What are the hidden messages of the BAYC and Milady trajectory studies?

Author: @the_metadata Translation: Huohuo/Blockchain in Vernacular

Bored Ape (and most NFTs) have been on a consistent decline. Many people have suffered great losses.

But there’s one $10,000 PFP collectible that bucks that trend and keeps going up – and that’s Milady.

So how do you identify potential winners in a dismal market?

Here are some humble opinions:

Clearly, Boring Ape and Milady are on different trajectories. Boring Ape has been falling continuously, and has fallen to 23 ETH, a drop of more than 50%.

The blame has been placed on the Blur miners: they have been dumping inventory as BLUR airdrop mining has become less attractive.

On the other hand, however, Milady has been a shining star. After a period of stagnation, it posted a 50% price increase this month.

Ownership tells a story of two trends.

The common view is that higher-priced ownership of special NFTs means that supply is small and in the hands of whales, who are often speculators rather than long-term holders.

Bored Ape enjoys high unique ownership for most of 2022, staying above 60%.

On the surface, this might seem positive, but the downward trend in the number of unique wallets since the beginning of 2023 is a worrying development.

@miladymaker started from a low base at roughly 30% unique ownership, but has steadily increased since February 2023, currently at 36%.

At first glance, a low unique ownership percentage might seem like a negative for price, but in the long run, that’s not really the case.

**The number of listings provides another interesting angle. **

Over the past 90 days, the number of Boring Ape listings on OpenSea has grown by 70% (from about 300 to now 500+).

Usually, a listing indicates that the owner of the NFT has a stronger intention to sell.

In contrast, Milady’s NFT listings were fairly high in May (over 900), but have been trending downward since then.

The number of NFTs listed for sale has dropped by 45%, to about 500 today.

Boring Ape and Milady have about the same number of NFT listings, but the trends are quite different.

So what is the general situation? Ownership and listings are like tea leaves, giving us clues about price trends for NFT collectibles:

The percentage of absolute unique owners and the number of NFTs listed are not that important as each project has different dynamics.

Comparisons at a single point in time are less effective, and it is most important to focus on trends.

**Percent increase in unique ownership + % decrease in number of listings = positive signal for price. **vice versa.

Of course, it is not 100% accurate, but it is worth keeping in mind as a necessary reference!

(Thanks to @nansen_ai for the diagram)