When PFP NFTs are disenchanted, is the narrative abandoned or the real value emerges?

作者:Lorraine

Written on the front:

The first reason I started writing was when I heard my friends frowning and scratching their heads: Should I take advantage of this time to buy a monkey (BAYC), which is still too expensive, or should I buy an Azuki?

And this just aroused my curiosity and desire for knowledge, so I started the idea of understanding the ins and outs of NFT in a huge amount of information and coming to a conclusion.

As an encryption novice, a literallyNewww Fresher, in this process, I forced myself to quickly learn and refine the key points, to summarize and summarize, and after the brain thinking and filtering, I got some ideas under my second understanding.

It may be boring and not so interesting to read, but tracing back the whole path, you can clearly see where I started picking mushrooms after falling down the rabbit hole, touching wildflowers and pine cones along the way, and finally returning home with a basket full of things.

Do you say they are useful, this is not an assignment that someone else orders need me to hand in, but it is a learning result that I want to test my own stage research, and the Feynman method of learning will never go out of style.

There may not be a single one in a basket that can be eaten, but many things may not be so utilitarian to conclude the coffin according to whether it is useful or not. It at least satisfied my original curiosity, and my curiosity was fed by myself a little bit, and it also made me know that I should not have such a big theme tone in the future, and I need to find smaller points to write smoothly, and it will be worth it.

The Web3 world is based on the dense black forest bred by the soil of Block chain Infra, and NFT is like a passcard for beginners, if you are interested, follow this article, and fall into the first rabbit hole called PFP NFT in the forest to go around the horn~

The body begins:

Looking back on the past year, although NFT projects are still emerging, the splash is not as good as in the past, and more and more people are disenchanted by it.

Admittedly, in addition to looking at new opportunities for new projects and scrolling through Twitter in the bear market, there is also one question that is most often mentioned and discussed: “Should I buy NFTs at this time?”

In fact, there are many different sub-categories of NFT, and the most widely discussed and controversial in the market is PFP. PFP (Profile Picture) NFT refers to an NFT used as a personal avatar, and it is also a form of NFT that is most easily recognized and understood by outsiders in Web3.

However, since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in 2022, the arrival of a bear market in the crypto market has not only accelerated the decline of currency prices, but also accelerated the emergence of a bubble in the NFT market.

In Q3 2023, the NFT market trading volume hit a new low

When the floor price of blue-chip PFP NFTs that used to be in the limelight, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Azuki, CryptoPunks, and Doodles, gradually fell, in the face of the current oversupply market, whether to enter the market in time or continue to wait and see has become a point of conflict.

Should I buy NFTs at this time?

The doubts behind it can be summarized as follows:

1. Is the current NFT price already the floor price, and will there be a lower price?

2. I am buying NFT now, and when the next wave of bull market comes, it will rush back to the all-time high, so that I can sell it and make my fortune free?

3. Will the narrative about small pictures become obsolete, and can NFTs continue to ride the growth train of the next cycle of the market?

4. In addition to the intuitive avatar attributes, will PFP NFTs derive other values, and is it worth spending several E’s to start?

After picking up the important keywords of the above questions and clarifying the ideas, we can find that in the final analysis, everyone’s doubts about NFT lie in these two points -

1. Practical/application value

2. The future market premium space

When the discussion around NFT begins to be strongly bound to “value”, it also means that users are no longer easily buying in the narrative logic of the suspended void in the past bull market.

As long as the market is hot, there is a high probability that it will not be unprofitable, and any small picture can be sold at a good price, so it is difficult for people driven by the FOMO mentality to listen to too conservative and fair statements;

It is in a less noisy environment that we can calm down and reflect: what is the original intention of entering the NFT market? Looking back at the popular NFT projects in the past with the current eyes, are they perfect enough to stand up to scrutiny? Are those holders really calm diamond hands or broom treasures?

In this article, we will briefly review the important projects in the PFP NFT market and the trend that may be extended in the future.

The value of PFP NFTs

Looking back at the earliest NFTs, the first NFT ⌈ Quantum in 2014 ⌋ because the author chose the method of digital auction of his artwork, that is, the immutability of the source and the disclosure of ownership in blockchain technology.

Quantum

If you want to understand the value of PFP NFT, you can take history as a mirror and see how those leading NFT projects in the past positioned their value when they were first launched.

2.1 Four Blue Chip PFP NFT Background & Value Definitions

2.1.1 CryptoPunks

In the summer of 2017, the two founders of Larva Labs created 10,000 different 24x24 pixel series avatars inspired by the punk art of the early '70s in London, ⌈CryptoPunks⌋.

