game now features these additional questions:
- Is it being produced by a legitimate studio?
- Great! I’m going on Google/LinkedIn to see what the project has made in the past and the companies the founders/employees previously worked at.
- Seriously can’t recommend this step enough by the way. I know it’s easy to look at a doxxed team and assume all is well, but deep dive research has unveiled a bunch of red flags for some projects that I’ve been grateful to find before overinvesting.
- Is this a game I would actually want to play?
- If not, is it a game I could see other people playing?
- I will only mint a game if they show the capability to produce something substantial before getting the mint funds. Far too many projects are launching with just cinematics and graphics.
It’s Bargain Day at the Supermarket!
Panzerdogs
Current Floor: 2.1 SOL
No hyperbole: this is the dumbest market valuation I’ve ever seen in this space when it comes to a disconnect between substance and price.
FYI, price chart up there courtesy of the awesome tools at Solanakit.
I haven’t been shy when it comes to talking up Panzerdogs. It launched back in mid-December, and stood out as the only game being developed by a legitimate studio with an excellent demo available on Day 1.
I’m not mentioning them here to pump my bags. I got a bunch on mint day at 1 SOL (props to the DeGods Alpha Chat for the tip!), and sniped high rarity Dogs immediately after. They’re staked away getting me daily pre-IDO $PANZR tokens to the point that I often forget that I own them.
Not pumping here to sell it, don’t plan on doing that at all until the game is fully released.
Here’s what I do want to point out: all of my dedicated communities know how bullish I am on this project. And when they asked me if they should pick some up at the 3.5–5 SOL range, I’ve plainly told them no. Sure, I think it’ll have higher value at full launch, but it would be irresponsible for me to recommend a purchase of one at 5 SOL when I accumulated a large bag at 1 SOL. Especially with staking rewards rolling based on quantity and rarity.
So why the drop in price? Has the project stalled?
Uhh . . . no.
Jan 6: Demo play button added to Magic Eden listing page.
Jan 10: Snapshots begin for Panzerdog Tank NFT drops.
Jan 14: Tank NFTs dropped to holders, one for each Panzerdog NFT in wallet. Current floor for Tank NFTs: 0.58 SOL
The community was upset that the tank rarities weren’t as high as expected. In response:
Jan 14: Team explains the game balance issues with providing overpowered tanks at this early stage, shows how they used an algorithm to decide the value of each drop.
Jan 23: Interview with Justin Kan on the Fractal YouTube Channel
Jan 26: Demo update allowing holders to play with their Tank NFTs in the game.
February 10: Staking goes live. Holders earn pre-IDO $PANZR tokens for both Dog and Tank NFTs, with bonus allocations for rarity. These will be airdropped for free, and holders will also get allocations to buy additional $PANZR tokens before the IDO. Estimated value of all airdrop and pre-IDO tokens for holders is $1.5m.
February 17: Live stream of 3v3 PVP featuring SOL Big Brain
March 2: Alpha release of PvP goes live and holders can now battle against each other. This coincides with a new map, and a Season 0 competition. 66 SOL and 10 Tank NFTs are given out to the players with the highest scores at the end of one week.
March 18: Season 0 Rematch launched, same prize pool of 66 SOL and 10 Tank NFTs.
March 22: Team reveals capabilities to plug in other NFT projects as tank driver avatars and teases future partnerships.
March 29: Team updates the balance of tank stats following the end of Season 0 Rematch.
April 4: Whitepaper update with more information on tanks, game balance and tokenomics.
April 8: Panzerdogs Garage goes live. Players can now mix and match their tank pieces to preferred configurations and strategies.
Whew, that’s a lot!
But anyway. After all of that, Panzerdogs is currently sitting at the same price it had on January 18th.
Oh, and back on that date SOL was trading at around $140.
Let’s adjust for scale, shall we?
As I write this, the floor for Panzerdogs is 2.10 SOL and SOL is trading at $100.
Current price of a Panzerdog: $210.
I’m checking back and forth between the Panzerdogs chart and the price of SOL. More or less, the last time a Panzerdogs NFT had this USD valuation was when people were paperhanding below mint or slightly above mint.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely want to show all the hard work the Panzerdogs team has put in every step of the way, and why it’s worth grabbing at this price.
But more than that, I listed out every single thing they did for a specific reason: it is the highest level evidence to keep in mind every time you think this market prices assets at their true value.
We’re looking at a project that consistently delivered, listened to its community, provided added value in airdrops currently worth about 0.60 SOL, and has staking live for pre-IDO free tokens plus additional access for more prior to public sale. Added all together, the estimate is $1.5m in token value provided to the community.
