Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and having an excellent week, welcome to CryptoGod-1’s blog on all things crypto. I am going to be looking at NFT's in this post, and one particular NFT collection. For anybody who is active in the space, this project should be well known to you, and should also be no surprise what this post is going to look at regarding meme projects, whether they are in the NFT space or the token / coin space.
Nakamigos NFT Project
The project dopped for a public mint on the 23rd of March 2023, is a 20K PFP project from a company known as HiFo Labs. The project is made up of of 24×24 pixel characters in a style reminiscent of CryptoPunks, and the name comes from the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The project is derived with the meaning of Nakamigos being 'friends' of Nakamoto.
The project is famed for the fact it is, in part at least, created by the artist Sartoshi. He is known for previously creating mfers, and gained a large following on Web3 Twitter. This helped the project to grow and gain traction after it was launched in November 2021. However, in June 2022 he decided to step back from the project and leave it altogether, claiming his intention to hand over project leadership and funds to the community. This was meant as a display of commitment to the Web3 ethos of decentralization, and when he departed from the project, Sartoshi minted 'end of Sartoshi' (eos pass) tokens as a sentimental farewell to his community.
Many had made claims of a rug pull and a scam in terms of the project, while others noted it was what some in the community had been calling for. With Sartoshi gone and looking like he had fully departed the Web3 space, he returned on February the 16th 2023 with the tweet below, stating his new project Nakamigos would be minting soon, and anybody who held one of the 'end of Sartoshi' tokens would be eligible for a free mint.
Collaboration and Launch
There was no direct information outlining what role Sartoshi was playing in this NFT project, but immediately rumours began to circulate on Twitter. HiFo Labs was an unknown entity but many began to point out its similarities to Larva Labs, the company initially behind CryptoPunks before its sale to Yuga Labs in 2022.
The aesthetic similarities between the two projects is of course one of the first things of note, while Nakamigos’ licensing agreement is modelled after that of the one Yuga Labs made for Crypto Punks. This means that owners of the NFT's own the commercial rights and can monetise them as they see fit. They can also trademark their NFT so long as it is actually being “used in commerce” and not just on an intent-to-use basis. While the rumours gained traction, Nakamigos decided to pour water on the fire by posting a tweet claiming “Not Larva. Not Yuga. Nakamigos.” on the 27th of March 2023.
When the collection launched on the 23rd of March 2023 it was via a Dutch auction style, with started at 1 ETH and went down to 0.01 ETH. Of course, as with most projects which have this sort of sell out, the secondary markets were booming.
At the time of writing this post a total of 32,218 ETH was the overall trading volume, while there are over 5,923 owners of the project. This includes 30% unique owners as, like with many NFT collections, some people like to stock up on multiple NFT's on launch and hold them for long term profits and gains.
And.... It's Gone?
Since its launch, the project has seen its floor price shoot up to roughly about 0.85 ETH back in early April, but since then it has been steadily tumbling down. Currently the floor price sits at 0.1984 ETH, which for those lucky enough to purchase at mint price would still represent a gain, although for the majority it would be a clear loss. Below is the analyitics from Opensea since the launch of the project, where it is clear to see that not only did the price spike in the opening weeks, but also the number of transactions. As the amount of people purchasing and trading dropped off, so did the value of the NFT.
There were some amazing moments of course, with two NFT's in particular drawing very impressive trading amounts. Nakamigos #7762, which sports a hoodie and an orange helmet, was sold for 1.690 ETH on the 27th of March, with its latest sale going for 5 ETH on the 15th of April. Nakamigos #3648 sold for a whopping 16 ETH on the 28th of March and has not been traded again since.
Those were some of rarest and more lucrative NFTs among the collection, with the current best offer for any of the NFTs standing at 0.18 ETH. The hype has died off rather quickly, from trending on twitter to becoming a dropping value project. As noted by some on Twitter, the project has far from lived up to its expectations and instead it is looking more and more like the higher prices were merely exit liquidity for early investors.
There is no official Discord nor other social media pages associated with the project, just its main website and the official Twitter page. The project has communicated very little in terms of its roadmap for future development. The website does have a FAQ section, although this mainly covers questions related to the mint and not much else. While I am not looking to bash the project as they may turn around and surprise me, so far it has mainly been Tweets regarding different types of Nakamigo's and their attire / rarity. There is a pinned Tweet, from mid April, where the team hints at a further launch to follow on from this one, but nothing is clarified.
With Nakamigos "only half the story" then potentially there is a bright upturn down the line for the project. However, with very little information regarding the actual team behind the project and the price slowly but surely sinking on a day to day basis, this is definitely one for the Hodlers. Hopefully it all works out, but once again, this may be another lesson learnt in the Crypto Space of 'buyer beware,' especially when the selling party reveals next to nothing about themselves or the project they are selling.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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