Later, as Ether skyrocketed, the founders made a bold attempt to upload it to the Ethereum blockchain, pioneering the exploration of non-fungible tokens.

It can be said that at that time, they were following the bull market to smell the signs of speculation, thanks to the “first crab-eating” NFT project on the Ethereum smart contract, this epoch-making classic NFT has gradually been given the “currency circle OG identity” label and narrative.

Subsequently, CryptoPunk #5822更是被吉尼斯认证的最昂贵的 NFT collectibles and sold for a high price of $23.7 million (worth 8,000 ETH at the time), setting a new record for PFP-type NFT transactions.

2.1.2 BAYC

On April 30, 2021, 10,000 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ⌈ Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ⌋ Bored Ape NFTs were launched.

Different from the narrative genes of CryptoPunks, each unique ape of BAYC is not only a status symbol in the virtual world, but also a holder can obtain the qualification to join the “Yacht Club” as the name suggests, and enjoy the benefits of the BAYC Club. If you hold the complete commercial right to use BAYC NFT under your name, you can sell its peripheral products, use its image to do physical commercial transactions, and so on.

It can be seen from here that the BAYC team has taken a step closer to the value exploration of NFT, and has found an anchor that can be tightly bound to community members by virtue of the right to “give individual IP commercialization rights”.

2.1.3 Doodles

Half a year later, on October 17, 2021, 10,000 colorful ⌈ Doodles ⌋ NFTs co-created by three Canadian artists went live.

Among them, Burnt Toast, who is responsible for animation design, has had many commercial collaborations with many leading companies such as Google, WhatsApp, and Snapchat, and his personal works have been widely praised by fans.

Knowing the itch of his audience, he continues to incorporate bold silhouettes, marshmallow-like color schemes, and playful stick figures into Doodles’ imagery.

Different from the previous NFT image of the NFT market, which was full of personalization and unsmiling, this highly color-friendly appearance quickly gained market recognition.

Just as BAYC has its own club, Doodles also focuses on the operation of the Discord community: announcing the official development roadmap to NFT holders, setting up a community treasury “Doodlebank” for brand promotion, and giving holders the right to vote on project proposals, etc.

From this stage, it can be found that Doodles benefits from the perfect coordination of design and marketing of the three founders, coupled with the team’s careful operation of the community, this NFT project has great openness and inclusiveness, and has also done a lot of active and innovative exploration, and has more ambitions to build the brand into a global entertainment media group, laying the foundation for the development of more cross-border entertainment projects (such as comics, TV shows, music, etc.) in the future.

2.1.4 Azuki

On January 12, 2022, the Chiru Labs team (a group of artists and development engineers from Los Angeles with strong skills in crypto, technology, and gaming) launched 10,000 ⌈ Azuki⌋ NFTs inspired by Japanese anime.

Azuki is derived from Japanese and means “red bean”.

The main creative team’s style of play is also very different from the direction of the above NFT, Azuki benefits from its excellent painting style design and its own blend of Eastern and Western cultural attributes, attracting many collectors who like East Asian culture, and its artistic aesthetic value is also directly full, with sales reaching $300 million within a month after its release, and the total sales even exceeded CryptoPunks and BAYC for a time.

In addition to the refreshing art style, AZUKI has also taken the innovation of community operations to the extreme, creating a virtual world called The Garden, where holders will have priority access to physical airdrops and event tickets for future projects.

Not only that, AZUKI’s marketing tactics have also extended to the activation of ERC-721A contracts, the establishment of the virtual world “The Ruins”, the launch of the concept of the virtual city “Hilumia”, the cooperation with Web2 fashion brands in different industries, the fragmentation of IP #Bobu to generate $Bobu tokens, the launch of the Beanz series of NFTs, and so on.

Just like on the eve of the project’s launch, Azuki wrote a Post on the official Twitter:

“We rise together.

We build together.

We grow together.”

Unlike the above projects, the AZUKI team is more innovative and highly efficient, stepping on the combination of punches during the heat cycle, and constantly surprising the holders.

They are really like maintaining their own back garden, using innovative marketing, community cohesion, and immersive metaverse narratives to enclose a fertile land, watering every piece of greenery with heart, and putting the community first in everything, aiming to build a highly decentralized brand.

Seeing the enthusiastic and methodical realization of milestones on the roadmap, Azuki’s holders also seem to have found their original intention to enter the game here.

