GM

Welcome to the 14 people who joined yesterday.

A little housekeeping item: if you minted our Genesis Pass this week don’t forget to check out the discord here.

Drop by and throw a 🤠 in chat to let us know you saw this.

In today’s edition:

• This Bitcoin NFT surprised everyone

• My latest NFT rankings

• Newly found drops

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

This Bitcoin NFT surprised everyone

Who would win:

This Veblen Good, luxury ape-themed collection that’s run by a multi-billion-dollar company, has been promoted by celebs on The Tonight Show and MTV, and has dominated the public conversation around NFTs for roughly two years.

Or this pixelated frog that you probably have never heard of.

Well, it turns out that frogs stay winning in crypto, because at one point this week Bitcoin Frogs became the collection with the highest 24-hour volume on any chain, surpassing “blue chips” like BAYC, Azuki and Pudgy Penguins.

It’s also now the Ordinals collection with the most volume ever, according to Ordinals Hub.

This has been an unexpected turn of events for many OG collectors in the space, especially those that confidently predicted that Ordinals was a two-week-fad back in February.

But it begs the question

Why these frogs?

Well let’s see, it has all the hallmarks of a classic vibes-only collection. No roadmap, free mint, anonymous founder, fun atmosphere.

And they’re also claiming it’s the first “Bitcoin native” 10k PFP collection, meaning the art originated on Bitcoin and isn’t a derivative from existing IP. So it has a bit of a narrative, but nothing groundbreaking.

To be honest there’s no clean satisfying answer as to why Bitcoin Frogs took off; don’t think too deeply about it. Sometimes a meme just hits and momentum carries on its own.

Taking a step back though, you might notice something about all these top Bitcoin collections in general. Take a look at the top collections this week (image below).

Bitcoin is positioning itself as the elite chain for digital assets, but I’m looking at these top collections, and, I don’t know, my impression is that they aren’t la creme de la creme.

Maybe some of you Dear Readers will get hot and bothered by a BTC Moonbird copy, but it doesn’t really do anything for me.

However, some of these might be looked at fondly years from now as an interesting time capsule of sorts.

Let me explain.

Ordinals began with a race

Up until now, people have been gunning after low inscription numbers since that has been the primary narrative so far. In other words, #100,000 is good, #10,000 is great, #1,000 is a banger – at least that’s the pitch.

So who wins in such a race? Is it the perfectionist that’s heads down in the lab for months working on the Next Big Thing, carefully crafting image layers and lore and a well-optimized website?

I’m afraid not. Victory goes to the people willing to speed up production, or cut corners, or in some cases straight-up rip off popular collections from other chains. This isn’t a judgment on anyone who made those collections, it’s just standard game theory and they played it “correctly” (although in some cases while violating IP rights).

Btw, that’s also not meant to be a universal statement. Please don’t blow up our DMs because you actually worked really hard on Ordinal #52,505 – I believe you!

The bottom line is that this race led to a “lightweight meme” meta. Most of these collections don’t take themselves too seriously, they’re not promising anything grand, they’re just fun artifacts.

But here’s a fun Friday thought experiment: these may be the last of their kind.

Last week we spoke about how Bitcoin fees have been increasing sharply as Ordinals hype rises. This makes it prohibitively expensive to launch large collections “just for fun” like we saw back in February and March.

Some things, like DeGods minting out an entire Bitcoin block for their collection, might never be possible again.

So one theory is that lightweight meme collections, while a dime a dozen on chains like Ethereum, might become a rare commodity on Bitcoin. Almost a relic of the early Ordinals market.

Of course, we’re incredibly early so all of this should be taken with a grain of salt (or salt rimmed margarita since it’s Friday).

P.S.

For those looking to jump into Ordinals, I highly recommend checking out this tweet by Leonidas which gives a comprehensive directory of all the current marketplaces, wallets, tools, etc. It’s a great starting point.

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

Semblance by Rahul lyer

Art Blocks team member Rahul Iyer will debut his first generative art collection, Semblance, on July 11th.

The work explores the tension between the private and performative aspects of one's identity and will mint as an open edition.

FVCK TOKEN

Popular digital artist FVCKRENDER is introducing a new element to his art ecosystem with the recently unveiled FVCK TOKEN.

This NFT is an exclusive reward for his existing collectors and will fulfill many roles in the future, most notably as a way to access his upcoming work.

Given the artist’s notoriety in Web3 and the potential imaginative mechanics this release could unlock we’ve…

✨ Added to Watch List ✨

Jioverse

While anime PFP projects are a dime a dozen in the NFT space, it’s not every day that one of them is co-founded by the lead concept artist of Overwatch 2, a massively popular online game.

You’re still early to JIO, as very little has been unveiled so far. From what I’ve seen though, they are focusing on building a tech platform with art that looks pretty dang clean.

I’ll be watching this one for more details 👀

THE MINT LIST

1. Nike Our Force 1. Digital shoe drop from the global consumer brand.

2. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X.

3. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT.

4. FewoWorld. New PFP by Fewocious, a rising star in the art world.

5. 10KFT PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple.

6. Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following.

7. BIG INC. New free mint from the goblintown team.

8. Dimensionals - EVE. Free gaming PFP from doxxed studio.

9. Squiggles. Limited auction of the OG gen art collection.

10. Garbage Friends. New PFP from the creator of Invisible Friends.