Moonbirds has attracted a lot of buzz this week with their launch having already accumulated 99.3K ETH (~$300M) in volume since their mint on April 16th. Their ascent has been nothing short of extraordinary, with the birds soaring far higher than any regular owl could imagine. They are the Chads of the owls. The first 24 hours of Moonbirds received more volume than BAYC did in the last 30 days.
The mint price of 2.5 ETH was on the high side. However, if you were able to get in at that price, you are sitting very pretty in your ETH-plated nest right now. The most expensive Moonbird sold this week came in at 265 ETH. The NFT market just gives on giving.
At first glance though, the owls are cute but nothing remotely exceptional at face value. So, what gives?
The Team
Moonbirds is a testament to one of the great rules of success for NFT projects: the founding team and community matter more than the art.
Moonbirds packs some heavy hitters in their corner. The collaborative team behind Moonbirds is Proof Collective. Proof is a major reason for the success of the project. The community is defined by providing analysis and information about NFT collections, not about trading but instead about why to hold onto certain NFTs for the long term. By design, Proof is not about providing “alpha” for pump and dumps. Entry passes into the community consist of 1000 NFTs. One Proof pass was about 1.99 ETH in December 2021, and now the floor price is approximately 142 ETH.
Proof’s cofounders are Kevin Rose and Justin Mezzell. Rose was a co-founder of Digg, a Web2 news aggregator. Despite Digg sizzling out, Rose did not. He went on to mostly working in the investment world in Silicon Valley and has been an active member of the Web3 space. People trust his vision as a force for growth in Web3.
On top of that, Rose has received support from Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary is one of the OGs in the NFT space and has the wildly popular NFT collection VeeFriends. Gary’s endorsement of Moonbirds has further helped propel it to incredible heights.
Moonbirds’ backing does come with some criticism though. Their ties with the VC community are leading to speculation that this project is the start of a new era in NFT projects where VC firms get behind the launch of projects.
The Owls and Holders
If you were on Twitter or Discord this week, chances are that you could not escape from these owls. They were everywhere! People were FOMOing into this project at record pace. At each psychological ceiling (10 ETH, 20 ETH, 30 ETH), Moonbirds kept rising. We have recently seen a rejection at 40 ETH. Is this the new ceiling for the floor price or just a blip that will be smashed through in the next few days? All bets are off at this point.
The number of holders though seems to be leveling off around 6,499.
Proof is trying extra hard to incentivize a diamond hand (diamond wing?) mentality among its community. Kevin Rose recently stated in an interview with Bankless that community members who hold Moonbirds for a longer period of time will be rewarded for their loyalty. In the upcoming metaverse, Moonbirds holders will be rewarded with land, and Proof holders will be rewarded with even more land. He commented that he found it strange that BAYC holders could have bought a BAYC the day before an airdrop and would have been able to participate. The details surrounding future rewards for the community are sparse for now, but there does seem to be conviction among the community that this is a project worth holding onto for the long haul.
Nesting
Sometimes it’s the small things that grab your attention the most. Many people are staking their Moonbirds through a process that is aptly called “Nesting.” The team allows for holders to next their Moonbirds without having them leave your wallet. As the site states, “Upgraded nests enable enhanced drops and rewards.”
Traits
The Moonbirds NFT collection consists of 10,000 unique, 2D, pixelated owl NFTs. Kevin Rose stated that the team wanted Moonbirds to be an all-inclusive community so they included different traits that a wide range of people would be able to relate to.
Bringing Back the Fun
The NFT market has been in a bit of a slump. Volume seemed to be going down. Projects were being released daily, but there wasn’t that spark or wow! factor. Moonbirds may have been that jolt that was needed to bring the market back, and the fun as well. Netizens have been enjoying this past week, and even those of us who are on the Moonbirds sidelines look in on the gold-plated nests can’t help but to smile.
Market sentiment is that this is far from over for Moonbirds. They may not quite be at the BAYC level yet; however, they are definitely in the same conversation. Expectations are high for the team to deliver, and all eyes are on Proof to see if they do indeed have the Midas touch.
About NSWAP, Inc.: Nswap is building a decentralized, multi-chain information aggregation platform (Launchpad) and open market (Marketplace) for NFTs. NSWAP, Inc. gives everyone the opportunity to experience, access, and own NFTs. With Nswap, users can access NFT collections for sale on its primary Launchpad and trade them freely on its secondary Marketplace.
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