What makes a Solana Blue Chip NFT?
Deep dive into the Solana NFT space for the new and old collector/investor with emphasis on the top projects as of September 2021
Welcome to the first of many articles in a newsletter by @SolanaLegend, an early adopter of Solana NFTs and Co-Founder of @MonkeDAO, the first SOL NFT DAO.
I will preface my inaugural piece by addressing a few questions I have before moving onto this week’s topic - blue chip, highly investible $SOL NFTs
Who is the @SolanaLegend?
The Legend is 25 years old and works an as investment banking associate, having studied Applied Economics and Finance at Cornell. IRL, he has worked on >$10 billion in buy & sell-side M&A transactions across various sectors.
Most recently, he took the red pill and has gone down a massive rabbit-hole of NFTs, focused entirely on the Solana space. He has participated in every major mint including Solana Monkey Business, Degenerate Apes Academy, ThugBirdz, Aurory, and many others. He is a (paper) millionaire based on his early investment in the aforementioned projects, and has a long term view of the market. The Legend believes in holding top NFTs, not flipping for short term gains, and anything he says is his own personal views and opinions, and should not be construed as financial advice. Please invest your time and capital at your own risk. You can follow @SolanaLegend on Twitter.
Why should you care about Solana NFTs?
Solana is a high throughput, virtually frictionless chain that lends itself to high-frequency, repetitive transactions such as managing an orderbook for an exchange or buying and selling digital assets such as Non-Fungible Tokens.
Solana offers:
High transaction speeds (~50-60k+ TPS) and very low execution times (<1s)
Minimal transaction fees of 0.000005 SOL, or about $0.001 meaning a modest $300 gas fee on ETH lasts you 300,000 transactions or ~30+ years on SOL
Seamless integration between NFT projects with @Phantom wallet, the top wallet on Solana, and one of the best UI/UXs of any wallet in crypto IMO
You may ask, who would ever make that many transactions? For that we need to peel the onion a bit on the potential of some of the current and future projects and the ramifications of an increasingly gamified and digitalized world.
Solana Blue-Chip NFTs
I will preface the ranking by stating this is my personal opinion, and I am obviously heavily invested in each of these projects. I will try to portray the history and features of each project and why it is investible, serving as a crowning achievement for any Solana NFT player.
1. Solana Monkey Business
My journey with Solana Monkey Business (@SolanaMBS) began during the mint which took place on Aug 3, 2021 with 5,000 monkes sold out in 4 hours.
I minted a few dozen monkes at 2 SOL each (about $70/ea at the time).
Immediately after mint, SMB was not listed on an exchange for several weeks, meaning 100% of transactions were P2P OTC in the SMB discord:
Actual screenshot from the SMB Discord Buy/Sell Channel
This is the monke YouTuber / Influencer @KSI recently purchased for 530 SOL or ~$82,000 USDC on September 19, 2021
Like many others, I jumped into the Discord and purchased many more monkes from others including multiple Solana skins, Skeletons, Aliens, and Zombies.
Why was this early period of intense P2P trades so significant in the history of the project?
The community became extremely interconnected, with owners coming back day after day for weeks to interact with the same familiar faces including whales and Solana VCs using Mod escrows to trade millions of dollars in monkes relying on the honor system when sending out assets into the nether.
A rock solid core of die-hard SMB owners formed that would eventually become the foundation of the @MonkeDAO.
The MonkeDAO originally began as a collective of SMB OGs to discuss upcoming mints, namely the Degenerate Ape Academy on August 18, 2021.
The significance of this DAO as the first SOL NFT DAO would only echo in the weeks thereafter, reaching thousands of members verified with @GrapeProtocol and >10k followers on Twitter.
Celebrities like Family Feud TV Host Steve Harvey have invested and this is indicative of mainstream presence to come for SMB and other similar projects.
Why is @SolanaMBS ranked as top project on SOL?
1st true mass-appeal profile picture (pfp) NFT and community on Solana with a restricted supply of 5,000 tokens relative to most 10,000 projects.
The organic growth of the community has been meteoric, with the entire genesis and development of the DAO happening as 100% community run and funded initiative, unlike other projects where DAO is started by the team itself.
