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- Opensea token coming? What we know
Opensea token coming? What we know
Plus, Starbucks is back with a new drop
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In today’s edition:
Will OpenSea drop a token?
Starbucks is back with more NFTs
New Drops from the last 24 hours
Our latest NFT rankings
Will Opensea drop a token?
Opensea Pro
POV: you’re Opensea. You launched an NFT marketplace when no one knew what an NFT was. You’re a team of visionaries, building through a bear market because you believe that digital collectibles and crypto art will one day be a thing.
Suddenly NFTs are a thing. People are starting to spend ridiculous amounts of money on jpegs – and more importantly, they’re doing it on your platform. Investors start blowing up your DMs, you end up raising at a $13 billion valuation, and now you’re popping bottles at the club.
But then things start to slide. The bear market knocks volume down 90%. Sudoswap popularizes lower fees. And then Blur comes in with a more trader-friendly dashboard, drops a token, and becomes the new king of the hill.
What do you do? You could drop a token too, that’s a fun move. But the SEC is now cracking down on anything that remotely looks like a security and your legal team is probably advising against it.
So you do the next best thing: yoink and twist. Take exactly what your main competitor (Blur) is doing, and copy it with your own little spin.
In this case, Opensea took Gem, an aggregator they acquired last year, and morphed it into a Blur clone.
Oh, you think I’m exaggerating? This is Blur:
And this is OpenSea…
And here’s another:
Plus, Opensea Pro will have it’s own points system that can be farmed similar to Blur - except in this case you’d be getting NFTs as rewards, not a platform token.
These marketplace wars are getting spicy. But that’s not all Opensea did…
Gemesis
As part of their unveiling of Blur Pro, I mean Opensea Pro, sorry, OS also revealed a new free NFT collection called Gemesis.
The point of Gemesis is to reward anyone who had previously traded on Gem before its transformation. Just a little thank you for choosing them when buying your 80th My Little Pepe derivative.
The NFTs are free for wallets with Gem activity, with a total supply of 180,000. Currently only 69k have been minted.
You may be wondering - why? Why spend another $5-15 on gas to mint what seems to be just a little branded digital sticker.
We can think of three scenarios:
The Gemesis NFT eventually leads to an OS token. In fact, some people are predicting exactly this. Sounds unlikely to us for legal reasons.
The Gemesis NFT helps with point farming on Opensea Pro. Maybe holding the NFT gives you a multiplier on what you earn.
Or, it really is just a branded digital sticker.
Maybe we don’t have to guess, because the team weighed in and basically said “chill, it’s just a sticker”, so #3 is the most likely.
Now you could say this is another head fake, a classic “no token coming” wink move.
Maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time.
But we’re not betting on it, which is why we’re keeping it off the Mint or Watch Lists.
Starbucks has a new limited-edition drop
Context
Following their successful “Siren” drop last month, Starbucks is back at it again with a bigger drop for 5,000 stamps this time, collection name yet unknown.
The drop will start with an early access period, then transition into a public mint if there is leftover supply.
More mint details: 1 mint per Odyssey account, 1500 loyalty program points per stamp, and $100 mint price (~0.053 ETH at this time) for all.
Our Take
Is Starbucks flying under the radar? We’ve been asking ourselves this question and I can see both sides:
On one hand, we see very few mega brands building a web3 ecosystem in the methodical way that Starbucks is doing. They’re clearly taking it seriously, and yet many in the space don’t talk about them.
On the other hand, it’s not obvious what the end game for these drops are. You get some in-app points, some branded art (nothing special), and access to future drops.
But access to future drops could be the key. Starbucks seems to be leaning into the idea of rewarding prior collectors by giving them first dibs on new NFTs.
It’s not groundbreaking, we’ve seen it before with collections like 6529 Memes and Notable Pepes, but it's never been done at this (potential) scale.
Another difference: you actually get utility with each token. In this case collectors actually get Starbucks points – this is something the target audience finds valuable, keep in mind it’s is a coffee loyalty program after all.
This is crucial to avoid an end game where people are just buying tokens to get access to future tokens, which works until the ponzinomics fall apart.
And these rewards will probably get better. Today it’s points, tomorrow it could be trips, or celebrity hangouts, or whatever else a billion dollar brand can manage.
It’s hard to bet against Starbucks. Their web3 program isn’t even out of beta yet, but we’re starting to see hints of where they’re heading when they open it up to millions of people, perhaps within the next few months.
We’ll keep watching.
✨Added to Watch List ✨
NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.
Bright Moments - Japanese Contemporary Collection
It seems like the market can’t get enough of Japanese art, and neither can Bright Moments.
Adding on to their existing generative and AI collections for Bright Moments Tokyo, in comes the Japanese Contemporary Collection, which will feature 11 Japanese artists each minting 100 pieces.
The art reveal will take place at the Tokyo event in early May, so the sale of the NFTs should take place some time before then.
Isekai Canvas
An experimental art collection for holders of the Isekai Meta collection with 3,333 total supply, where each person gets a set amount of virtual ink as well as their own blank canvas that they can draw on to then mint their creation.
This same ink can also be used to contribute to a community canvas token, which will be eventually sold for charity.
Some cool innovative mechanics here that we could see pop up in other drops.
Fortune: Crypto Climbs Back From The Worst Year Ever
Fortune Magazine recently announced their second ever NFT release, where they’ll team up with artist IX Shells (who also recently did a piece for the LACMA NFT initiative).
This NFT will sell through a 24-hour open edition on Foundation and will eventually turn into the April/May 2023 magazine cover.
Last time Fortune offered an NFT, it was pretty close to marking the absolute pico top of Jpeg summer ‘21. Does that mean this one will mark the bottom?
THE MINT LIST
Reddit Series 3. Third NFT drop from the massive social site.
Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X.
Otherside Mara. Upcoming 2D strategy game from Yuga Labs.
FewoWorld. New PFP by Fewocious, a rising star in the art world.
Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT.
Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following.
Moonbirds Mythics. The fourth collection in the Proof ecosystem.
Fellowship Show 1. Curated collection from Rope Rainisto.
ZOGZ by Matt Furie. Open Editions from the creator of Pepe.
Seaport Subject by Botto. 1st editioned work from an AI artist.
