You're wrong about that NFT

March 09, 2023

Apparently Joe Rogan went on his podcast and said “The whole NFT space is filled with weirdos” to millions of listeners the other day.

Ok, rude.

He’s not wrong by the way — thank god we left that world behind and launched a newsletter covering Digital Collectibles instead.

NFTs? Never heard of them.

This week's update:

  • Is Iron Paw Gang the next big PFP?

  • You're wrong about that NFT

  • All the latest rankings

More info on the Mint/Watch lists here. 

IS IRON PAW GANG THE NEXT BIG PFP?

Context:

Iron Paw Gang is an upcoming PFP collection set to release in late March.

There’s three key reasons collectors are excited:

The creators. Adam Ape is an established designer and animator who previously worked for brands like Google and Apple before becoming the second highest grossing artist on Solana. He’s partnering with Random Character Collective, the NFT studio that brought us Invisible Friends in 2022.

The art. IPG is made up of 4,000 generative 3D animated NFTs. The art is colorful, polished and fun and reminds us of other popular looped animations like Invisible Friends and Let’s Walk.

The tech. Adam Ape built IPG as a modular collection: you have a driver and a mech suit as two separate components. The driver is the PFP while the mech suit is tied to unique generative soundscapes that accompany the animations. Combine a driver and a mech with the same traits to form a Purebred, which unlocks an animated environment for the NFT.

The mint is fully allowlisted but can still be accessed by holding either one of Adam’s prior collections (for a guaranteed mint) or one of RCC’s collections (for a raffle).

Our Take

Iron Paw Gang reminds us of 2021 PFPs. It’s a generative art collection with a small-ish supply, it has accessible 3D art with a ton of colorful traits that are loosely tied together, and it has a plan for building out a story based IP in the coming years.

From one angle, this is a good thing. Many of these collections dominated volume and attention during the prior bull run. It’s the genre with the best “product market fit” in NFTs and it’s what brought most people to the space in the first place during that initial run.

In other words, Iron Paw Gang would’ve absolutely crushed 16 months ago.

From another angle, it feels like a death sentence. The vast majority of these 2021 PFPs are now forgotten, their discords and twitters have turned into ghost towns and people are scrubbing evidence that they ever bought into them.

PFPs continue to be out of favor in 2023. Take a look at our top 10 list and you’ll see it’s mostly made up of either art projects or follow-up extensions to already existing PFPs from prior years, many of which have been losing momentum themselves.

That doesn’t mean the genre is dead. It’s possible many of these collectors are still waiting on the sidelines for select PFPs that bring something original to the table. Maybe something like IPG?

Above all else, Iron Paw Gang is…fun. That’s right, fun. They’re basically cool looking action figures that only exist on the internet, is there a purer example of what a digital collectible is? If you rolled your eyes at that, consider what it is you’re actually hoping to get from any of these PFPs, if not some fun.

Plus, the modular structure where you mix and match drivers and mechs is perfectly suited for people who love collecting.

This kind of gamified trait swapping is something we’ve started to see in ecosystems like Reddit Avatars and is likely a sign of where more collections are heading.

But where does IPG go next? Adam has a plan to build narrative arcs for IPG holders including factions and “conflicts and resolutions”, but to be honest we’re still light on details.

Bottom line: There’s a lot of people who like IPG and Adam Ape.

For example, the floor of Voxel Monkeys, Adam’s genesis Solana collection, trades at around $20,000 partly because it gives multiple claims to IPG. This is a big vote of confidence in what he’s building.

But to us this feels like one of those projects that falls in a strange no man's land between a cool art drop and a roadmap PFP.

I wouldn't look at this as something that’s trying to be The Next Disney, which was a belief many people bought into time and time again during the 2021 bull run.

Instead it’s a bit of on-chain fun, with an innovative and polished collectible, from an artist that has been known to consistently reward collectors.

With the right expectations going in, it could be an interesting ride.

YOUR FAVORITE NFT IS "DEDER THAN DED"

Context

Punk 6529 is one of the most influential accounts on NFT twitter, and he’s known for coining popular phrases like:

You are insufficiently bullish on NFTs.

or

Seize the Memes of Production.

Yesterday, during a discord Q&A for his Memes project, he hit us with a new catchy bar:

DEDER THAN DED

Now was he referring to some random derivative NFT, or a low effort rug pull perhaps?

Nope, he was actually talking about the largest art collections in the space - so called “blue chips” that still see six-figure NFT buys on a consistent basis.

They might look hot today, but expand your time horizon just a little bit and you'll realize that even the bluest of chips are walking zombies...they’re deder than ded.

He’s making a simple point: people still don’t appreciate how few NFTs will survive this era.

This visual represents what people normally think of when they hear “99% of NFTs are going to zero” versus what it really means.

Our Take

Here’s some advice. Whenever you believe a cultural object from our time is “game-changing” and will be remembered for generations — assume you’re wrong.

It doesn’t matter how compelling the twitter threads are — assume you’re wrong.

As 6529 puts it, the problem is that attention constantly shifts to the next season of NFTs, and new buyers are never likely to buy the prior generation’s favorite bags.

This has been a constant with culture long before NFTs.

Take art for example. There are stories of great art movements in the 1980s, with many artists being praised as geniuses and collectors lining up to buy their works for record amounts.

Yet an analysis by economist Don Thompson showed that, of the thousand artists who had serious gallery shows during the 1980s, less than twenty were offered in high end auctions 20 years later.

It’s extremely rare for something to escape the usual attention cycle and reach escape velocity and immortality.

Now, the funny part.

If you explain this to a whale that just spent $1M on today’s hot artist they’ll nod and agree, and yet… they’ll buy it again.

Why?

Because in many cases they’re primarily buying status – a form of alchemy that transfers energy from the NFT to their own reputation. This is present day value that they consume, and it’s more important than any theoretical resale value in 2040.

This is why people say buy what you like. Make sure you’re getting some consumption value out of the thing you own.

Maybe it’s status, maybe it’s a community, maybe it’s something to validate your good taste and give you a dopamine hit when you look at it on your wall.

Then after that, you can think about the financial upside if you want to play that game. This is simply asking “will other people like this too?”.

Of course, when people hear “buy what you like” they roll their eyes. It’s so cliche. Plus what if the thing I like is just, I don’t know, making money?

Well I can’t say “buy what you like” is necessarily the best way to make money, I’m sure some traders will dismiss the concept entirely.

But I think it’s the best way to stay sane and not burn out. Nothing wears you down faster than bagholding something you never wanted in the first place.

I continue to re-learn this lesson myself, it's uhh...a work in progress.

THE MINT LIST

Coming Soon: deep dives on www.mintorskip.com.