. . . and the market is saying the value of Panzerdogs is the same as one week after it minted.
Please always keep in mind this market is dumb and its price action is out of touch with reality. Take advantage of it! This is why you had twelve days of consolidation at 9 SOL after DeGods launched staking.
Whew. Had to get that out of my system! Sorry. My tilt button is irrational behavior in the face of evidence and I got triggered.
Panzerdogs Links:
Alpha Release: https://play.panzerdogs.io/alpha/
Website: https://www.panzerdogs.io/
Discord: https://discord.gg/dSbEq6fBA2
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/panzerdogs
Whitepaper: https://whitepaper.panzerdogs.io/
Staking: https://www.panzerdogs.io/#/staking
Fractal: https://www.fractal.is/panzerdogs
Magic Eden (Dog Avatars): https://magiceden.io/marketplace/panzerdogs
Magic Eden (Tanks): https://magiceden.io/marketplace/panzerdogs_tanks_
Tatsumeeko/Meekolony
Current Floor: 1.80 SOL
I always say I have no problem scaling out of any project I hold, if not unloading all of it if I don’t see enough progress being made.
This was the case with Meekolony. I bought a bunch, held, saw there were no updates for a while, and then sold at a small loss. Since then the project has gone into full build mode, and I re-entered picking up more NFTs than last time.
What changed? Everything. They ramped up their staff and started posting weekly blog updates to show everything being released and currently in the works. Staking went live a little over a week ago, giving holders advance access to their native $IGS token. At the end of December there was a big announcement of a Y Combinator investment, though it’s currently not on their Discord or blog. Even if the deal fell through, everything else is moving forward at a rapid pace.
(Quick shoutout to Y Combinator alum @frankdegods and the Arbitrage Acquisition Funnel™)
Let’s back up a bit and take a look at what this project is about. There is a lot in their whitepaper and to be honest I can barely keep up with all the features they’re working on. Shash Talks NFTs does a great job breaking down all the value involved here and what the project is building.
Do note this video was posted back in late January. If there have been any changes to the details, the overall vibe of what they’re doing still applies.
At the top end of things, a key advantage of this project is its potential to onboard users that wouldn’t otherwise be interested in NFTs. They have an existing Discord bot app that’s been used by 1.4 million Discord communities. It’s fairly simple and chat oriented, adding some fun graphic assets to Discord interactions. The company is open about it being a bare skeleton product, leading to this next iteration of adding NFTs and more gameplay. Still, its current product has generated over $200K in sales, and the fact that it’s attached to Discord enables for easy onboarding.
I can attest to this. When the project first came out, their Discord was packed with users who needed help installing Phantom, acquiring SOL and every other piece of the NFT/crypto ecosystem. It was the first time I’d seen a project bring a massive influx of brand new users who had zero experience with any of this. I was so impressed! And I had no idea how they did it.
Now I do — they were able to port over the existing core community they’ve had for years.
To that end, they know their audience. New users will not need to integrate a Phantom wallet until they get to a certain point in the game. It’s a very similar design to games that hold your hand through a demo until you get to a point of next level advancement.
I’ll be straight up with you: I have very little grasp on everything going on with this project because they are creating a full universe of activities: raids, community team-up PvE, PVP, custom metaverse hangouts, guilds, storylines, farming/crafting/mining, character customization. It’s a lot.
I do know firsthand from working with similar projects years ago that an all-encompassing anime themed MMO can create dedicated players who will dive into this kind of title at full force. And they will definitely value aesthetic flex upgrade NFTs. Because players can spend so much time in these games, they are often willing to spend lots of money on skin upgrades in a traditional microtransaction oriented game economy where funds only go from the player to the project.
I’ve written plenty on the value of aesthetic flex upgrades. Adding NFT P2E on top of that within a genre and niche that can produce the addictive potential of World of Warcraft has an extremely high ceiling.
Just like the overall gameplay environment, there’s too much here for my brain to process when it comes to NFT utility. Top level bullet points copied directly from the whitepaper:
- Staking for the native $IGS token + in-game exclusive airdrops (this is currently live)
- Cosmetics and animated avatars.
- Access to exclusive stores, worlds and hangouts.
- Exclusive seasonal airdrops.
- $MKLN DAO token airdrops.
- Presale access to new releases of NFTs including Land. Includes discounts on some of those items.
- Exclusive merch.
Straight up, I doubt I will play Tatsumeeko. But that’s cool! I am not the target audience. If this is executed properly, and by all accounts that’s happening, the demographic they’re aiming for is going to be glued to this all day thanks to the granular detail of activities in the world, the social aspect, and of course the new ability to acquire, buy and sell NFTs.
