Blue Chip NFTs 101 – How Did Moonbirds Conquer The World In A Bearish Market?

April 30, 2022

Moonbirds’ extraordinary success is NFT’s biggest story so far this year. It was so successful that the collection achieved immediate blue chip status. Place at the TopThese are the charts. How did the Pixeled Owls achieve such an impressive feat when the market is so bearish for NFTs? It certainly wasn’t just the art, even though the Moonbirds have a distinctive look and probably make excellent profile pictures AKA PFPs. 

Let’s uncover the story. This story has everything: a powerful, yet young organization, incredible numbers, Internet legends, an ambitious road map, some controversy and light metaverse plans.

Moonbirds: The Formal Characteristics

Moonbirds total 10K, and were released under the ERC-721 standard. Each one cost 2.5 Ethereum. This means the Proof Collective earned more than $70M in its first day at current prices. The madness doesn’t end there,  according CryptoSlamThe Moonbirds’ total sales have reached $481M. That’s 160K ETH from almost 12K buyers. In addition, Proof took a cut of 5% for each secondary sale.

According to Moonbirds Official SiteThe organization then distributed the original 10K birds in these ways:

  • 7.875: Winners of the allowlist public sale

  • Two mints each for PROOF Collective members (2,000)

  • 125: ProOF wallet to support future marketing and collaborations

Everybody, even Proof Collective members could enter the raffle for a chance to be whitelisted in that public sale. There was some controversy. We will discuss it. Moonbird NFT promises the normal, with membership to private groups and Discord servers, along future utility details. A staking mechanism, cleverly named “nesting” and a future metaverse codenamed “Project Highrise.”

According to the Moonbird’s site, their “unique take on the Metaverse” will be “a dramatic departure from the existing ‘never-ending’ worlds that feel like a digital ghost town. Ours is uniquely different, and you’ll have first access as a nested Moonbirds holder.” 

It’s also worth noting that, “owners of Moonbirds have full commercial art rights for the Moonbird they own.”

BTCUSD price chart for 04/30/2022 - TradingView

 Source: ETH/USD at TradingView.com| Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com

What Is “Nesting” And What Can It Do For You?

DeFi’s most important feature is stake. This allows you to lock assets, and remove them from the market. It is a great way for all holders of DeFi projects and everyone else. In Moonbirds, the process is called “nesting,” and “the longer you nest your Moonbird, the more rewards you’ll accumulate.” What rewards exactly? That’s not yet clear. The nesting process has not been fully mapped out. 

Moonbirds website already lists some characteristics. Nesting will be “non-custodial (no need to transfer it to another contract) and the holder numbers displayed on OpenSea etc will not be impacted.” Those stats are very important for NFT projects. Holders can’t sell their NFTs while nesting, but they can transfer them. “The intent is to allow holders to move their Moonbirds between their own accounts, e.g. if they compromise their wallet via a rogue signature.”

There’s also this vague promise, “as soon as your Moonbird is nested, they’ll begin to accrue additional benefits. As total nested time accumulates, you’ll see your Moonbird achieve new tier levels, upgrading their nest.”

Controversy. Naturally.

The controversy surrounding the Moonbirds is quite mild considering the success they achieved. The first two aren’t the Proof Collective’s fault, and the third one is pretty standard practice. Let’s go through them:

  • The Sybil Attack hit their raffle. It means that an individual or organisation created more than 400 wallets for as many tickets as possible, or to increase their chances of winning a whitelist. The winner was awarded more than 50 slots. It was all revealed by this Twitter user
  • According to Next Web, they found “at least 10 hacked Twitter accounts across countries ranging from athletes to politicians posting scammy links that lead you to a fake Moonbirds website. ”Their aim was to get the unsuspecting audience to send them ETH in hopes of getting a non-existent Moonbird. When pressed, one of the Proof Collective founders said, “Spam is horrible! We’re doing everything we can to contain it. Many bad actors are performing their plays.”
  • The NFT Ethics account did its best to attack the Moonbirds project, but all they could do was accuse the Proof Collective of wash trading to pump up the price for their other NFT project and of gifting those memberships to influencers, “GaryVee (Gennady), his brother AJ, Beeple and some old friends received the Proof collective for free.”

There’s not much to be proud of. On the next “Blue Chip NFTs 101” we’ll take a look at the organization behind the Moonbirds, the Proof Collective, and their other NFT project. Membership to this influential group. The NFT’s most important utility. 

Moonbirds sample from TradingView's official site - Feature Image Moonbirds| Charts by TradingView

Get more Crypto News at CFX Magazine