Do you remember the NFT project called Potatoz from the summer of 2022? It caused quite a stir in the community at the time. I happened to come across some old data and thought the development trajectory of this project is quite interesting.

Potatoz was initiated by Memeland, a project behind the Hong Kong social media site 9GAG, and launched on Ethereum on July 20th. A total of 9,999 pixel-style PFP NFTs were minted, and they were free to claim. The project attracted a lot of attention back then mainly because of its strong lineup—Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of VeeFriends, and Kevin Roose from Moonbirds both participated. 9GAG itself has a user base of 200 million worldwide, so Potatoz came with built-in traffic right from the start.

From launch until just over ten days later on July 31st, Potatoz’s floor price skyrocketed from the initial minting price to 1.25 ETH, a 123% increase. Then on July 30th, the official announcement of the staking feature allowed holders to earn rewards by staking their Potatoz NFTs. By August 5th, the “Growth Wins” website launched, enabling users to trade, pushing the floor price again to a historical high of 1.51 ETH, a 170-fold increase from the initial price.

But the good times didn’t last. Without ongoing marketing and incentive measures, Potatoz, like many other NFT projects, experienced a correction, dropping below 0.5 ETH at one point. However, supported by relatively stable user activity, it quickly rebounded to around 1 ETH. Over the past 30 days, trading data shows users mainly trading between 1 and 2 ETH.

In terms of trading volume, Potatoz’s popularity was concentrated mainly in the first three days after launch and around July 30th when the staking feature was announced. During other periods, daily trading volume generally fluctuated between $100,000 and $200k, showing a pattern of high opening and declining activity. This also reflects a common phenomenon—without continuous content and incentives, relying solely on initial hype makes it difficult to sustain trading activity.

Honestly, although Potatoz had a good background and a sharp initial rise, the project is essentially still in the early exploration stage. Stable floor prices are positive, but without ongoing marketing, sales volume is hard to maintain. For NFT projects, this is a pretty common development pattern—initially driven by story and expectations, but later success depends on actual operations and community engagement.