Under the premise of community interests, every small action of community members is closely linked to the value of NFT with luxury attributes under the wallet. Each holder’s sense of ownership is also nourished infinitely, and they are proud of this unique sense of community identity, and they are actively campaigning for the project, and the thriving atmosphere that is presented under the positive cycle is exactly the decentralized wonderland that Azuki wants to create. When PFP NFTs are disenchanted, is the narrative abandoned or the real value emerges?2.2 Summary:

Summarizing the above typical PFP blue-chip NFT projects in the past, it can be found that when the project party issues NFT, the content that can be carried by their respective projects is more and more abundant, and the vision promised is becoming more and more complex and grand.

Not only in the image design used by individuals to show to the outside world, but also in technological innovation, innovative marketing has made bold breakthroughs again and again.

I hope to create a closed-loop narrative that can go through the cycle and occupy the market stably for a long time, and I hope that IP can continue to grow and last.

Returning to the discussion of the “application value” of PFP NFTs, it can be seen that the project team has gradually tacitly accepted “holding our NFT, you can get more than just an avatar” as a consensus.

2.3 What other value can PFP NFTs have besides avatar value?

2.3.1 The commercial value of the Linked Entity

In BAYC, holding NFT allows you to step into the door of the club and have the right to apply IP to offline commercial scenarios.

As Yuga Labs commented, “Many Bored Ape holders have an entrepreneurial spirit and use PFPs to create independent entity businesses.” Ordinary people can use the PFP image as an iconic icon to open offline stores to attract business, and big brands such as Li Ning and Adidas have also released BAYC co-branded clothing.

Using BAYC to radiate global popularity, feed back to promote your own physical operation, and make the matter of holding NFT online or offline can get a sense of accomplishment, which may be a concrete practice that can maximize Holder’s satisfaction.

2.3.2 Derivative Token Airdrop Benefits

Many project parties will release the second-generation NFT immediately after the first-generation NFT is released, and airdrop it to the first-generation holders as an early bird reward.

For example, half a year after Doodles was launched, the project team launched the Dooplicator airdrop program for Doodles OG holders.

Dooplicator NFTs are defined as functional graffiti machines that can be used to incubate a variety of wearable devices, allowing Doodles OG holders to fancy custom NFT avatars. It allows users to freely build their favorite digital avatar avatars, so that they can break the circle and attract a wider audience for a better interactive experience, which is also the foreshadowing for the official launch of the Doodles 2 project.

After the launch of Dooplicator, the floor price in the secondary market was 0.66 ETH, and the average price even went to 3.89 ETH at the peak of popularity.

The same goes for the aforementioned AZUKI, where Chiru Labs launched 20,000 Beanz series NFTs while the iron was hot two months after the release of the red bean. Beanz is defined as AZUKI’s small followers, of which 10,000 are airdropped for free to AZUKI holders, and the remaining half is publicly available, and Beanz was once speculated to the highest average price of 6.4ETH on Opensea.

To some extent, the airdrop benefits of derivative tokens can also be regarded as investment value chips for the additional benefits of buying NFTs.

A new “buy one, get one free” initiative like Beanz will not dilute the NFT value of old users, but also lower the threshold for newcomers to enter the game, improve liquidity, and attract more exposure and popularity of the project, which can also feed back the rise in NFT prices, which is a good thing for many parties.

2.3.3 Passport to the future potential features of the project

Just as many project parties plan many future initiatives in their own grand roadmaps, each milestone to be achieved is a conspicuous guidepost.

Just like Doodles intended to build the company into a global entertainment media group, a series of subsequent initiatives have been closely integrated and tried around this theme. For example, the appointment of Julian Holguin, the former president of Billboard, as CEO, the acquisition of the Emmy-nominated animation studio “Golden Wolf”, which could expand the Doodles franchise, and even partnered with Columbia Records to release Doodles records.

When you invite world-renowned and extremely professional people in the audio-visual field to join you at the helm, you will feel that it is serious about shipbuilding.

Three months after the Doodles NFT was released, it was officially stated that Doodles 2 would be released on the Flow blockchain.

Compared with a single NFT, Doodles2 is more like a new game map, featuring graffiti avatars that are customized and dynamic by players, with the vision of stepping out of the Ethereum ecosystem and lowering the barrier to entry so that everyone can have their own digital identity.

This was followed by the launch of a new project, Space Doodles, which it called “a non-dilutive expansion of Doodles”.

It is different from the ordinary additional avatar pictures, but a new image based on the original NFT of Doodles, in other words, only Doodles holders can obtain it.

