NFT has brought explosive changes to the fields of art and technology, and more and more people are beginning to understand NFT. Where once, only a small group of experienced professionals could sell their art, today, everyone has the potential to be a digital artist.
How NFT Creates Value
Many NFT auctions have made the headlines of major media, and the prices of some NFT artworks and collectibles are even more jaw-dropping. At the same time, many celebrities have participated in the creation and collection of NFT. For example, Yao Ming's wine estate launched the world's first winery to auction with NFT digital collections, and well-known Japanese artist Takashi Murakami sold NFT collections on Opensea. Why are many companies, celebrities, artists, and collectors paying attention to NFT? How does NFT create value?
Core applications of NFTs include provenance verification, authenticity records, digital scarcity for new media and generative art, fragmented ownership, and records of shared ownership. Ownership of artworks cannot be transferred without on-chain record transfers. Most importantly, NFT's blockchain records can not only serve as a proof, but also serve as a trustworthy source database. NFT buyers can prove the authenticity of the work through the NFT contract address.
NFTs also allow fragmentation or shared ownership of individual artworks. From a collector's perspective, fragmenting the ownership of individual artworks can diversify the ways in which works are held. From the artist's point of view, selling tokens or retaining equity can achieve the effect of reselling copyright fees, which greatly enriches the value of the work itself.
NFT can ensure the authenticity and scarcity of artwork, songs, etc., and its ownership history will not be lost. With blockchain technology, ownership is proven through NFTs, ensuring that artists, editors, musicians, and others have direct control and access to the value they provide to users, while NFTs also provide them with a reliable source of income. In the NFT trading platform, intermediate brokers are eliminated, and encrypted artists can obtain 85% of the primary sales revenue. The economics for artists are significantly better than traditional systems.
NFT Avatar Trend
Recently, the NFT Avatar trend has swept the entire encrypted world. A series of anthropomorphic animal head NFTs have become the most traded collections on Opensea, such as Stoner Cats, Pudgy Penguins, and Bored Ape Yacht Club.
As we all know, CryptoPunks is the most eye-catching NFT Avatar today. The continuous heating up of CryptoPunks has also spawned many new projects. While these projects draw on the core elements of CryptoPunks, they also bring more fresh gameplay and concepts. Inject fresh blood, such as the Avatar blind box.
Data source: NFTGO
Data source: NFTGO
ApeAvatar blind box
The APENFT Foundation and Binance NFT will cooperate again in September 2021 to launch the ApeAvatar blind box series. This blind box will select 50 globally influential figures, such as Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng "CZ", Tesla CEO Musk, etc., and customize their images into encrypted art-style avatars according to their personalities and industries. The drawing of the face and skin, clothing, and overall color matching show uniqueness. 50 blind boxes are avatar works carefully created by community artists for Mona Lisa and David. Users who missed this snap-up can get it through subsequent transactions in the secondary market. In addition, the ApeAvatar Charity Blind Box will also launch a social celebrity avatar claiming activity. After each avatar is claimed, the APENFT Foundation will donate $5,000 to international public welfare organizations such as One Tree Planted and Koala Clancy Foundation to fight global climate change.
The response to this new gameplay has been overwhelming. When the blind box was first launched, the selling price was $1, and there were 50 in total. The charity blind box was sold out within 1 minute of the event. According to BinanceNFT data, the total transaction volume of charity blind boxes in the secondary market on the first day exceeded 220,000 US dollars. Compared with the initial selling price of 1BUSD, the total transaction volume increased by 4,400 times, the highest unit price increased by more than 6,000 times, and the lowest price increased by 1,900 times. On September 10, the average transaction price of blind boxes in the secondary market was US$7,129, which was more than 7,100 times the selling price of blind boxes. The highest transaction price reached US$9,999, and the lowest transaction price was US$6,600. The total charitable donations for the ApeAvatar blind box sale also reached $20,000. On November 10, the sale of ApeAvatar charity avatars and blind boxes ended. The total transaction volume in the secondary market was US$470,000, with the lowest transaction price being US$3,900 and the highest transaction price being US$9,999.
As early as June 24 this year, Binance and the APENFT Foundation cooperated in an NFT auction with the theme of "Genesis", as the first appearance of the official launch of the Binance NFT trading platform. At this themed auction, the famous Pop artist Andy Warhol's "Three Self-Portraits" NFT works were launched on the Binance NFT market. This is also the first NFT auction of Andy Warhol's works in the world. "Three Self-Portraits" received bids of US$2.52 million in less than two minutes on the first day of its launch, and finally sold for US$2.8 million.
The cooperation between Binance and APENFT also goes deep into the field of charity. On September 29, the APENFT Foundation announced that it was invited to join the Binance TreeMillions public welfare tree planting project, and will work with 17 participants in the cryptocurrency field to plant 10 million trees around the world to address various challenges brought about by climate change. TreeMillions is the second charity project jointly launched by APENFT Foundation and Binance after ApeAvatar. TreeMillions was officially launched on September 28, and plans to plant 10 million trees worldwide. Currently, the first phase of the project is underway with a $2 million donation.
