Author: Greg Oakford, Cointelegraph
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
Wale, a researcher from the NFT project Azuki, recalled his past involvement in NFTs in an interview and shared his views on the recent recovery of the NFT market, believing that the interest of new participants is key to the NFT market returning to its peak, and Bored Apes have begun to rise to true collectible status.
Wale minted his first NFT in early 2021 for a few hundred dollars and was "immediately hooked."
"Before getting into NFTs, I had bought some BTC and ETH but didn't pay much attention and wasn't too focused on what was happening in the crypto space, then I discovered NFTs. Friends and family in real life weren't interested, but I started paying attention, minting new NFTs on exchanges and buying from the secondary market."
At that time, Wale was studying at a university in Germany and had not yet graduated. Despite making a lot of profits in NFT trading, he hesitated about fully committing to Web3 since he was working for a German car manufacturer at the time.
Wale Azuki PFP
"Although I made a lot of money through NFTs at the time, more than any job I had before. But I also felt that the whole space felt very unreal. There wasn't enough confidence to give everything else up in 2021. So I continued to work in marketing for a car company in Germany. I fully committed in late 2022, when the market not only crashed, but I started to think more seriously from the creator's perspective; I was slow to commit to NFTs."
Has NFT recovered?
In the past month, there has been a huge recovery in NFTs. The prices of many NFTs, such as CryptoPunks, Pudgy Penguins (which just launched the PENGU token), and Doodles have risen.
But has NFT really recovered? Wale believes these phenomena are good, but there's still a long way to go before reaching the frenzy of 2021-22, which was led by the cultural phenomenon of Bored Ape Yacht Club.
The price of CryptoPunks was around $50,000 or slightly higher not long ago, and it has now surpassed $150,000. With the announcement of the PENGU airdrop, other traditional projects and Pudgy Penguins have also seen significant price increases. The rebound in NFTs has spread throughout the ecosystem, even collectibles that have stopped operating have rebounded by 50% or more.
Wale believes, "For a real recovery, the market needs to be excited not only about mature projects but also about the emergence of new projects. We haven't seen that yet. This is similar to how memecoins operate. Many of the best-performing memecoins in this cycle are not the same memecoins from four years ago."
"From a broader perspective, many of the top-performing memecoins have actually attracted many newcomers and new funds. It would be a true recovery if collections minted at 0.01 ETH or 0.05 ETH could rise to 4 ETH, but we haven't reached that level of excitement yet. Fortunately, we've seen early signs of people's excitement and interest in NFTs returning."
Bored Apes have risen to true collectible status.
In the recent rise of NFTs over the past four to six weeks, CryptoPunks showed strong momentum for the first time, but what surprised many collectors (including Wale) was that despite no catalysts, the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) doubled. Meanwhile, Pudgy Penguins announced the launch of the PENGU token, with Pudgy holders receiving a certain allocation, similar to the APE allocation for BAYC holders in March 2022.
Flamingo DAO member Derek Edwards coined the term "minimum external dependency." This is a framework for thinking about certain types of NFTs, many art collectibles and punks fall into this category. Aside from the NFTs themselves, there are usually no commitments, no catalysts, no airdrops, and no roadmaps. Speculation still exists, but it is not built on the strong IP or game-focused external dependencies that NFT projects might have.
During the last bull market, there was discussion about whether BAYC would fall into the category of the least externally dependent, becoming collectibles that people just wanted to own rather than expecting future profits. Wale believes there may be early signs of Apes moving in that direction.
Wale pointed out two main reasons: first, the launch of the ApeChain ecosystem, where they found something that truly attracted the core community and NFT traders, collectors, and enthusiasts.
The second reason is that it is indeed seen that Apes are increasingly becoming a symbol of identity, perhaps not yet at the punk level in Web3, but when talking about mainstream NFTs, 90% of people know the Bored Apes brand, rather than Pudgy Penguins or Doodles. This is closely related to the mainstream attention NFTs received when they were thriving in 2021 and 2022.
Projects that continued to build during the bear market.
Although during 2021-22, a significant portion of NFT projects made a lot of hollow promises and failed roadmaps, those that persisted and continued to build have begun to gain attention again.
Doodles' recent large collaboration with McDonald's is a prime example, where 110 million coffee cups featured Doodles IP. Pudgy Penguins did the same, launching PENGU this week in collaboration with Walmart and other major retailers selling plush toys, and they have billions of impressions across all major social media platforms.
"From Pudgy's collaboration with Walmart to Azuki's collaboration with anime.com, many projects are starting to achieve some results. Although most of 2024 has been in an NFT bear market, memecoins and the broader cryptocurrency space have performed quite well. From the perspective of projects delivered this year, I think we've done well, and perhaps we're now seeing the market start to value it in a way it hasn't in the past few months."
Quick Q&A
What NFT projects do you think are currently undervalued?
Wale: I would give a slightly different answer instead of naming a specific NFT project. I believe the entire Ordinals space is still undervalued. Among the top five PFP market caps, there are no top Ordinals projects. I think some projects are undervalued, such as Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, and Quantum Cats.
I am surprised, especially during this rebound of Bitcoin, that they haven't done better in terms of floor price, but I want to say that compared to NFTs on ETH or Solana, the Ordinals ecosystem is still undervalued.
Which project do you think will achieve long-term success in 10 years? Doodles, VeeFriends, or Pudgy Penguins?
Wale: I think from an attention standpoint, Pudgy Penguins may have an advantage over VeeFriends and Doodles. Doodles are great too, but Gen Z's understanding might be a little less. I wouldn't focus too much on VeeFriends. They've somewhat drifted away from the daily conversation on NFT Twitter, so I really don't know what they're doing content-wise.
If I were to rank them, I would choose Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, and VeeFriends.
Related articles: NFT Market Heats Up: Multiple Leading Projects Announce Token Plans, Blue Chip Projects Become the Main Force in Recovery.
