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May I someday have the confidence of Opensea announcing increased platform fees days after killing royalties.

You have to admire the chutzpah.

In today’s edition:

• The State of NFTs (ranking every category)

• Updated Mint and Watch Lists

• Three new drops

Links for the Mint/Watch list drops are HERE.

Did you know?

We have a premium pass that gives you access to a directory of every drop we cover, complete with detailed information on how to get on every whitelist (including those underrated ones that aren’t already full).

And for those curatooors out there, you can get free NFTs just by finding drops that end up on the Mint or Watch list.

Lastly, hang with me and the MoS team in a private discord with weekly voice chats. The vibes are great.

Would you like to be featured in Mint or Skip like the above ☝️ ?

The State of NFTs (ranking every category)

I go through literally hundreds of upcoming NFT drops every week.

This means that, on any given day, I’m surfing on the edge of insanity and am just a light breeze away from falling into an eternal fever dream from which I’ll never return.

The benefit of flirting with all this madness is that I do get a unique bird’s eye view of the entire space.

So let’s talk about the market.

Specifically, I’ll go through a few different categories, give each one a health score (yes, this is subjective AF) and then give some high-level opinions on what I’m seeing.

Let’s begin.

PFPs

Health score: F

Who needs the Museum of Natural History when you can go to blur.io and observe real-life dinosaurs still walking the earth:

This category is deader than dead. Its purpose now is simply to serve as a reminder of our collective shame and a warning for newcomers to avoid a similar fate.

The only PFP mints we see these days are teams that started building last year (Project Animus, 10KTF) or ye olde Fiverr anon projects.

No legitimate creators are waking up today, looking in the mirror and saying “I should build a 10k PPF collection” (nor should they).

Now, of course, identity assets will 100% return, but they’ll need a much stronger underlying context to give them value. Twitter hype and private discords are no longer close to enough.

Ironically, I think the sooner this category dries up completely, the sooner NFTs can evolve into something more sustainable and overall less cringe.

Art

Health score: B-

A tale of two cities. Most artists are struggling to gain any attention at all, but top names still sell out pretty consistently.

We saw a perfect example yesterday, where Sam Spratt sold over $1 million worth of art in his Monument Game drop that we covered earlier.

In general, art makes up the majority of all drops announced any given week, and this will likely continue.

Popular categories right now:

• AI art – post photography

• Generative art – always present

• Social art – Opepen, Monument Game

Gaming

Health score: B-

The trend all year has been for most gaming drops to go free or very cheap.

This makes sense given that these companies tend to have external funding already and view these mints more as marketing campaigns than fundraising.

The most obvious difference this year is the increased quality that we’re seeing.

Some recent examples:

• Parallel – Maybe the best Web3 game I’ve ever played

• Mythical Games – Could have two mobile NFT games with +10M players this year (we covered both NFL Rivals and Nitro Nation)

• Sugartown – Zynga is maybe the largest Web2 publisher we’ve seen building onchain so far

• Wreck League – A polished AAA mobile game with Yuga’s brand support

• Deadrop – Dr. Disrespect’s game is still in beta but continues to get positive reviews

Memes

Health score: A

The best parts of a bear market are the memes. The longer we head into the abyss, the more absurd our humor gets.

If you’re still not sure where our mental health is at, reflect on the fact that the hottest memecoin in crypto right now is called HarryPotterObamaSonic10inu.

This has spread into NFTs as well, where Miladies and Sproto Gremlins are getting stronger as the world burns around them.

I shudder to think about what we’ll see if this current bear lasts another 12 months.

Ordinals

Health score: D-

A Frank Sinatra song comes to mind:

A few months ago Bitcoin was the brightest star in the NFT universe. Now it’s getting roughly the same volume as Cardano.

Cardano(!!)

What happened? The truth is that the Ordinals meta was primarily driven by anon PFP collections. And, as we found, most of them were garbage.

So now this category has dried up, just like it has on every other chain, but they haven’t been able to attract top artists or other utility verticals that keep people engaged on Ethereum.

Before you start jumping on any graves, keep in mind that Ordinals are still less than a year old, and there are still serious reasons why collectors might prefer it over other chains.

Still, outside of a handful of projects (all of which are on our Mint & Watch Lists), we’re not seeing a lot to get excited about on the horizon.

Fashion and physical-backed NFTs

Health score: B

There’s a surge in projects bundling physical items with NFTs – and I’m into it.

First, you have the sneaker brands doubling down on Web3 in a big way: Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebox are all taking turns announcing new collabs and drops every month.

Second, you have existing brands like Pudgy Penguins and Pixlemon showing that toys might be the best path to profitability now that royalties and “companion” collections have gone to zero.

And finally, you have Weebox (minted yesterday) pushing the idea of combining figurine collectibles with the ERC-6551 standard, which lets you “level up” NFTs and allow them to own other items.

Bottom line

Now is the time to be as open-minded as possible. Empty everything you’ve ever learned and let go.

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

Meme Card #135 by rust

We’ve got some glitch coming to 6529’s Meme Cards tomorrow as rust, an emerging artist, is confirmed for the release of card #135.

rust has a large portfolio of releases, including a series of daily 1/1s that’s due to conclude this year.

As usual, the release follows the 6529 allowlist model determined by collector holdings.

{Bohem-IA} by Agoria

This Thursday electronic music producer and generative artist Sébastien Devaud, a.k.a. Agoria, will drop {Bohem-IA}, an ocean-inspired collection mixing digital and AI techniques.

The ocean theme fits the mint site Scorpios, a Greek beach club which also hosted the highly successful Winds of Yawanawa mint by Refik Anadol last month.

Bright Moments Buenos Aires Collection

Following the success of their Tokyo collections in the first half of the year, Bright Moments is back with city #8 on their roadmap, Buenos Aires.

This set features 10 artists (with a clear emphasis on Latino representation) mostly focused on generative art. Each of them will mint 100 works onchain come the November event.

As with previous Bright Moments releases, I expect a sale of mint passes for the artwork to happen sometime before the event, which will account for all potential mint spots.

✨ Added to Watch List ✨

P.S. While loosely tied to the event, the Mint Listed Deafbeef collection seems to be its own thing at the moment, so we’re keeping it separate for now.

The Mint List

1. Taproot Wizards. OG Bitcoin meme inscribed as ordinals

2. 10KTF PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple

3. Shadow Hats. Ordinals drop from the creators of Forgotten Runes

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

5. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT

6. Quasi Dragons. Innovative drop from an Art Blocks veteran

7. Sugartown Oras. Zynga, Farmville creators, releasing free NFTs

8. Memeland [TBC]. High-value treasure MVPs minting on BTC

9. Distance by Mapan. Cactoid Labs x LACMA x influential artist

10. Deafbeef x Bright Moments. OG onchain creator with a track record