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DeGods plummeted overnight, and a full NFT narrative couldn't stop the death spiral.

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Valuations that were originally supported by overly optimistic narratives are now being concretized as "just change the image design and start fundraising again."

Original Title: "DeGods' Overnight Plunge Reveals the Bitterness of NFT Speculation"

Original Source: Odaily Star Daily

"DeGods flipped Azuki!" Just as DeGods' floor price rose against the trend to above 9 ETH, a few weeks after the community cheered for DeGods replacing Azuki as the top blue chip, its price quickly collapsed within a few days. Currently, the floor price on Blur is temporarily reported at 4.28 ETH, more than half of its peak, and hundreds of DeGods have entered the liquidation process for borrowing on Blur overnight.

The "last whale" in the NFT industry, Brother Maji Huang Licheng, has once again been forced to become a buyer. He currently holds 324 positions, and it seems that the downward spiral trend has not yet stopped.

After the NFT industry was drained of its last loyal liquidity by Azuki's series of operations, the migration from Solana to Ethereum and the release of a series of positive news by DeGods seemed to ignite a small flame. However, this flame was extinguished in just a few months and turned to ashes once again.

Will the NFT industry never be good again? What kind of narrative can help NFT break free from the constraints of being a flash in the pan?

DeGods' Past and Present

DeGods is an NFT project launched in 2021, with an initial mint price of 3 SOL. The project proposed an innovative "PaperHand Bitch Tax" (PHBT) mechanism in the early stages of its establishment, which made it popular and rose to 15 SOL. However, the mechanism received mixed reviews, and the DeGods community later voted to cancel the PaperHand tax mechanism.

Subsequently, DeGods introduced the $DUST ecosystem and DeGods staking, which allows users to obtain DUST tokens by burning NFTs and staking DeGods. Through this mechanism, people are incentivized to hold or burn their DeGods. Within 24 hours of the launch of this mechanism, 50% of the total supply of DeGods was staked, and soon after, during the explosive phase of Solana NFTs, DeGods had its moment in the spotlight and became a well-known blue-chip project on Solana, with its price rising by over 300 SOL.

Subsequent market gradually declined, DeGods launched the second season project y00ts in August 2022, proposing the ⓨ mechanism, a way similar to copyright ⓒ, applied to the features of y00ts, and collecting a 5% royalty fee each time a certain feature is sold.

The continuous innovation ability allows Degods to remain relatively strong despite price fluctuations in the market, until Solana's price plummeted and activity declined due to the FTX collapse. After a vote, DeGods officially opened the migration to the Ethereum network in March 2023, while y00ts migrated to Polygon, for which Polygon paid $3 million (although the project has recently migrated back to Ethereum, and the $3 million has reportedly been returned to the team).

Although there is constant controversy in the community, many people point out that its founder has an unattractive appearance and does not respect users, such as forcibly charging 33.3% fees for NFT on Soalna after migration. However, it is undeniable that the Dust Labs team of DeGods has continuous innovation and delivery capabilities. Subsequently, DeGods launched Blur and was supported by the Blend lending protocol. The founder of Blur frequently interacted with DeGods and even engraved 535 DeGods permanently on BTC during the Ordinals craze, and conducted cooperative auctions. The community has always been relatively active, and its price has remained relatively stable even during the crash of other top blue chips.

Third Season: Azuki Incident Revisited?

After the Azuki incident, the liquidity of the NFT market was further drained, causing the prices of blue-chip stocks to decline. However, DeGods experienced a slight counter-trend increase due to the news of the third season update.

On August 1st, DeGods officially announced that the third season update will be released on August 9th. Founder Frank tweeted that the new DeGods content in the third season update will be presented in a completely new style/aesthetic while maintaining the same features as the current series. He also stated that the third season of DeGods will adopt a non-random "opening map" mode to avoid the common occurrence of massive low-rarity NFT dumping after the opening map, and emphasized that the style and aesthetics of the third season will not be similar to the original DeGods, and is expected to be more popular among the public.

At a time when narrative exhaustion is prevalent, the various descriptions of DeGods and the successful model of its previous project y00ts in the second season have ignited new hope among users who still believe in NFTs. Its trading volume has surged in a short period of time, and the floor price has also risen from nearly 8 ETH to above 9 ETH.

However, the actual information released by DeGods for the third season has left the community dissatisfied. The third season consists of 20,000 NFTs, including four series: Original DeGods, DeadGods, DeGods III, and DeGoddesses. The team will replace some unpopular features and add the ability to convert between male and female, as well as remove some unpopular NFT elements.

In addition, DeGods has also launched the Points Parlor, a staking points appreciation feature for the third season series. Users can stake DeGods to earn points, which can be used to unlock different reward packages such as Uber Eats gift cards, MacBook Pros, Teslas, and to obtain DUST tokens in the future.

And there is an additional requirement for this upgrade: pay 333 DUST (approximately worth $800, as mentioned above, which can be obtained by staking DeGods).

This third season, although it is not obviously a copy-and-paste job like Azuki, it is also difficult to see any innovation. It just adds some small features to the Traits of PFP, changes the style of the pictures. In the current market, which is tight and cannot withstand panic selling, users cannot afford it. The sudden addition of 20,000 works is value extension in a bull market, but it is definitely value dilution in a bear market. Not to mention the need to pay tokens.

On the second day of the announcement, the whale (0x 88...7589) sold about 200 DeGods on Blur in the early morning, instantly smashing the floor price by 25.84% to around 6.5 ETH.

In the days following

, the price continued to drop rapidly, and early yesterday morning it fell below 5 ETH. Over 200 DeGods were unable to pay their debts and were liquidated. Whales were forced to take over, and currently the floor price of Blur is temporarily reported at 4.28 ETH.

Speculative Expectations = Crash upon Implementation?

Faced with this situation, founder Frank apologized to the community and expressed that they would adjust their strategy. In addition, in response to the high price of 333 DUST, the price will be reduced by 33.3% every 30 days. However, this update has had little effect so far.

This delivery has plummeted, which is not uncommon in the world of NFTs.

In the former NFT bull market, "speculation expectations" were a powerful tool, an ambiguous message, a cross-border collaboration of big names, and a grand airdrop. Every new expectation and every narrative overlay was a window for the price increase of small images.

And in the current bear market, every excessive expectation hype has become a "poisonous remedy".

When the valuation that was originally supported by exaggerated storytelling is concretized as "changing the image design to raise funds again", it is a disappointment for users who are unable to pay the bill, followed by panic selling and a downward spiral.

It is unknown when the NFT market will recover, but we sincerely advise project parties with funds and strength: do not consume your community at this time, as it will push you towards the abyss of death.