Holders can wrap their own Doodle NFTs through the Doodle Bot smart contract, and the randomly generated spaceship will be synthesized with the original Doodle to become a Space Doodle NFT.

It can be understood that the image of the original Doodles is replaced by the astronaut animated version of Doodles, and the animation effects and cosmic scenes make the visual presentation richer, which is also an important upgrade to the narrative of Doodles 2, and holders can experience the basic gameplay and world view of Doodles 2 in this way.

This is a small step for the doodle villains to go on space exploration, and it is also a big step for the entire Doodles spaceship to leap through the Web3 galaxy.

Although the future outlined in the blueprint is not so clear, the potential is limitless and full of imagination. Holders who enter the game early can have these invisible “Passports”, enjoy the ticket to explore the metaverse world early, and see what the so-called “future” will look like.

PFP NFT’s future market premium space

Most of the development of projects in the Web3 ecosystem depends on the economic environment of the cryptocurrency market, and NFTs are no exception.

In addition, in the current environment, the royalty income of various NFTs is plummeting, so it is still too early and immature to discuss the future market premium space of NFT, but we can reverse the possibility of obtaining premium opportunities in the future from the current market status of blue-chip projects mentioned above.

3.1 The status quo of blue-chip NFTs

For the four classic blue-chip NFTs listed above, the average transaction volume on Opensea in the past year is selected for horizontal comparison, and it can be found that in the bear market in the past year, the unit price of these projects has also dropped in half:

The overall NFT market trading volume has shrunk significantly, showing a state of “stock consumption”.

Up to now, according to OpenSea’s 30-day NFT circulation and trading volume ranking, it can be seen that among the blue-chip projects mentioned above, BAYC, CryptoPunks, and AZUKI are still in the top 10 on the list, and Doodles has fallen to 22nd.

The quality of liquidity is the most obvious feedback from the market on the value of this NFT investment.

Extending the timeline to the entire Q3 of this year, it can be seen from the top 5 NFT series that Yuga Labs’ BAYC and MAYC are still firmly at the top of the list, and their dominance in the NFT field is self-evident.

In addition, AZUKI and CryptoPunks, mentioned above, also ranked 3rd and 4th respectively.

It can be seen that even in the deep bear, the decline in the floor price of these iconic blue-chip projects will stimulate the willingness of a small number of investors to buy.

So have these project parties made any new attempts in the case of deep bears this year?

3.1.1 CryptoPunks

2023Key Points：

• Sit firmly on the throne of NFT OG and take the digital art route

CryptoPunks, since Larva Labs sold the IP of CryptoPunks to Yuga Labs, the developer of Bored Ape BAYC, Yuga has provided the controversial NFT commercial rights to its holders, which means that holders can finally use the small images they hold for marketing, services and other business activities.

In addition, Yuga is also planning the route of “OG”, which was once regarded as the “Bitcoin” of NFT, to gradually move closer to the art field.

For example, the CryptoPunk #110 exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne, and the “10,000 On-Chain” series of RWA physical print collections in collaboration with Avant Arte (the frameless version is reported to cost $639 and the framed version costs $1,073)

Yuga Labs also announced plans to donate more Punks to leading art institutions around the world in the future.

Btw, independent filmmaker Sherone Rabinovitz has been polishing for 5 years, and the first episode of the documentary series “Punks As Told By CryptoPunks” launched in collaboration with Zak Group will finally air on October 10, and everyone who is interested can go to YouTube to check it out~01_Punks As Told By CryptoPunks: Matt & John

Perhaps from the perspective of time, PFP NFTs can be simply and crudely divided into CryptoPunks and other NFTs in the NFT industry.

Cryptopunk, which opened the first year of NFT and has the status of a cornerstone, seems to have found the most worry-free and effortless way to maintain a high coffee position.

The identity of the leading inspiration leader has given it enough chips, and the future premium space will probably focus on the historical value and scarcity artistic value of CryptoPunks’ exclusivity.

3.1.2 BAYC

2023Key Points：

-Based on the metaverse game platform Otherside, a series of chain game projects have been derived

Since the sell-off of BAYC by Franklin and Maji’s eldest brother Huang Licheng in 23 caused a panic in the market, the price of BAYC has also gone down after violent shocks. How do you stabilize the hearts of community members and deliver innovative answers?

To mention some of BAYC’s movements in 2023, it is impossible to extract the total content layout of the parent company Yuga Labs for the entire group.

In May 2022, the metaverse project “Otherside” was launched, which became the general foundation for Yuga’s many projects, and it became clearer and clearer that the future direction was pointed to the gaming field.