This created a situation where crypto/NFT whales, traders, artists, IP lawyers, VCs, smart contract developers, bankers, and just plain degens began to act as a single brain with completely aligned incentives (DAO membership is gated by proof of ownership of a SMB monke) to maximize value & build on the project.
The pixel art, while more simplistic than some of the higher production value projects is universal, and the attributes are highly intuitive e.g. if you took people off the street at random and had them identify the rarest monkes in a lineup they would be able to do so majority of the time.
The capabilities of the DAO were proven during the August 31st Aurory Mint exploit where a fraudulent link caused a SMB holder to lose hundreds of thousands in SOL and NFTs including 42 monkes, which were then traced, and frozen by @hoaktrades and @Kharn_NFT.
The DAO will continue to be a massive driver of value for SMB holders, and will serve as a platform for high quality collaborations in both the NFT space and mainstream as well as hilarious meme compilations and content from its members, a fun place to hangout regardless of how SMB is trading.
You can visit the MonkeDAO website and view its roadmap at MonkeDAO
The nature of the community leads me to believe this is one of the projects that could best survive an extended bear market / downcycle for SOL NFTs and become cycle proven over time…
2. Degenerate Ape Academy
My journey with Degenerate Ape Academy (@DegenApeAcademy) began before mint when the SMB community began to hear of an absolutely monumental upcoming NFT project with very high production values and a giant following already forming around it pre-launch.
I minted apes at 6 SOL each (about $420+/ea at the time)
Unlike SMB, apes were almost immediately available for trading on Solanart.io, the original Solana NFT marketplace, creating MASSIVE buzz and volumes
During this time I purchased various rare apes on the secondary market like this Degen Service (McDegen Ape)
Why was Degen Apes launch so significant for Solana?
On August 18th, tens of thousands of people all attempted to mint Degen Apes selling out the collection in just 8 minutes causing the SOL price itself to go on a massive tear upwards which can be heavily attributed to the mint itself
Solana co-founders sported Degen Ape profile pictures and the project itself is one of the most recognizable & followed on Solana, with huge Twitter following
This was truly the first NFT launch of its size on Solana and for many it was the first time using Solana - a real life expression of what the chain is capable of
Why is Degenerate Ape Academy a top project?
The IP and originality of the project is absolutely top shelf, and the 3D art just oozes quality front right and center…
There is a rock solid market for Degen Apes which goes from floor sales to staggering top-end sales by institutional players like Moonrock Capital who purchased this Zombie Halo Gold Tooth Ape for $1.1 million on Sept 11, 2021
The team is incredibly well funded and has a solid roadmap and all the ability to deliver on it, I am not exaggerating when I say this project is the Bored Ape Yacht Club of Solana with massive upside in the future IMO.
The Apes have a strong community that would go to war for the project, albeit with some caveats, but expect these issues to get addressed over time.
Why is Degenerate Ape Academy not ranked #1?
The conversation around NFTs post-launch starts and ends with community, and I am not alone in observing that while the Degen Ape community is extremely strong and loyal, it shows signs of being slightly less organic and unified than others in the space.
This is evidenced by the excision between Exiled and normal Degen Apes, with hundreds of apes being minted at launch before the eventual 10,000 and not being officially included in the collection by vote, and an ongoing debate there which leads to some Exiled always feeling some resentment etc.
Furthermore, the Degen Apes team has reneged on its promise to provide some Twitter influencers with 1/1 commemorative apes, even shelving certain 1/1s in favor of crypto trader @Pentosh1 who went on to controversially sell his 1/1 Ape - admittedly to help his friend recover from a scam, but a bad press item for the Degenerate Ape Academy nonetheless.
Putting these slight reservations aside, the strength and depth of Degen Apes is an absolute force to be reckoned with and I have full confidence in the team.
3. Star Atlas / Aurory Project
When it comes to trends in Solana NFT space, gamification of NFTs and P2E games are at the very top of the list and have huge growth projections and expectations, with major $ being allocated to production and development.
Solana’s nature as a high throughput and minimal fee chain lends itself to supporting an RPG / Multiplayer game with a huge volume of tradeable items and in-game economy, think in-game auction house and tradeable characters with NFTs and DeFi integration, the sky is the limit for this concept.
Both projects have teams with extensive experience in the gaming field.
