Although affected by the overall decline of the crypto market, the top PFP projects have once again been hit by the double blow of ETH price and their own floor price. However, we cannot miss the exciting story, and making the best of a bad situation is still a good thing.

Over the past week, DeGods experienced a "death" incident; Yuga Labs suffered its first "Waterloo" and fired at OpenSea; while the NFT market for buying and selling sports stars and Pokemon collectible cards on the Polygon network has attracted attention.

BlockBeats takes you through a review of last week's NFT news!

DeGods also "died"?

On August 10th, DeGods official Twitter account released a preview image of the third season's "Art Update", and the decline began. In early August, the floor price of DeGods was stable at around 9 ETH. However, currently, the floor price of DeGods is only 3.9 ETH, a drop of more than 50%.

DeGods price trend

This time, the decline suffered by DeGods is slightly lighter than that of Azuki, but it is still quite serious. In my opinion, DeGods did not actually do anything wrong, and even doing poorly may be somewhat far-fetched. This just reflects the awkward situation of PFP now - high market value, lack of new narratives, and scattered confidence. Doing more is just making more mistakes...

The founder of DeGods, @frankdegods, has always been a top marketing expert in the NFT industry. It is unknown whether the setback suffered by DeGods this time exceeded his expectations. Before the preview images of the third season's "Art Update" were released, Frank admitted that he was also nervous:

When I saw the preview images of the third season of "Art Update", I felt a bit surprised, but not in a good way. Compared to the images of the second season "DeadGod", I feel that the details and sense of hierarchy have worsened. After a quick conversation with a few friends, we generally agreed that it's not as good as the second season "DeadGod". In addition to dissatisfaction with the images of the third season, the community also has some complaints about the 333 $DUST (valued at approximately $750 at the time) required for the "Art Update".

The DeGods team quickly made corresponding adjustments to the poor market response:

On August 11th, the co-founder of DeGods and art creator @jonnydegods released a video explaining the creative ideas behind the third season's "Art Update".

On August 12th, Frank tweeted that the "Art Update" for the third season will have a different version, which he referred to as "Downgrade". He emphasized that they really did a good job and that they have completed almost 5 full versions in the past 7 months.

On August 13th, Frank released a 12-minute video discussing recent events on DeGods and his thoughts on DeGods and y00ts.

On August 14th, DeGods official Twitter account once again explained the art creation and officially announced the postponement of the release of the "female" DeGods (in the third season "art update", holders can switch their DeGods to the female version).

On August 15th, "Points Parlor" opened, and DeGods holders can use staked points for "unboxing lottery". Kraken NFT sponsored many prizes for Points Parlor, including a Tesla Model 3, MacBook Pro, LV wallet, and more. "Points Parlor" is actually a combination with the third season of "Art Update", and only DeGods holders who have completed the third season of "Art Update" can participate in Points Parlor.

However, the downward trend of DeGods has already begun, like a waterfall that is difficult to stop once opened. On August 11th, an address on Blur sold over 100 DeGods through Bid, which had not been sold since the address migrated from Solana to the ETH mainnet four months ago. Also on this day, an address sold $DUST worth 200 ETH. Afterwards, we come to the familiar part - whales control the life and death of NFT projects.

Frank asked Huang Licheng in a Twitter Space on August 16th how to deal with nearly 300 DeGods in his hands. Huang Licheng jokingly said he would reset the DeGods, which made Frank panic and asked Huang Licheng not to destroy the DeGods. You can watch the lazy package of this section in the Twitter Space and feel how panicked Frank really is. (Link)

What's next for DeGods? I think the situation for DeGods is much more optimistic compared to Azuki. First of all, the "art update" has been taken seriously, but it can only be said that it was "not done well". Originally, we wanted to combine with "Points Parlor" to make DeGods' art more rich and have a more widely accepted, less hardcore style, while driving the liquidity of $DUST, and combining with the publicity effect of holders of major awards such as Zhongtesla and MacBook, hoping to start a positive flywheel. However, we still underestimated the danger of the bear market... In fact, if we only promote "Points Parlor", the effect may be much better. From Frank's massive promotion of the winning situation, his promotional skills have never been offline.

@gama_imi tweeted that he bought a Samsung TV, and Frank immediately followed suit, saying "DeGods just helped the owner buy a TV."

Secondly, many whales have shown support for DeGods, such as @ZK_shark and @pimpcapital, both expressing their willingness to buy 200 DeGods from Huang Licheng.

Despite the poor market response, over 56% of DeGods have already undergone the third season's "Art Update". The $DUST prize pool of Points Parlor has accumulated more than 1.68 million tokens (currently equivalent to about 1.18 million US dollars), and all $DUST used for the third season's "Art Update" has been returned to the Points Parlor prize pool as a reward for DeGods holders who have undergone the third season's "Art Update".

However, it is also very difficult for DeGods to recover its vitality. @ProfLeoETH believes that DeGods' change of art under adverse market reactions reflects a lack of long-term vision, and the sponsors of Points Parlor are also companies within the industry such as Kraken and Ledger, indicating that DeGods does not have much influence outside the industry.