According to DappRadar data, the top 5 NFTs ranked by quarterly sales are all in the gaming field.

The label of gamers is often closely linked to “faith recharge”, and from this perspective, the intersection of games and NFTs is really not small. NFT can provide a good connection for the game world and tokenize the functional concepts of the metaverse, which can be said to be the most practical application scenario this year, and it is not surprising that Yuga is developing in this field.

On January 18th, BAYC launched a new game “Dookey Dash”, which is a web-based parkour game similar to Temple Run, and players must hold “BAYC Sewer Pass”, with a total of only 30,000 tickets. You can get it for free for BAYC/MAYC holders, or buy it separately in the secondary market (the game was launched for the second month, and the highest average price was around 6.13 ETH).

In order to attract the participation of traditional Web2 esports players, the game has also set up high bonuses, which has also increased the value of BAYC and related tokens.

Returning to Yuga Labs itself, whether it is the development of the virtual land Otherdeed NFT, or the launch of the 2D strategy game Legends of the Mara (LotM), or even the cooperation between MAYC and the Web2 traditional famous game IP “Dungeons & Dragons”… Yuga is working hard to draw up her own blueprint in the gaming space.

It is not difficult to speculate that Yuga Labs will also focus on its own metaverse game platform Otherside in the future, focus on the market premium space of future IP in the game field, and actively seek cooperation with third-party partners to integrate popular IP projects such as BAYC, MAYC, Meebits, and CryptoPunks, and launch more immersive entertainment experiences around the combination of NFT X chain games, forming a huge original universe game matrix.

3.1.3 Doodles

2023 Key Points：

• Doodles 2 will be migrated to Flow Chain - The co-founders stick to themselves and the community

Doodles, for its part, announced in January this year that it would release Doodles 2 on the Flow chain after closing a $54 million funding round at a valuation of $704 million in September last year.

It is said that in order to lower the threshold and gain a wider audience, Doodles will be built into a global entertainment media company, but except for the press release to hire a group of big name management and co-brand with Crocs, there seems to be no new action.

The decision to move the new project to a new blockchain made community members very unhappy and sparked a lot of FUD sentiment, and the co-founder @poopie even made his own highly personalized answer to the thirteen questions of the community on Twitter, and finally left the end of the “don’t expect us to follow the crowd” argument, which is quite a sense of confidence (negative) that is not understood but maverick.

The community’s understanding of the operation is too important to the PFP NFT project, and when you are so blunt to your supporters and can’t come up with actual deliverables to gag them, it seems that the floor price has fallen again and again, and it is reasonable to drop by more than -80%.

Based on this information, the future market premium space of Doodles seems to be very ethereal at present, unless the founder team calms the emotions of community members and delivers some effective results, and then Doodles2 really attracts more new user attention and entry after cross-chain, in order to evoke the “Coloring the world with joy” that was often on the lips at the beginning In order to let the colorful graffiti villains re-roam in the sky full of happiness and imagination.

3.1.4 Azuki

2023 Key Points：

• The crude Elementals project has diluted the value of a generation of Azuki and lost popular support

2023 can be said to be a year that will go down in history for the Azuki project team.

The AzukiElementals NFT series, which was launched in June, has greatly hit a group of sticky loyal users in the community due to the lack of innovative image repetition, the Mint process is blocked, and the user experience is poor

The management made such a big mistake, perhaps because the development team was praised by the community to nourish arrogance, or maybe the team also forgot the original intention of the community to put content first and focused on the interests of the moment, in short, this wave of operations made many holders disappointed and left the market, causing a sharp drop in floor prices.

Azuki has been emphasizing TTP (Trust the process) with community members, as if he has smashed his own sign because of his inconsistent words and deeds.

However, there will always be followers for a thing, and although the departed members are a great loss for the team, how to adjust the rhythm as soon as possible, appease the remaining members, and how to maximize the support and trust of the community to carry out “post-disaster reconstruction” is particularly crucial.

It is reported that from November to March next year, Azuki will officially support five communities in Asia to hold offline activities and launch AzukiPassport (passport).

When you see each other’s most embarrassed appearances, and the loyal holders who stay admit their mistakes and be honest, and also put the community first in the first place, and build a blueprint for the future with everyone, this may be the best start.

Azuki used to be a good student who has handed in a lot of high-quality answers, and the unique East-West fusion culture & exquisite painting style & very vibrant community has always been its trump card, if the essence of precipitation can be supplemented by continuous innovation in the future, step by step and unremittingly go on, I think the future market premium value will recognize this craftsman spirit.