Avatar claim list
On September 8, Justin Sun, the founder of TRON, announced to claim the ApeAvatar charity NFT avatar
On September 8th, PAC Protocol CEO David Gokhshtein announced to claim the exclusive avatar of APEAvatar
On September 8, Helen Hai, head of the Binance NFT project, announced to claim the exclusive avatar of APEAvatar
On September 18, Ciara Sun, Vice President of Huobi Global Business and Head of Asset Center, announced to claim the NFT avatar of "ApeAvatar"
On September 23, Miss Bitcoin, a well-known beauty KOL in the Japanese encryption circle, tweeted that she had claimed the exclusive "ApeAvatar" NFT avatar, and the total donation of the APENFT Foundation will reach 25,000 US dollars
On September 28, Dovey Wan, founding partner of Primitive Ventures and director of the Coindesk Advisory Board, tweeted that she had claimed the exclusive "ApeAvatar" NFT avatar, and the total donation to the APENFT Foundation will reach $30,000
On October 18, Keith Grossman, president of Time Magazine, tweeted that he had claimed the exclusive "ApeAvatar" NFT avatar, and the APENFT Foundation would donate $5,000 to NewYorkCares. The ApeAvatar Charity Recognition Event will also total $35,000 in donations
On November 10th, AltcoinConference CEO MarQuis Trill announced that he claimed the "ApeAvatar" NFT avatar, and the APENFT Foundation will donate $5,000 to The World Cares Organization. The ApeAvatar Charity Recognition Event will also total $40,000 in donations
Collectible value of Avatar
celebrity effect
celebrity effect
Celebrity endorsements often have potential that cannot be underestimated. For example, former Tampa Bay Rays baseball player Micah Johnson sold his NFT artwork for $1 million in one minute. After Messi's transfer to the PSG club, PSG fan tokens increased by more than 100%. And this time, under the dual effects of KOL image participation and NFT craze, ApeAvatar may become the next big event.
platform effect
The resource providers behind the event are Binance and the APENFT Foundation. As the largest centralized exchange, Binance is at the top of the ecological chain in the blockchain world, and it is supplemented by a huge traffic advantage. And APENFT is an NFT foundation supported by the underlying technology of Ethereum and TRON established this year. Behind APENFT is actually the support and assistance of super IP Justin Sun, backed by the TRON ecology.
social capital
social capital
With the development of the Internet, people spend more and more time on the Internet, and the demand for NFT avatars is also increasing, because NFT avatars represent digital identities on the Internet. For example, owning a Punk is a status symbol, like owning a Ferrari or an expensive watch. NFT owners often use their NFT as their profile picture (PFP) on social networks like Twitter, Instagram, etc. NFT is no longer just an investment product, but also a virtual avatar on social media. Owning a CryptoPunk or Bored Ape and using it as an avatar represents that you are an early NFT collector, and these Avatars become a symbol of the owner's identity.
And each avatar club is a closed community, with exclusiveness, and the account number with Punk or ape is growing at an astonishing rate. Members of the community rely on their avatars to identify their peers in the crowded network, relate and interact with each other, start meeting in Clubhouse, and initiate offline community activities. The PFP symbolized by this sense of community belonging is no longer just an NFT, but also a bond between club members.
Avatar: the cornerstone of the metaverse
In addition to the above multiple values, ApeAvatar will also be the basic element to build the Metaverse. People can live in the Metaverse in the form of ApeAvatars, virtual avatars. In this immersive virtual world, users can socialize, create, entertain and other activities.
The word metaverse was first proposed in the science fiction novel "Avalanche", which refers to a virtual world that is separated from the real world, parallels to the real world, interacts with each other, and is always online. There are two key aspects of the metaverse: presence and interoperability. Presence refers to the feeling of being in a virtual space, with other people's avatars. Through virtual reality technologies such as head-mounted displays, people can improve the quality of online interactions. Interoperability means that people can freely shuttle in different virtual worlds by creating Avatars.
Most of the original metaverse is a reflection of the real world, and NFT is used as a carrier, and in the metaverse, it serves as a symbol of digital identity, a carrier of creative content, and the confirmation of item rights. NFT can create and transfer value. Metaverse-related NFTs such as digital wearables and real estate are the fourth largest market for NFT sales. Through the metaverse and NFT, we will enter a new era of providing creatives with the ability to make a living in the virtual world and earn a stable income. The traditional direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales model is outdated. In the metaverse, Direct to Avatar is an emerging business model that sells products directly to a person's virtual avatar.
The metaverse is a place where ideals and self-expression flourish. There is nothing more desirable than being able to wear, own and display a brand that reflects your current or changed self. Through blockchain technology, brands can add digital goods to their PFP. Users gain user interaction with the looks, styles, and precious logos they want to show off in the metaverse, while brands retain ownership of the brand and the revenue generated. The avatar NFT will be the metaverse's incarnation "PFP", the ultimate symbol of digital prestige. It is not only particularly significant in terms of social capital and utility, but also an indispensable part of the metaverse, becoming an important node connecting virtuality and reality.
ApeAvatar avatars have reached a premium of nearly 10,000 times in the secondary market, which just shows that as the basic unit of metaverse identity, the significance of NFT avatars is being realized and valued by people. Participants in this event included TRON founder Justin Sun, Time magazine president Keith Grossman, and AltcoinConference CEO MarQuis Trill. To the trend of the future digital society.
In the metaverse economic system in the future, it will be an economic system around virtual assets. In the metaverse, many things can bring economic output, creativity is associated with property rights, and virtual real estate/assets are associated with rarity. Realize peer-to-peer de-intermediation exchange through smart contracts. These economic models are an important means to expand the social network of the metaverse and to unite the community. Only by earning income through labor in the virtual world can the metaverse interact with the real world and serve as a supplement. These economic models are an important means to expand the social network of the metaverse and to unite the community. Only by earning income through labor in the virtual world can the metaverse interact with the real world and serve as a supplement.
Metaverse is still a relatively niche concept at present, and it is far from reaching the mainstream public like mobile Internet products. Self-development also faces contradictions such as "immersion" and "openness", which have high requirements for technical processing capabilities, scalability and human-computer interaction experience. On a technical level, the Metaverse still has a long way to go.