With all that, I’m happy to let the Meekolony NFTs I own sit in staking and collect value while the team keeps moving forward. There’s only 10,000, and I expect the game will have far more dedicated users than that number.
Helpful note: there is no difference in utility for Meekolony NFTs based on rarity. I do expect players will value the rare traits higher like any other NFT collection - but if you’re looking to get some exposure and stack $IGS, sweeping the floor will get the job done.
Tatsumeeko/Meekolony Links:
Website: https://www.tatsumeeko.com/
Discord: dsc.gg/tatsumeeko
Tatsu Pre-Alpha Character Creator: https://tatsu.gg/
Tatsumeeko Twitter: https://twitter.com/tatsumeeko
Tatsumeeko Meekolony NFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/meekolony
Blog: https://www.tatsumeeko.com/blog
Whitepaper: https://www.tatsumeeko.com/_files/ugd/a256c9_0672282efe604c15b2abf0d8a5410d26.pdf
Staking: https://apps.meekolony.com/stake
Magic Eden Marketplace: https://magiceden.io/marketplace/meekolony
Metawana
Floor Price: 1 SOL
Unlike Tatsumeeko, I probably will play Metawana. And I don’t even smoke!
Straight up: in our demographic and especially those grinding for profits in the NFT space, it’s going to be difficult to dedicate time to a game like Tatsumeeko. But fitting in a handful of on-demand three minute Panzerdogs PvP battles is perfect.
Along the same lines, Metawana looks like a cross between Farmville and Pokemon style PvP. Both of these formats provide engaging gameplay without requiring a serious time commitment.
Metawana is being produced by Double Coconut, a legit game studio with lots of experience and many shipped titles under their belt (including some initial forays into crypto games!) Check out their highlight reel here:
It’s an added bonus in my book that Double Coconut’s business model centers on producing games for outside companies. Let me tell you, it’s stressful enough to produce and ship a game for your own company. Doing it for a client with their own list of demands and expectations to get value for the money they’re paying you sounds all kinds of stressful. But they’ve pulled it off, continuously producing new titles for outside clients. That speaks volumes for their reputation and ability to deliver.
That integrity has extended to Metawana. The dedication shown to its community at the early building stages is unmatched by any I’ve seen in this space inside or outside of gaming. The first mint of NFTs was free for those who were airdropped “Greenlist” tokens from holding Fractals and community engagement.
Despite the free mint, the value of the NFTs skyrocketed. The floor topped out around the 2.15 SOL range, and higher rarities were priced above 4.5–5 SOL. After about two weeks the market had a strong correction, leading to the current floor price of 1 SOL (Epic rarity is still at 3.50 SOL and Legendary at 15 SOL).
As I write this, the second mint for Baby Buds is slated to take place in two days on Fractal (4/14 8AM PST). When this was first announced, the mint price was listed at 2 SOL for whitelist, followed by 2.5 SOL for public sale.
The community wasn’t happy with the price. I get it, but at the same time, you know . . . free mint to start with! And they had excellent secondary market value!
Despite that, the team circled back and came out with a new price at a much smaller amount: 1.25 SOL for Greenlist, and 1.69 for public. The number of Baby Buds was also reduced.
That’s unreal! To review:
- Free mint for the first generation of the NFTs.
- Provided early access/cheaper mint prices to holders for the second generation mint.
- Reduce mint cost for holders by 0.75 SOL after outcry about the high (get it, high?) price.
- Reduced supply as well.
Quick maths: assuming all of the Baby Buds supply is minted by whitelist holders (unlikely, but doesn’t matter for my point), you’re looking at 5,525 SOL (more or less $552,500) of revenue generated by the team from two NFT mints. Compare this to the many gaming projects that minted up to the 2–2.5 SOL range for one collection of 10,000.
The team has also slated the full release of the farming section of the game for the week of this upcoming mint. You can check out the roadmap here. Hint: Go from upper left to right. You’re welcome!
So what’s my play with this one? I grabbed my free mints, and flipped one to get some additional funding for an upgrade to two Epic rarities. Those Epics currently go for 1 SOL less than I paid at that time, but whatever.
If you don’t hold any, it’s too late to get a whitelist token for the upcoming Baby Buds mint. But still, with the farming feature releasing within a week or so, the price has remained at its current low.
The team hasn’t released full details on the farming features yet, but all signs point to at least some initial form of a P2E ecosystem going live with it. Combining a Gen1 and Gen2 also allows for evolution to Gen3. If that’s available at launch, it’ll give the first players who hold both a solid head start.
Remember the Panzerdogs chart up there? Yeah. Same here, the market has decided not to raise the price for a project leading up to a full release.