3.2 Summary

In the context of the overall economic downturn in the cryptocurrency market this year, the liquidity of blue-chip NFT projects has become worse and worse, and more than half of the decline has reached a low point.

Or maybe after the boom bubble has dissipated, these NFTs have finally returned to where they should have been.

Each project party has encountered a lot of changes and challenges, and is groping for other paths besides the JPEG avatar narrative to support and fill their own huge blueprint. Only by dealing with these problems that need to be solved one by one can we talk about the future market premium space.

No matter how many beautiful words about vision and blueprint are said, no matter how big and round the pie is, the long-term delivery of constructive projects will always wear down the patience and enthusiasm of the holders.

When the living environment tends to be worse and when funds are flowing out, how to stick to the original intention and keep the promise step by step to build in the atmosphere of the market downturn, and at the same time to operate the community well, is a topic that every project party has to face.

PFP NFT is a value symbol used to demonstrate scarcity, and it is an excellent medium to attract and expand users outside the circle.

When the market is silent, if the project party also hides in the dust and does not make some noise, it will only accelerate the holder to give you up.

It is an exciting feat to let the continuous influx of fresh blood, rather than catching old users as leeks in the nest, so is there no good project to do so on the market this year?

Actually, there is. This year’s outstanding performance in the NFT market is undoubtedly the fat penguin.

23 years of excellent NFT case study – Pudgy Penguins

4.1 What is a fat penguin?

At the end of July 2021, Pudgy Penguin was officially launched, and soon after that, it caught up with the trend of NFT blossoming, rising more than 100 times.

But the founding team gradually broke into scandals, and the fat penguin experienced a plummeting floor price and was acquired and changed hands. Since then, under the leadership of the new leading CEO, Luca Netz, Fat Penguin has begun to change its appearance little by little, and has also gained unique insights and results in marketing.

Although the price has also gone through a series of fluctuations and shocks, the fat penguin has gone through a round of skyrocketing prices in July this year, with the highest average price going to 10.48 ETH. From the perspective of Q3, the overall trend is also a positive upward growth.

4.2 What do fat penguins do right?

1. Marketing

Thanks to Luca’s brutal and brutal entrepreneurial experience in his early years, he understands that NFTs need to rely on long-term marketing to succeed.

Therefore, unlike other projects, Fat Penguin’s youthful marketing has been done to the fullest, such as increasing the followers of the Instagram account by 700,000 in one year, uploading a series of popular fat penguin emoji gifs on Giphy, and also releasing short videos and graphic content related to IP second creation, etc…

In the traditional Web2 social media platform, they completely forgot their image of being born from Web3 NFT, conscientiously made high-quality and innovative content and attracted a large number of real-life user audiences, which also played a great role in the subsequent physical product sales.

2. Emotional connection

Instead of treating NFT as an expensive digital toy for adults, it uses the above-mentioned meme marketing and the output of IP-derived peripherals to expand its audience to the general public and even children, and the overall pan-youth.

3. Sustainable external sources of income

Instead of blindly issuing new NFTs to obtain income and dilute the value of existing NFTs, we will find other sources of income that are more sustainable and lead the project to grow efficiently and steadily at scale.

The founder Luca’s marketing experience sharing is still very dry, and Ruby and Star in Web3Brand have also carefully sorted out and analyzed the key points, and it is highly recommended that everyone who is interested in the road of fat penguin marketing can read it: The large-scale adoption of NFT will come because users love IP: Fat Penguin CEO shares the business model design of Web3 IP

In addition to the change in strategic direction, Fat Penguin has been working hard every step offline.

In February this year, Fat Penguin and Retail Monster reached a partnership to launch its IP product Pudgy Toyline in offline retail stores around the world.

Then, in May, Fat Penguin closed a $9 million funding round led by 1kx, and announced that it would use the funds to expand its intellectual property, team size, and “provide more services” to its community, and its physical doll “Pudgy Toys” will also be available on Amazon.

The response to this breakthrough feat has been very positive, with 20,000 units sold in just 2 days after its launch, and it even won the Toy Insider Best Summer Toy Award of 2023, beating Barbie, Lego, and Pokémon in the new product sales list.

In September, Fat Penguin announced that its toy products would be available in 2,000 Walmart stores in the United States.

Fat Penguin’s various innovative linkages with the real industry have brought continuous heat to its IP itself, and this affirmation is also reflected in the increase in the transaction unit price in the secondary market.