Finally, allow me to make a small complaint. It seems that there is no difference in the adjusted third season of "Art Update"...

Yuga Labs: First "Waterloo" and War with OpenSea

Although this is not an asset directly issued by Yuga Labs, because it is minted using $APE, it is the first time we have seen Yuga Labs facing the embarrassment of not being able to sell it...

The fighting game "Wreck League" developed by game studio nWAY in collaboration with Animoca Brands started its Genesis Forge on August 17th. As a partner for the first season of the game, Yuga Labs offers free "Genesis Mechs" to four Yuga NFT series, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, and Kodas.

Wreck League, a fighting game

Wreck League aims to build mechas using NFT parts. In the Genesis Casting on August 17th, there were two types of boxes that could be cast. One is the "MAJESTIC BOX" priced at 150 $APE, which contains 10 parts and guarantees that they can be assembled into a complete mecha. The other is the "BOOSTER BOX" priced at 50 $APE, which contains 5 parts. Purchasing multiple boxes may result in duplicate parts (i.e. cannot guarantee the assembly of a complete mecha). The total number of "MAJESTIC BOX" for sale is 25,000, and 8,990 were sold in the end. The total number of "BOOSTER BOX" for sale is 5,000, and 3,083 were sold in the end. Both types of boxes were not sold out, and the unsold parts will be destroyed.

Although I am not a fighting game player, I think this game looks pretty good... One reason why it didn't sell well is that the NFT market is very cold, and perhaps the combination of game and NFT in this way is a bit awkward. If this game can really capture a large number of Web2 players in the future and bridge them to the Web3 world through gameplay, this "Waterloo" may show scarce value in the future, just like the gun skins and stickers of the earliest CS:GO.

Yuga Labs' another big news this week is the "war" with OpenSea. On August 18th, OpenSea announced the implementation of optional royalties starting from August 31st. All previously issued NFT series will be subject to optional royalties after February 29th, 2024.

OpenSea's move is quite confusing, because previously they wanted NFT project parties to make choices and filter out zero-tax markets like Blur. Now they are turning to optional taxes (indirectly embracing zero taxes). Previously, everyone thought that OpenSea was on the side of creators, rooted in the cultural track, and it was good to provide new project support (Launchpad, etc.) services and form differentiated competition with Blur outside of transactions. This move by OpenSea makes people feel like they are living in the 2G era...

NBA team Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that OpenSea's implementation of optional royalties is a huge mistake, and he is also an investor in OpenSea.

Yuga Labs' response is also strange. Previously, Yuga Labs had never fired at Blur, the initiator of the royalty war, and a series of zero-royalty camp markets. This time, they suddenly pointed their swords at OpenSea. Did these two guys start fighting in another dimension?

Yuga Labs fires at OpenSea, when will you force me to implement optional royalties? I will stop supporting OpenSea's Seaport protocol

So the question is, how will things develop after this? Will OpenSea give in, or will Yuga Labs have its own NFT marketplace like projects such as Pudgy Penguins (and settle with $APE)? We'll have to wait and see.

Buying and selling star and Pokemon collectible cards on the Polygon network?

An NFT marketplace named Courtyard built on the Polygon network is attracting more and more attention. Instead of calling it an NFT marketplace, I prefer to call it an RWA marketplace. Or, the RWA-ization of NFTs?

Anyway, Courtyard excites me a lot. On Courtyard, you can convert your physical collectible cards such as basketball stars, Pokémon, etc. into on-chain NFTs for trading and earn 1% transaction fee from each resale. You can even use these on-chain NFTs as collateral to obtain loans! Imagine mortgaging your collection of shiny Charizard cards and buying a mansion?

@S4mmyEth used its Pokémon collection card to obtain a loan with an APY of 36%!

If you want to turn your physical card into an NFT, you need to first complete your physical card asset information and send it to the Courtyard official. After that, it will be appraised by a professional evaluation agency. Once the appraisal is completed, Courtyard will create a 3D model of the physical asset and mint the corresponding NFT to the asset holder. The physical asset will be stored in the Courtyard vault located in the central United States, with bank-level security provided by Brink's.

After obtaining the NFT, physical asset holders can extract the NFT from the custody wallet to their own private wallet and trade on NFT markets such as OpenSea. Buyers can use cryptocurrency or credit cards to pay for these collectible card NFTs, and can also use NFT assets to claim physical cards at any time.

What else can I say? NFT + RWA + DeFi. Looking at my Little Raccoon Water Margin card, I had a dream and could only shout out, "Tai Cool La".

Conclusion

This week's NFT market is still quite lively. Although affected by the overall decline of the Crypto market, top PFP projects have once again suffered a double blow from the decline in ETH prices and their own floor prices, especially BAYC, whose price has fallen below 25 ETH. However, we cannot miss the exciting stories and it is always good to make the best of a bad situation. At the same time, the emergence of Courtyard has also shown us the huge potential of NFT + RWA for the first time. Culture can really be valuable!

Let's look forward to more exciting things happening in the NFT market in the coming week!

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