Star Atlas ship concept, with high-stakes PVP (Player vs. Player) and an extensive in-game economy being teased as major concepts that contribute to Play to Earn
Aurory game concept page, revolving around open world roaming, catching and training creatures (Nefties) for PVP and PVE (Player vs. Environment) battles as well as in-game trading of items and rewards
Why is the Play to Earn (P2E) Concept Powerful?
You have probably heard a story or read an article about a player in a multiplayer game that is able to achieve such a commanding position in game due to their wealth, skill, or influence that they can earn a living IRL just by playing games like WoW, Runescape, or Eve Online.
Outside of actual pro-gamers or content creators such as Twitch streamers, this P2E concept is based around in-game activities which reward you with in-game currency or items which is then exchanged for crypto/money IRL.
This adds another dimension of lucrative rewards which makes the game highly immersive and strengthens the community massively and in many ways makes it much more than a video game but rather a source of livelihood.
Why are these P2E games not higher in the rankings?
As with any ambitious gaming project, there is large number of moving parts and execution risk that the game studio will not deliver on an in-game experience that resonates with the player base.
As the projects get further along in the development and listen to their respective communities of players, the projects will be de-risked and begin to move to the forefront of the Solana NFT space IMO.
While there is quite a road to get there, the early launch of both and the potential of the P2E concept alone is enough to land these projects jointly on the #3 spot of the rankings.
4. ThugBirdz
Remember when I said community is where NFTs are made and broken? ThugBirdz has one of the strongest communities bar none, and the most established DAO outside of the @MonkeDAO.
Their art is simple, intuitive and clean, with a very restricted supply of just 3,333 Birdz and thousands of die-hard fans, including US rapper Waka Flocka Flame, who joined the Flock just recently publicly on Twitter.
Why should you own ThugBirdz?
DigitalEyes sales data is heating up majorly, and a quick scan of the Twitter feed will show how many users use a ThugBirdz as their profile picture, even if its not the most expensive NFT they own, which speaks volumes.
The existence of a strong DAO, with such restricted supply is a powerful combination for huge upside like we are already seeing with early holders.
ThugBirdz are doing all the right collabs with Solana artists like @Peanug420 and not just following in the steps of other successful projects but blazing their own trail in the space, quite literally with Birdz smoking blunts in DAO rap songs and awesome community created art.
What does ThugBirdz need to be higher ranked?
Unlike SMB or Degen Apes which have a position of high status based on how early they were, ThugBirdz will need to continue to differentiate itself from the many other profile picture projects that have flooded the space
Long-term value creation via high-quality collaborations and the @ThugDAO will cement an already strong market position IMO but will need to be creative to entice buyers once the retail investors begin to be priced out soon
Once the army of ThugBirdz fans are rewarded even more this project can easily take things to the next level in terms of relevance & market values
5. Abstratica / FRAKT
Falling in the categories of abstract and geometric art respectively, these projects have burst onto the scene, and while they are slightly less vocal and deep communities don’t underestimate the quality of these NFTs or their ability to rack up serious gains in the months and years to come…
A look at abstract art NFTs on ETH should tell you how big the payoff can be
Abstratica was the 1st abstract art project of its kind to launch around mid-August and was a highly successful launch with a low mint cost of 1 SOL that has already rewarded minters in a major way.
The abstract art itself is beautiful, and the project has found innovative ways to layer in rarity based on certain patterns, and elite colored frames to help distinguish between pieces.
FRAKT was not the first but has a strong following and top-end sales like this rainbow wave which sold for 3,400 SOL or ~$474,000 USDC
The project also has a tiered points system that allows for certain holders to have a high (or certain) chance to get access to discounted pre-sales of future releases, which can pay off huge long-term
Which is the better project?
With such subjective pieces, it honestly comes down to personal preference, I have heard very compelling arguments from both sides and only time will tell because roadmap considerations are not as pertinent for art-centric NFTs.
Honorable mention:
Solarians
The first NFT on Solana! These guys are essentially blue-chip just based off of that status, but have struggled explaining their value proposition to prospective investors and have quite a convoluted rarity structure that is not super intuitive.
That being said, Solarians are an OG and have a potentially game-changing royalty structure if they are able to attract and retain holders to a game or other value add projects down the road.
That’s all for this week guys!
Would really appreciate a follow on Twitter @SolanaLegend, stay tuned for more!