Fat Penguin’s out-of-the-circle marketing is a good start for many NFT projects that have fallen into the bottleneck of innovation. It is well aware of its own advantages, attaches importance to the maximization of intellectual property and cultural construction in the new era, as well as the differentiated punches it can play, and more importantly, it is indeed practicing every step of the roadmap, and does not let those plans become utopian.

Ending

Turning our attention back to the question at the beginning of the article: “Should I buy NFTs at this time?”

5.1

If you really like IP and the small picture itself, maybe this problem doesn’t exist, the bear market price is almost halved, and now it can even be said that it is the best time for you to start;

But if you are still staring at the past PFP narrative with the idea of investment, you may have to admit that the grand occasion of buying and taking off in 2021-early 2022 will be difficult to repeat.

@Christianeth I was very impressed by this Q&A, and what he probably meant was that the biggest problem with NFTs was that they were not yet mature.

It often takes a long time for traditional Web 2 companies to build IP, but in Web 3, everything is pressed the accelerator button, and it took BAYC and Azuki less than a year to grow into benchmark IP in such a barbaric and fertile soil, but people haven’t realized that those teams are actually not very professional, in other words, when the wind takes off, many shortcomings are ignored or even covered up. They are always inexperienced and excellent talents, and these need to be experienced and precipitated over time.

5.2

However, unlike some who denounce the idea that NFTs are dead, I think NFTs will certainly continue to exist in the future.

Originating in the field of art, it represents a revolution that brings content IP to digital life, and is a tool with wide applicability based on infrastructure to solve some problems that could not be handled well in the past. Enlightening underlying technology is not obsolete, it can be optimized and iterated, and it is always on the way to the future.

5.3

In the future, PFP NFTs must strategically minimize their most superficial “small picture” characteristics, and even treat it as the most basic and least noteworthy small node in the entire narrative. The most attractive to users should be its content creation prospects, IP intellectual property rights, more practicality and multi-scenario application potential, etc…

Only in this way can the development team be forced to create more interesting and promising new concepts, and open up more and more long-term paths.

A good PFP NFT should be a super entrance, which is not limited to the niche product of enclosure and self-sprouting, and it is a super icon that boldly throws an anchor outward, catches the olive branch of the real world, and strives to swing out to attract more people’s attention. It can be used as a low-threshold bridge, enrich the Web 3 ecosystem, and derive a lot of content and gameplay. When the bubble of the PFP NFT market gradually dissipates, when there are fewer people who are rushing to make quick speculative profits in the short term, everyone who enters the game chooses to be more cautious and honest. For them, from high-priced auction consumer goods to closer to their true and pure preferences, I think this will be a better and more long-term development direction for the entire NFT market.

5.4

Zhang Yiming has a sentence that I remember very well: “Empathy is the foundation, imagination is the sky, and the middle is logic and tools”

This is the underlying logic of making products, and it is even more so in the Web3 world.

Empathy is like a card of community feelings, the better the operation, the more stable the foundation;

The ability to innovate without limits and bottlenecks is the vast sky of Web 3 projects, and content cultivation is also a very imaginative thing.

And the sky of the imagination at the moment is obviously crowded with all kinds of narratives, the well-browsed, the perfunctory, the essence of the dross, then you might as well let the bullets fly a little longer;

The middle path is the logic and tools, that is, the project team’s perfect Roadmap and the technology behind it, and even what solid resources are backed by it.

These three things complement each other, and each is indispensable.

So if you want to ask which NFT projects should be focused on in the future, I think you can combine the above three points to see if the project party has these characteristics-

Good community operation + continuous content innovation ability + complete Roadmap & solid technology & abundant resources

Of course, there is no such thing as a completely safe thing in a rapidly changing market, but at least it is a good weather vane for your reference.

5.5

Finally, in the long run, it can be said that the entire NFT industry is not mature enough and is currently in a very early stage of development.

All kinds of fluctuations and changes in the early stage can be regarded as a small step of trial and error, and we still have to believe that there are many vigorous builders on this soil full of opportunities. Perhaps adversity is more motivating, and we can give the project and the project party time to grow with anticipation and patience.

As mentioned in the tweet pinned to the top of @Christianeth:

"We need to stand up and face the difficult we have, give more tolerance and confidence to what we loved.

The dawn will arrive."

Easter Eggs: No Community, No NFT?

From the development process of several NFT projects mentioned in the article, it can be found interesting that

Every Dream Big project wants to create a differentiated “after-sales service”, and will set its sights on the community.

Betting on the community, in the final analysis, still values the “people” inside, the living community members. The human mind is complex and fickle, especially in a Web3 world that relies heavily on the attention economy.

