Moonbirds – coming for the Bored Ape throne?

I got the below message in my group chat 12 days ago, from a friend who is familiar with the NFT space. Some new launch called Moonbirds, he claimed.

For context, this is a friend who never really had much interest in crypto. I don’t think he even owns Bitcoin. But he moved to Vancouver and suddenly fell in love with NFTs. He’s a creative guy, a videographer who is into all that kind of thing.

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Anyhow, I’m more on the Bitcoin side of the fence. Sure, I dabble in NFTs for fun. I even printed two out for my bedroom wall, which I guess is a bit weird, now that I write it down on paper. But I kind of forgot about these weird birds until I checked the volume on Ethereum this morning.

Numbers

Now, all anyone talking about in the NFT space is Moonbirds. Pixelated aliens are last year’s news, cartoon monkeys are last month’s. It’s April 2022, and now it’s all about disconcertingly sinister looking birds.

If you ask me, I actually think they are the least appealing, aesthetically, of any of the big collections. But that’s not what NFTs are about – we know that by now. Besides, I showed up to the best steakhouse in Medellin last week in a pair of gym shorts, so take my opinion with a grain of salt (pardon the sort-of-half-pun).

From a mint price of 2.5ETH, they have done a 14X to a floor price of 36ETH. That equates to nearly $120,000.

But it’s more than that – it’s the volume that is making waves.

And looking at the top NFT sales over the last 24 hours, the top 10 is all Bored Apes….except for first and second, which are Moonbirds. Both sales went for over half a million dollars. Not bad for a 2.5ETH mint, huh?

So yeah, I’m getting a healthy dose of FOMO right now, but what’s new – this is crypto. In fact, I haven’t had FOMO this strong since I was at that same steakhouse in my gym shorts (my new year’s resolution was to give up red meat, so I sat there eating fish while my friends waxed lyrical over how good the steak was).

Background

Moonbirds is Kevin Rose’s baby, who you may know as the head of True Ventures. He’s a well-connected name in the space, and the mere fact he is non-anonymous founder is quite interesting, as it contrasts with most of the other big collections. This somewhat explains the mightily competitive minting process, and the explosive price action since then.

PROOF Collective is the organisation he founded to launch Moonbirds, and they had previously launched 1,000 NFTs for 1 ETH a pop, with these NFTs granting perks such as the rights to claim two Moonbirds (for free, not even for the mint price), as well as exclusive access to various features.

It highlights what really matters about NFTs, and what separates the top ones from all the other (pixelated) faces in the crowd. It’s about utility, community and building a sense of belonging – being a part of something bigger than oneself.

Go Forward

In this vein, Moonbirds expect to ramp up their efforts, and early signs are intriguing. Next week, they play to introduce “nesting”, which is essentially staking. In a twist, the rewards increase the longer the NFT is held, so it will be interesting to see if flippers dissipate in response to this mechanism.

There have also been airdrops teased, while Rose told the Bankless podcast last week that merchandise, such as hoodies, were also in the works. From the outside looking in (he says as the tears roll down his cheek and wet his keyboard), it looks like they are very much following the Bored Ape Yacht Club manifesto.

So, while the price action is very frothy, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some pullback once the early speculation and fanfare dies down a bit, there is a genuine roadmap to utility here – more than can be said for 99% of NFT collections these days.

The question is – can the birds kick the monkeys off the throne? Or are they just a flash in the pan?