Original - Odaily
Author-husband how
Editor｜Qin Xiaofeng
As the floor price of Pudgy Penguins briefly surpassed that of BAYC, BAYC, which has been on the throne for a long time, finally saw a strong competitor. Although the time exceeded is only less than one day, it shows that the NFT market structure is changing, and Pudgy Penguins is gradually encroaching on BAYCs territory.
Looking back on the development of Pudgy Penguins and BAYC in the past year, although both parties have continued to take measures, the endings are very different. This is reflected in the NFT secondary market: the floor price of Pudgy Penguins has broken through from less than 5 ETH to 20 ETH, with the highest to 22.7 ETH; on the other hand, BAYC dropped from 70 ETH to as low as 20.9 ETH. All this seems to be saying that the hard work of Yuga Labs, the operating team behind BAYC, this year has been nothing but self-impression, and the harder it works, the more it fails.
Odaily analysis believes that perhaps the operational capabilities of both teams are the real cause of the current situation.
NFT is inherently deficient, and team capabilities are the “tonic”
In the crypto world, FTs and NFTs occupy an equally important position, with both moving and the other silent. But the token market is currently in full swing. Looking at the NFT market, except for a few outstanding projects, most NFT projects are just short-lived. The popularity of most NFTs will gradually fade away in about a week from the time they are released, and the liquidity of NFTs will also decrease. The NFTs in the hands of users will eventually become nothing more than a nice little picture.
However, it is biased to kill NFT with a stick, and the role of functional NFT is relatively prominent. For example, game NFTs, rune miners similar to RSIC or land NFTs, etc., functional NFTs are mostly used as tools to achieve a single need. In addition, art NFT is also a relatively unique existence in the NFT sector, and its audience circle is relatively niche, such as the works of master Fang Lijun.
PFP (avatar NFT), which accounts for half of the NFT sector, is more obvious on this issue. According to NFTGo data, PFPs market value accounts for more than 70% of the total; among them, the top three market values are CryptoPunks, BAYC and Pudgy Penguins, accounting for nearly half of PFPs share. Some NFT investors even classify Meme tokens and PFP together. , called it the Run Fast game - whoever runs faster earns more.
This reflects the inherent shortcomings of most NFTs compared to tokens, such as liquidity and demand side. In terms of current liquidity, the rise of ERC-404 gives everyone hope. On the other hand, the root of the problem on the demand side lies in the team.
An excellent NFT team needs to have operational capabilities, marketing capabilities, and investment capabilities. Everyone once believed that Yuga Labs had such capabilities. Whether it was the successive launches of MAYC, Otherside, BAKC, etc., or the release of the game Dookey Dash, the community had no doubts about Yuga Labs capabilities.
However, in the past year, the Yuga team has continued to acquire other NFT brands. Until its recent acquisition of PROOF, it caused public outrage and made the NFT community question its capabilities. After so many acquisitions, there has been no integration, and the land has no effect. It is just a waste of money.
Looking back at the actions of the Pudgy Penguins team, they continue to expand their own influence and strive to get out of the circle.
In May last year, Pudgy Penguins launched IP derivative toy product Pudgy Toys, becoming the first mass-market product licensed by the community. After these toys were launched on Amazon and Walmart stores, they achieved good sales and once topped the charts. Pudgy Penguins also became famous in the real world.
Not only that, Pudgy Penguins also collaborates with well-known real-world brands to further increase its popularity. For example, Pudgy Penguins has cooperated with Retail Monster, a global brand extension and licensing company with experience in brand agency such as Disney and DreamWorks, and also cooperated with Sothebys to launch soul-bound tokens.
By comparing the two, we can find that although BAYC once had the blessing of many stars, such as Justin Bieber (singer), Steve Aoki (actor), Stephen Curry (NBA star), these were all independent actions of the community, and Yuga Labs took The approach is more similar to the traditional social community operation and acquisition of brands in the industry. The route taken by the Pudgy Penguins team is more like nurturing the community with the teams marketing and operational capabilities, so that NFT holders can see hope in the future and hold NFT firmly.
It is difficult to judge which of the two is stronger or weaker. I prefer the latter. Mainly lies inPudgy Penguin has an advantage over BAYC in terms of development path, or investors have higher expectations for it - BAYC has already issued coins, and its narrative has also encountered bottlenecks. On the other hand, Pudgy Penguins future coin issuance and airdrops are more worth looking forward to.
The attributes of the golden shovel may become the decisive factor
Whether Pudgy Penguins or BAYC can become the NFT leader, the attributes of the golden shovel will be an important consideration.
When the last bull market NFT sector broke out, many project owners’ Discord communities would invite BAYC holders as consultants, and whitelists would also be given to BAYC holders for free. Although there are factors of BAYCs IP and community popularity, there are also some factors of team business cooperation.
On the other hand, BAYC holders’ privileged ability to receive airdrops is gradually declining, while Pudgy Penguins holders continue to receive benefits. For example, the modular blockchain Dymension released a genesis airdrop and included Fat Penguin as one of the airdrop groups; the NFT lending protocol Arcade also stated that Fat Penguin holders have the opportunity to obtain a certain amount of airdrops; the DeFi project Syncus DAO also included Fat Penguin and BAYC As an airdrop user…
From being unknown to now occupying the NFT leading throne with BAYC, Pudgy Penguins’ team operation capabilities and marketing capabilities are obvious to all. Among them, the golden shovel attribute of NFT is an important consideration for investors to invest in NFT. Judging from the current results, the team behind Pudgy Penguins is already ahead of Yuga Labs.
However, after Yuga Labs experienced community criticism over the acquisition of PROOF, Yuga Labs officially announced that its co-founder Garga.eth has returned as CEO. Let us wait and see whether the coaching change can maintain BAYCs leading position.