I mean . . . P2E release pending and the price is still near its all-time low?
Hold one second.
Gonna go exchange some $DUST for SOL.
Okay! Just took a break from writing to sweep three Uncommons off the floor at 1.10 SOL. Seriously. I’m being 100% honest. Wasn’t expecting to do that, but as I wrote this out the obvious thing became obvious.
Needless to say, I think current pricing is highly disconnected from the project value, and this provides a great opportunity to get some entries. Commons are currently going for 1 SOL, Uncommons for 1.10 SOL (sorry, just bought those up so now 1.14 SOL!) and Rares for 2 SOL. Rarities do provide bonuses for the farming portion of the game: amount harvested, time to grow, cooldowns and so on. This unofficial guide is cited often in their Discord for more information on rarity and utility.
I will use my full allocation of whitelist tokens to mint the second release. NFT games tend to drop below mint price after a few weeks, but when rarity makes a difference minting becomes worthwhile. That and you know, the game actually releasing soon after the mint so the NFTs will be playable without much wait time.
Links for Metawana
Website: https://metawana.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetawanaGame
Discord: https://discord.gg/a6HARNv3gJ
Rolling(White)paper (lolz): https://metawana.gitbook.io/metawana-rolling-paper-whitepaper/
Upcoming Baby Buds Mint on Fractal: https://www.fractal.is/metawana
Unofficial Metawana Community Rarity/Utility Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1thktlh1iBTh5m278ZFaRemhWduHrhrnFYeGd3SkENoU/edit
Magic Eden Marketplace: https://magiceden.io/marketplace/metawana
Fractal Marketplace: https://www.fractal.is/metawana
What Did We Learn Today?
Honestly, I got far more alpha for myself researching all this than I had expected! I knew Panzerdogs was undervalued, but I had no idea it was to such an insane extreme.
I also thought I was just going to hold my Metawana NFT position until I researched what I was writing. And then I realized just like Panzerdogs, the market is dumb and doesn’t recognize that the price for a gaming NFT should increase when that game is about to be released. Was happy to take a break in the middle of writing this and scoop up the deep discount Uncommons lying on the floor!
To sum up the rest:
- Solana and Ethereum NFTs have more or less followed the same market cycles pattern from the beginning. But we’re starting to see a potential first divergence pivot point between both markets with Solana starting an uptick while Ethereum dips a bit. The stats currently available don’t account for the DeGods pump of the last four days, and I’ll be eager to check on https://cryptoslam.io/ for those updates throughout the week.
- If you’ve been on Twitter this week and seen the big players in Ethereum jump into DeGods, we’re starting to see hard data backing up that emotional momentum.
- Sure, as a DeGods holder I’m going to promote the project. But the ascent to bluechip status also comes with responsibility to serve as an ambassador for the whole Solana ecosystem. Every representative from a bluechip community should have the same focus rather than fighting for the top spot. More liquidity = all projects increase in value regardless of marketcap ranking and everyone eats.
- This market is dumb. Like really, really dumb. Not the people in it! We have a brilliant community here filled with amazing people who bring so much creativity, innovation and elite level analysis to the table. But for whatever psychological reason, group us together and we can’t seem to correlate price and value correctly. For a recent example, the market provided two opportunities at consolidation levels for DeGods where the next leg up was obvious. This tweet wasn’t me being some genius who makes excellent calls. It’s just common sense of seeing a future price increase coming after a major initiative launch (in this case DeadGods).
- “The market is dumb” applies to gaming more than any other sector on Solana.
- One title has done nothing but build, deliver, create value for holders and promptly respond to the concerns of their community. They keep moving forward with updates for their demo and launched competitive PvP for prizes. They are currently trading near their all-time low in USD value.
- One title released a free mint for its first NFT release. Free. Followed by a massive secondary market price and unprecedented profits from a zero cost mint. Following that, the community complained that the second NFT mint cost was too high, so the team got into a huddle and cut the cost by 0.75 SOL. The first portion of the game is slated to launch in about a week (likely with some form of P2E). The NFTs are still near their all-time low price.
Everyone is feeling FOMO and looking for the next wave of builders at a cheap entry. It’s literally right in front of your face, just in the gaming sector everyone is neglecting because they’ve lost patience with waiting. Data and substance don’t lie, and chasing a FOMO wave is no fun. Be in a position where you’re ready to ride it from the start next time around.
Please note I am not a financial advisor and none of the content on this website should be considered financial advice. All content shown here is based on my personal opinion. NFTs are a very risky investment where many projects go down to zero value. Please do your own research and only invest what you can afford to lose.
