Article source: Felix
Author: Greg Oakford, Cointelegraph
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
Wale, a researcher at the NFT project Azuki, recalled his past involvement in NFTs in an interview and expressed 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 enter true collectible status.
Wale minted his first NFT in early 2021 and flipped it for several hundred dollars, and then was 'immediately hooked.'
“Before getting into NFTs, I bought some BTC and ETH, but didn’t pay much attention and wasn’t very focused on what was happening in the crypto space, then I discovered NFTs. Friends and family in real life are not interested, but I started to pay 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 profit from NFT trading, he hesitated about going full-time into Web3 because he was working for a German car manufacturer.
Wale Azuki PFP
“Although I made a lot of money through NFTs at the time, more than any job before. But I also felt that the whole field felt very unreal. There wasn’t enough confidence to give up everything else in 2021. So I continued to work in marketing for a car company in Germany. I went full-time in late 2022, by which time the market had not only crashed, but I began to consider things more seriously from a creator's perspective, and I started slowly on committing fully to NFTs.”
NFTs have recovered?
In the past month, NFTs have seen a huge recovery. The prices of many NFTs, including 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 is still a distance from the frenzy of 2021-22, a frenzy led by the cultural phenomenon of Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Just a while ago, the price of CryptoPunks was about $50,000 or a bit higher, and it has now surpassed $150,000. With the announcement of the PENGU airdrop, other traditional projects and Pudgy Penguins also saw significant increases. The NFT rebound has spread throughout the ecosystem, even collectibles that have ceased operations have rebounded by 50% or more.
Wale believes, “For there to be a true 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 as they were four years ago.”
“From a broader perspective, many of the best-performing memecoins have actually attracted a lot of newcomers and new funds. If a collection that you minted for 0.01 ETH or 0.05 ETH can rise to 4 ETH, that’s a true recovery, but we haven’t reached that level of excitement yet. The good news is that we have seen early signs of people’s excitement and interest in NFTs returning.”
Bored Apes have entered true collectible status
In the recent NFT surge over the past four to six weeks, CryptoPunks showed strong momentum for the first time, but many collectors (including Wale) were surprised that the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) doubled without any catalyst. 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 'minimal external dependency'. This is a framework for thinking about certain types of NFTs, with many art collectibles and punks belonging to this category. Besides the NFT itself, there are usually no commitments, no catalysts, no airdrops, no roadmaps. Speculation still exists, but it is not based on the external dependencies that strong IP or game-focused NFT projects might have.
During the last bull market, there was discussion about whether BAYC would fall into this category with the least external dependencies and become a collection that people just want to own, rather than because they expect future returns. Wale believes that there may be early signs of Apes moving in that direction.
Wale pointed out two main reasons: one is the launch of the ApeChain ecosystem, which found something that truly attracts core communities and NFT traders, collectors, and fans of NFTs.
The second reason is that we do see Apes becoming more of a status symbol, perhaps not yet reaching punk levels in Web3, but when talking about mainstream NFTs, 90% of people know the Bored Apes brand rather than Pudgy Penguins or Doodles. This has a lot to do with the mainstream attention NFTs received when they were booming in 2021 and 2022.
Projects that continued to build during the bear market
Although many NFT projects made a lot of hollow promises and failed their roadmaps during 2021-22, those that stuck around and continued to build have started to gain attention again.
Doodles' recent large collaboration with McDonald's is an example, where 110 million coffee cups were printed with Doodles IP. Pudgy Penguins is the same, having launched PENGU this week, collaborating with Walmart and other large retailers of plush toys, and having 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 it has been in an NFT bear market for most of 2024, memecoins and the broader cryptocurrency market are performing quite well. From the perspective of the projects delivered this year, I think we are doing well, and perhaps we are now seeing the market starting to value it in a way it hasn’t for 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 think the whole Ordinals space is still undervalued. There are no top Ordinals projects in the top five PFP market caps. I think some projects are undervalued, such as Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, Quantum Cats.
I’m surprised, especially during this Bitcoin rebound, that they didn’t do better on the floor price, but I would say that relative 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 perspective, Pudgy Penguins will have an advantage over VeeFriends and Doodles. Doodles is great too, but the understanding among Gen Z may be a little less. As for VeeFriends, I wouldn’t pay too much attention. They are a bit out of the daily conversation on NFT Twitter, so I really don’t know what they are doing in terms of content.
If I were to rank them, I would choose Pudgy Penguins, Doodles, and VeeFriends.
Related reading: NFT Market Warms Up: Several Leading Projects Announce Token Plans, Blue Chip Projects Become Recovery Main Force
