GM

Welcome to the 39 people who joined yesterday.

Whether you’re reading this from your corner-office executive suite, or from your mom’s basement (I’m sure she’s lovely), you’re all equally appreciated.

In today’s edition:

• My Trump NFT Mistake

• All our latest rankings

• Newly found drops

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

SURPRISE: Trump sells more NFTs

Context

Yesterday, Trump announced Series 2 of his Trump Trading Card NFTs.

The announcement was a surprise to the market and cratered the floor price on the Series 1 NFTs, a few of which were owned by Yours Truly.

The new series effectively doubled the supply of Trump cards, adding another 47,000 NFTs on top of the original 45,000.

Series 2 sold out shortly after the announcement – netting Trump and his team $4.4 million.

Our Take

Clear your mind. You’re currently holding a million assumptions about what NFTs should and shouldn’t look like, and it’s likely that many of these don’t make sense outside of our little echo chamber.

I’m not immune to this either. I sat in this same computer chair back in December, clicked the buy button on a few Trump cards on Opensea, and made a bunch of stories in my head about what the future might look like.

Oh, this is the first President to launch NFTs. He’s going to run again and dominate the news. He’s going to get back on Twitter. He has 87 million followers and only 45k collectibles, the meme potential is insane, and so on…

But there’s a problem. We’ve been trained over the last couple of years to look at NFTs as low-supply “luxury” items that have some fixed scarcity and pump whenever attention grows.

And it’s true that many projects since 2017 have followed this trend. But this is not how most products work, and as we’ll find out soon enough it’s not how most NFTs will work in the future either.

Consider The Law of Supply. This might be the NFT collector’s worst nightmare. It’s an economic concept stating that as prices for goods increase, businesses will match this by increasing the supply of goods they’re willing to sell.

Perfect example: Pokemon cards. Prior to the pandemic, The Pokemon Company was making 3.7 billion cards a year. But when card collecting became a thing again in 2021 and people bought every pack they could find, prices went up dramatically.

So in 2022, Pokemon expanded production to 9 billion cards as a response.

This isn’t grifting, or rugpulling collectors, as many might call it if we switched out Pokemon cards for NFTs. It’s just economics 101.

Trump cards were selling for 10x the original price. Looking back – it should’ve been obvious that his natural reaction to this would be, “We should sell more cards”.

Of course, you need to give some consideration to supply dynamics.

Part of the reason people bought into Series 2 was because he made it very clear that Series 1 was still “in profit” for early buyers. Flooding the market too much and too early could end this game prematurely.

But with tens of millions of followers, and more people likely opening up to NFTs in the coming years, I doubt Trump will stop at the current supply of ~92,000.

Lesson (re)-learned: legacy brands and celebrities have a different set of expectations than the average NFT collector.

Most of their NFTs will be treated like any other product, and that’s ok – we buy and enjoy many products IRL.

But you need to adjust the stories in your head accordingly.

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

Kyzen - Phase 1

The next phase in Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory.

Kyzen is a project on Immutable with a customizable PFP creation tool using Unreal Engine 5 models which will lead to a narrative-focused game world.

Phase 1 (starting today) is only available for Founder Key holders who have connected on IMX before April 13th. However, further phases of the project are currently being built (including maybe a more publicly available one?).

More information can be found on the project’s wiki page.

ALIENQUEEN’s 420

Celebrate 4/20 with Alien Queen’s upcoming open editions on Nifty Gateway tomorrow (not blazing advice).

Two pieces from the psychedelic artist, Out Of My Mind and Take Me Higher, will be available to pick up for 4 hours and 20 minutes at $69 each.

Pathways by Julien Gachadoat

Previous Art Blocks Presents artist Julien Gachadoat combines algorithm crafting and book-making for this upcoming Verse drop.

The collection will have 879 pieces minting for $60 each (0.03 ETH at the time of writing), with collectors being able to redeem a physical art book.

The artist also has a Collector’s Edition minting that same day at a higher price, which features customized covers for each book.

Metabolic Metropolis by A.A. Murakami

Bright Moments teams up with Pace Gallery for the first time to release this Tokyo-themed generative art collection by artist duo A.A. Murakami, which will also be part of the Japanese Contemporary Collection.

95 of the total 100 pieces will be sold through a Dutch auction tomorrow, starting at 3 ETH and resting at 0.1 ETH. Discounts will be available for holders of CryptoCitizens and Floating Worlds.

PROJECT YAE: PEACEKEEPER

PEACEKEEPER is phase 1 of the Yae Labs roadmap, meant to start a new IP brand from Japan with a focus on customizability and metaverse use.

Project Yae will be a 3-phase project with 7,500 generative PFPs total, of which Peacekeeper will be a third of that. Follow-up phases AEGIS and LIBERATOR are scheduled for later this year.

The company is doxxed, having received ¥23M in funding (approx. $170k) for their seed round last year.

THE MINT LIST

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

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

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

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

5. ZOGZ by Matt Furie. Open Editions from the creator of Pepe.

6. 10KFT PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple.

7. Starbucks First Store Collection. Next drop from the big brand.

8. Wildcard Genesis. Gaming drop from an experienced team.

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

10. Proof Diamond. Curated drop with art from Beeple and other artists.