Top News

• Doodles 2 to launch on Flow blockchain, introducing personalization features for Doodles holders
• Rarible integrates with Polygon to launch a community marketplace builder
• Amazon is launching an NFT initiative this spring in partnership with Ava Labs
• Pudgy Penguins announced that they are going multi-chain with Layer Zero
• Porsche launched an NFT collection
• Conflux token soars following NFT partnership with Chinese version of Instagram
• Kevin Rose loses $1m+ in NFTs in phishing hack

Raises/Acquisitions

• Floor
  • an NFT price tracker app acquires WGMI, an NFT analytics platform
• Doodles acquires animation studio, Golden Wolf
• Blockchain-based storybook platform StoryCo raises $6 million
• Web3 infrastructure firm Spatial Labs raises $10 million in 'first' for Black founder
• Metaverse training software used by Nike and Carlsberg raises $18 million
• A16z leads Series A funding for game studio Voldex

NFT Market Overview

The NFT markets have seen a rise in activity since the start of the year - in line with the uptick in prices. Collections that have garnered significant volume in the past weeks include - Yuga Labs’s Sewer Pass, other Yuga Labs collections, The Memes by 6529, PORSCHE 911, Captainz by Memeland, and Createra Genesis Land. We dive deeper into some of these collections below.

Let’s take a look at the overall trends in the past weeks:

Main Observations:

• Volume per week continues to rise above 2022 lows, with the rise in activity likely brought about by an uptick in prices and prominent new collections.
• Transactions and users per week have also increased, with transactions increasing by a higher percentage. This is a signal that traders are trading more on average, which is a positive sign of greater activity.
• Volume and number of users on Blur have seen an increase in anticipation of the BLUR airdrop which has been announced for February 14. However, volume on Blur has taken a slight hit in the past week, probably due to Yuga Labs banning the trading of the Sewer Pass collection on the platform.

• Our NFT-500 index points show that the NFT market has consolidated from its lows in December, and is starting to show a positive reversal.
• However, we have not steered clear of any potential drawdown in floor prices and volume in the NFT market just yet. We will continue to monitor the performance of our NFT-500 basket to see if the index points continue to move up or if there are any reversals.

This Week’s Highlights

Sewer Pass

Despite launching over a week ago, Sewer Passes by Yuga Labs is currently second in the NFT volume charts with 890 ETH trading volume in the past 24H. Sewer Passes are available for BAYC/MAYC holders to claim until February 8, with a total max supply of 22.3k. Sewer Passes act as a ticket to play Dookey Dash, an endless running game similar to Temple Run or Subway Surfers, as well as a skill-based mint pass for a “new power source”. Users can also spend APE on boosters to earn higher scores. The highest single-run score for each pass holder will determine what it reveals.

The collection has seen significant Smart Money buys way above the floor price, perhaps signaling interest and demand to play the game. The launch has also led to an increase in activity on its related collections - MAYC and BAKC which have seen their floor prices rise by 8% and 21% in the past 7 days, respectively. The significant pump on BAKC is likely brought about by the speculated utility of being able to transform along with the Sewer Pass after the end of the game on February 8.

Overall, the dominance of Yuga Labs’ collections is clear - with all of its collections garnering over 50% of total ETH NFT volume in the past week.

The Memes By 6529

The Memes is an NFT collection created by Punk 6529 in partnership with multiple artists, which aims to educate people on decentralization, community, and self-sovereignty through crypto memes and art. Punk 6529 is also utilizing NFTs, which he describes as meme transports, to spread the message about the fight for an open metaverse, which he is currently building, alongside a museum, education program, and an NFT fund. The Memes consist of different themes, with each having various artwork designs. The collection is currently in season 2 of its release.

The average floor price across all cards has been slowly trending upwards ever since its release and is now sitting at 0.82E, while the floor price for the cheapest meme, FirstGM, is at 0.48E. The collection has registered 343E in trading volume from 242 different transactions over the past 24H.

Unique Smart Money owners from each NFT-Smart Money cohort have also been inclining generally, with Smart NFT Hodlers being the largest segment represented, followed by Smart NFT Early Adopters and Smart NFT Sweepers. However, unique SM wallets appear to have peaked earlier this month, which could be attributed to the recent price run-up, leading to some profit-taking.

In the past week, Smart Money increased their balance by 430 NFTs overall. However, this was mainly due to the addition of NFTs to the 6529 Vault address. Excluding this address, "BuckyBLedger" on OpenSea and thegifts.eth were the largest sellers of the collection. Although, most large holders on the leaderboard still hold a large portion of their initial investments.

Upcoming Projects

Mocaverse

Mocaverse is the membership NFT collection for Animoca Brands’ extraordinary family of companies, projects, investments, shareholders, and partners. This collection will represent our values surrounding Web3 and digital property rights, as well as our one-of-a-kind ecosystem.

Our friends at Animoca Brands also offered some WL positions for Nansen Alpha members. More information here for raffling.