6.1

Standing in the present and looking back, it can be clearly found that if a project relies on narrative to create a beautiful bubble, it can attract people’s attention, but no matter how frequent and good the story is, if it does not fall into actual action, it will eventually be questioned and abandoned.

In the final analysis, any business project is to deal with human nature, so it is necessary to understand the pain points of human nature, grasp the weaknesses, follow the cool points, and finally meet the itchy points.

It’s not very pleasant, but to put it bluntly, the fundamental thing about people in trading is greed.

According to Liang Ning’s “Thirty Lectures on Product Thinking”, people’s pain points are fear, cool points are instant gratification, and itchy points are able to satisfy virtual selves.

Greed will infinitely nourish unlimited demand and drive people to do all kinds of operations, so in the NFT trading market, these points can be more concretely refined into-

6.1.1

Fear, like a boulder that had been firmly pressed on your heart has been removed, and negative emotions from all sides will take the opportunity to drill into and beat your heart repeatedly.

In trading, it will make you FOMO (Fear of missing out), and it may also form a FUD matrix (Fear + Uncertainty + Doubt, Uncertainty, Doubt).

If you can’t overcome your fear, the result may be that you passively lose your steering wheel, your mind is empty and you can no longer hold any of your own opinions, listen to someone else’s words at will, get in a car on the side of the road and set off.

6.1.2

Instant gratification can be reflected in the increase in asset value and good interaction feedback among community members.

For example, the NFT holdings have risen sharply, and the more positive and optimistic the heated discussion in the market, it means that you have done the right thing, and the more you have a sense of achievement;

Another example is to find many like-minded friends in the community, although they are strange and different from each other, but when people with the same hobbies and visions get together to speak up and contribute to a common favorite project, the resonance produced is a wonderful chemical reaction, which is indescribable and addictive.

6.1.3

Satisfying the virtual self sounds like a natural fit for the Crypto and NFT markets.

It is not something that must be owned and cannot be lived without it, but it will bring you spiritual satisfaction and comfort, like a superstructure in contrast to the economic base.

In my opinion, the itch in the NFT market is, at best, the intuitive avatars of the virtual world, and the long-term compound interest that this NFT project can bring you (whether it is at the level of asset value or spiritual growth).

We never need to glorify trading in the financial markets, it is actually bloody and brutal. Many people are fighting hard to enter the game fast in and out, and it is best to stop all in a few waves and enjoy the quiet years.

In contrast, taking the path of long-term compound interest is a secondary option for them that can but is not necessary. But for most people who are not very good at frequent operations, instant gratification is more like a good thing to wait for to build momentum, gather the blessing of good luck at the right time and place, and only adhere to long-termism is the ideal self that needs to be satisfied.

Unlike instant gratification, which can bring you strong stimulation in a short period of time, long-term compound interest is like a thick good book, which can give you even a little new inspiration every time you flip through it, but it is also a long-lasting, down-to-earth sense of security.

6.2

And a good project/project party must be able to take care of the above points-

It will soothe your fears, dispel your anxiety, properly satisfy your greed, and bring you a wave of instant gratification in stages, but in essence, it can also cultivate your mind well, let you identify with the long-term vision of the project party, follow the roadmap, and slowly taste the fruits of a little progress, take you to find something relatively certain in uncertainty, and take you to find relative peace in turmoil.

Therefore, according to this logic, in order for a project to operate well, it must have a clear insight into what the needs and emotions of the community members are reflected at the moment, and accept them one by one, discharge them and be honest with each other. The direction of the output of community members’ opinions is based on the operation of the project itself, which returns to the essence of content being king. The project team should work the IP content, have a good plan, and implement every step forward, showing a positive trend in an orderly manner.

6.3

This is a two-way positive cycle between the project team and community members.

It is also necessary for the project team to stick to the original intention of starting the project, block the temptation of Rug Pull and continue to provide new things to the community members, and also need the community members to beat their original intention to enter the game, cooperate with the project team under the psychological preparation of long-distance running, organize community activities among members to build a cultural atmosphere, actively interact and respond, and speak out for the project and inject a steady stream of enthusiasm.

The process will indeed be long enough to sift out a lot of people. If you can’t give up anything, you’re likely to get nothing.

In the end, what can be precipitated must be those loyal fans who agree with each other and have a high degree of connection, who can serve this small group of people for a long time and stably, and operate this part of the vertical content well, and there will be positive feedback.

Sometimes “small but beautiful” teams are more efficient and better able to work together to block out outside voices.