GM

you ever see one too many schizo crypto memes and just think to yourself “what am I doing with my life?”

me neither

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Huge mint tomorrow

Context

Ordinal Maxi Biz is launching one of the biggest mints of the year tomorrow, and the prices have caused quite a stir. 

Specifically, they’re selling 3,141 hand-drawn "orange eyes" PFPs for: 

• 0.09 BTC if you hold an existing OMB

• 0.29 BTC if you’re on the whitelist

• 0.99 BTC for everyone else if it goes to public sale

Assuming a mint-out, the lowest they'd raise would be ~$20 million, but it could be closer to $30-40 million when including WL sales, which would make it potentially the largest Ordinals mint to date. 

Our take

Here’s how I described OMB in our Top NFT Mints of 2023 series last year:

This is still my impression of them, but you should note that I’m an outsider who admittedly doesn’t know all the deep behind-the-scenes lore here. 

Now of course, there are still benefits even without a roadmap. 

Having an OMB is an instant street cred boost within Ordinals, which can be immensely valuable for anyone planning on selling something to that community. 

And the airdrop meta will likely continue to favor larger collections, so you can expect more third-party WLs and token drops from new projects looking for social validation.

But outside of that, it’s vibes and a cult following around the founders ZK and Tony Tafuro, who seem to embrace this approach (ZK even released a video two days ago that says Fuck Your Utility). 

None of this sounds groundbreaking on paper, but it’s enough to take you pretty far. 

As someone who was in the BAYC discord in the early days, I’m aware of how real that “us vs them” euphoria can feel. 

In this case, it’s been enough to rocket OMB to its current floor of 1.11 BTC (~$81,000), making it one of the most expensive PFPs on any chain. And most OMB holders seem to believe that the 0.09 and 0.29 prices are not only fair, but actually a steal. 

Bottom line

I think the days of me spending $20,000 on a PFP mint are long behind me, especially one that’s considered fourth tier within its own ecosystem (these orange eyes will be lower on the totem pole than green, blue, and red eyes). 

But I also recognize that the normal laws of NFT physics don’t seem to apply to Bitcoin. You need to unlearn everything from the last few years. The culture is different, the technology is different, and the levels of wealth are incomparable. 

And maybe I’m shell-shocked from memecoin szn, but if you told me you did buy one of these at WL price it wouldn’t even rank in the top 10 craziest things I’ve heard this week alone. GLHF.

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

Quantum Lights

Although Shadows by Forgotten Runes have fallen significantly below their mint price, the collection remains one of the best-selling BTC mints of all time, with community projects consistently adding to the world’s lore, like Quantum Lights.

The Yang to Shadows’s Yin, Quantum Lights reimagines the dark, gloomy characters as brighter spirits, with holders of the originals receiving most of the supply for free.

It’s technically a derivative, but former Forgotten Runes team member 0xCosmo made it and the current team endorses it.

Geometrica by Deconstruct

While AI art has grabbed much of the attention of Solana art collectors, generative art isn’t lagging far behind. Multiple collections are dropping weekly, like the upcoming Geometrica by Tokyo-based artist Deconstruct.

This abstract collection visualizes the metaverse in colorful, interconnected shapes, each one split down the middle with left and right sides mirroring each other.

The artist promises future drop partnerships and special releases for holders, partially making this a bet on the overall Solana gen art ecosystem.

Ordglyphs

Think Bitcoin could use some of Ethereum’s art culture? Some Autoglyph vibes perhaps? If so, Ordglyphs might have you covered.

It’s what you’d expect – abstract generative pixel art in the style of the Iconic Larva Labs collection, with a Bitcoin tinge to it.

The collection is from Monas, an artist with various experiments under his belt on Ethereum, including some glyphs.

While he’s not the first to do a collection of this style on BTC (and certainly won’t be the last), this one seems better executed than most, and it’s at an accessible price.