#036: Coinbase NFT, Akutars, and Otherside Meta
Welcome to the 36th edition of the NFT Drops Newsletter! In this edition we take a look at some important news from the past two weeks before spotlighting Otherside Meta. At the end, we have an update regarding future newsletter publications.
Here we go!💧
NFT Drops Recap
Coinbase NFT, the trading platform/social media site by Coinbase, launched in beta a little over a week ago. It has been functional on a limited basis, reserved only for those with a special invite code (like Gary Vee and Cozomo de Medici). Some scrutiny has come up due to the lack of trading volume and the overall functionality as compared to OpenSea, but it will be interesting to see how the site evolves when they open general access. Some speculate Coinbase’s immense user base will transfer to NFTs smoothly, others are less optimistic.
Akutars, the pfp project created by Micah Johnson, dropped on April 25. The initial April 22 release was thrown off by someone who was able to exploit the smart contract in order to freeze refunds to mint pass holders. The team bounced back and took immediate action, fixing the exploit and communicating well on twitter. Now, the project is moving along with a healthy floor price of 1.9 ETH and the #8 ranking by sales volume of all NFTs.
The Stoned Frogs are an exciting Solana NFT project that dropped on Magic Eden last week. The collection is made up of 8,400 unique frogs featuring colorful neon artwork and cool accessories. They instantly jumped in floor price following a hyped up mint, going from around 3 SOL to 6 SOL in under a day. Now, the floor sits at 4 SOL with high sales activity persisting since mint.
Solar Dex is another Solana project that dropped NFTs last week. They are a decentralized exchange built on Solana, and their drop consisted of 5,555 “Solar Sentries” who minted at 1.5 SOL. The NFTs will yield a 37.5 percentage of activity from sales on the exchange.
The Lunartics is an animated series whose creators have impressive Hollywood credentials (The Simpsons, Family Guy, NCIS). They are incorporating NFTs into the series in a similar way to the Stoner Cats, with the majority of their funding coming from the primary sale. Holders will have opportunities to shape the series and have their NFTs featured in the show.
NFT Worlds, the minecraft-compatible metaverse land plots, have had a long moment in or around the spotlight. They promise practicality and flexibility, inspiring collectors to ape in and drive the floor price past 10 ETH at some points (current floor = 7.5 ETH). Just a few days ago, they announced their plans to drop 15,000 in-game, playable avatars. The whitelist mint is May 4, and the public mint is May 5.
Otherside Meta
It feels like half of our spotlights focus on one Yuga project or another, but they continue to command attention. Their latest project, Otherside Meta, consists of 200,000 metaverse land plots. Last night, Yuga went live with the drop and came under heavy scrutiny for some significant hiccups with its execution. Lets break it down👇
In mid-March, Yuga labs first announced their plans for a metaverse. You may recall seeing this video that somewhat cryptically marked the beginning of Otherside.
Since then, hype has been building like crazy. Moonbirds rightfully stole some of the spotlight, but there has been a steady focus on Yuga and Otherside for obvious reasons. Everything Yuga touches turns to gold. Apes, Mutants, $APE, and Meebits and Punks acquisitions are all incredibly impressive and tangible markers of success.
Yuga Labs is batting 1.000, and an investment in Otherside land is seen by many as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The metaverse is a confusing and evolving idea, but it has the potential to become the most important thing in all of NFTs. If this happens, and if Yuga Labs continues their insane streak of success, then a plot of Otherside land will be invaluable.
Going back to yesterday’s drop, there were serious complications for those trying to mint land. Gas wars were unprecedented. All over twitter, there were reports of people waiting with their wallet frozen for 4+ hours to mint. Not only that, but many thousands of ETH were lost to the void. People are rightfully upset, especially considering Yuga’s position as a key leader/role model in NFTs.
Fingers are being pointed primarily at Yuga, and as of now they seem to be deflecting responsibility over to Ethereum. They say that Ethereum’s infrastructure was not ready for such a massive amount of transaction volume, and that they speculate ApeCoin will need to operate on its own chain in the near future.
However that response is not enough for the majority of those affected - critics say that Yuga could have planned way better for the drop. They could have done a drawing with a long mint window, better optimized their contract, or done a host of other drop mechanisms that have been proven to mitigate gas wars.
Historically efficient at damage control, Yuga is not currently living up to the standards of the community with their response. We can expect more from them soon as this situation continues to play out over the coming days.
To wrap up, let’s take a look at the newly revealed (as of 5:00pm EST today) Otherdeeds below. You can view the entire collection here.
NFT Drops Update
This edition is getting a bit long, so stay tuned for a second email with our brief update.
As always, thank you for reading! See you all next time💧