From a $300 million USD debut, to the ousting of its founder and a takeover by one in every of Web3’s greatest names, this NFT assortment has been by all of it – and it continues to roll on to today.
That NFT assortment is Moonbirds.
These owls show that an NFT assortment may be down, however by no means out – however what are they, what ought to you recognize about them, and the way did they get to the place they’re in the present day?
Right here’s our full 2024 information to Moonbirds.
What’s Moonbirds?
Moonbirds is a sequence of 10,000 owl NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, created by PROOF Collective. Designed by Justin Mezzell, Chief Product Officer at PROOF Collective, every Moonbird fuses collectively a choose variety of algorithmically-generated traits, similar to faces, clothes, equipment and extra.
The thought for the gathering got here from Kevin Rose, an web entrepreneur who’s best-known as a co-founder of stories aggregator Digg. He began PROOF Collective – a bunch of NFT lovers that included Beeple and Gary Vaynerchuk – as a method to push the NFT trade forwards.
On launch, 2,000 Moonbirds had been reserved for members of the PROOF Collective, with 7,875 out there to the general public and the remaining 125 held by the PROOF workforce for future initiatives.
Moonbirds NFTs have a singular staking mechanism that’s known as ‘nesting’. By nesting a Moonbird, the holder good points growing perks and rewards – however can’t promote or switch the NFT while doing so. These perks embody early entry to future merchandise, neighborhood benefits, merchandise drops and extra.
PROOF Collective was acquired by Bored Ape Yacht Membership creators Yuga Labs in February 2024, with Yuga now main the administration, planning and outlook of the gathering as a complete.
The historical past of Moonbirds
Moonbirds had been minted on April 16, 2022, priced at a large 2.5 ETH every. Regardless of this worth, all 10,000 Moonbirds NFTs had been bought in simply two days – and rampant secondary market buying and selling noticed the gathering rapidly exceed $300 million USD in buying and selling quantity, making it the biggest NFT debut in historical past.
In Might 2022, PROOF launched Oddities, a ten,000-piece Ethereum-based companion NFT assortment to the Moonbirds, made out there by way of the nesting system.
August 2022 noticed Moonbirds and Oddities undertake a CC0 license, placing the artwork of the NFTs into the general public area. This prompted big backlash, as somewhat than the rights going to every holder, they had been now publicly out there with no permissions required. One holder claimed that they misplaced a “six-figure licensing deal” on account of this previously-unannounced transfer.
April 2023 noticed PROOF introduce the $TALONS token, earned by nesting Moonbirds. This token might then be used to buy unique merchandise, get passes to passes, and extra.
On the identical time, PROOF additionally revealed Mythics, a second Ethereum-based companion assortment with 20,000 NFTs that might be acquired by nesting Moonbirds or burning Oddities NFTs.
With three NFT collections diluting the perceived worth of Moonbirds, a transfer to CC0 licensing that was extensively criticised, and a poor reception to the $TALONS token, the ground worth of Moonbirds collapsed from an all-time excessive of 37 ETH to under 2 ETH in 12 months.
Their poor neighborhood sentiment would fall additional when on Might 29, 2023, co-founder Kevin Rose acknowledged that Moonbirds wasn’t “down unhealthy as BAYC when it comes to USD”. This assertion – coming at a time when Moonbirds had been under 2 ETH while Bored Apes had been at 45 ETH – was met extremely poorly, and solely fuelled rising discontent.
Moonbirds continued to sink, falling under 1 ETH by January 2024. By now, rumours had begun to circle that Rose was seeking to promote the gathering, and quite a few neighborhood figures posted public bids to buy the administration of Moonbirds on social media.
Hearsay grew to become actuality, with an announcement in February 2024 that PROOF Collective and all of its NFT collections – together with Moonbirds – had been acquired by Bored Ape Yacht Membership creators Yuga Labs.
April 2024 noticed Yuga unveil the Moonbirds Universe, a metaverse-like digital world that deliberate to combine with their current Otherside metaverse.
The month additionally noticed Yuga Labs revoke the CC0 license from Moonbirds and Oddities – a extensively praised transfer that was seen by many to be correcting the error made by PROOF in issuing the license in August 2022, guaranteeing that holders retained the rights to the picture of their NFTs.
June 2024 noticed new illustrated art work be launched for every Moonbirds NFT, with holders capable of toggle between the unique pixel-based artwork and the brand new hand-drawn illustrated type.
Regardless of the flurry of pleasure across the acquisition, Moonbirds has been largely silent for the reason that new art work landed, with no new main developments to notice. This lack of motion is mirrored within the flooring worth, with Moonbirds now buying and selling at round 0.34 ETH as of the time of writing.
What’s subsequent for Moonbirds?
Not like many different so-called “blue chip” NFT collections – similar to Azuki, Doodles, and Bored Apes – there isn’t any clear plan, indication or roadmap for what the longer term appears to be like like for Moonbirds.
The final main replace was the re-activation of the Talons Market, which lets customers spend $TALONS tokens on NFTs from different collections, similar to Chromie Squiggles, Deadfellaz and CrypToadz. Though Moonbirds does profit from what’s taking place within the wider Yuga ecosystem, the main target of the Yuga workforce has been decidedly away from Moonbirds in latest months – no less than publically.
Regardless of this, the Moonbirds social accounts proceed to tick alongside, constructing a story round Moonbirds and exploring the lore and world that surrounds them. By way of proof of them constructing in direction of a future for the gathering, that is all we’ve seen to this point.
With Yuga Labs behind the gathering, we’d be shocked if – lower than a yr post-purchase – they’ve run out of concepts or motivation to work on the Moonbirds. Will the Moonbirds Universe can be successful? Can Moonbirds get better from its present all-time low? Solely time will inform.
