Welcome back to “The State of Aptos NFTs”. I will see a lot, really a lot of new faces in here, new eyes reading about Aptos and the NFT ecosystem in here. And that was the purpose all along, but I am glad we are seeing this so early into this space. Just been a couple of weeks since the last episode, but the way things are happening in the Aptos NFT ecosystem, this chapter couldn’t be delayed.
About 12 days ago, when we were talking about the NFT floor prices, the major consideration was about the USD value because of the price action of the APT token, and that still stays here. Aptos had crossed $20 before stabilizing at around $18, which is a jump of almost 5x within three weeks. The NFT floors have adjusted based on that, but the overall USD value has been pumped.
Let’s look at the floor prices of the major collections on Aptos.
- Aptomingos was at about 57 APT, and currently, it sits at about 50 APT, with the USD value almost close a double
- Aptos Monkeys was at about 20 APT and is currently at about 19 APT
- Spooks were trading at about 7.5 APT, but now are at around 5.5 APT
- Bruh Bears were trading at 8.5 APT, and now they are at around 6.5 APT
There have been a lot of developments in the past couple of weeks, so sit back and read if you missed some of them.
Newly Minted
Pontem and Topaz together worked on launching a free mint named Pontem Dark Ages. It was a mint 2 earn concept where the whitelisting was done for wallets that held Pontem Space Pirates, and specific traits from some collections like Aptomingos, Aptos Monkeys, Bruh Bears, MAVRIK, and the users of Liquidswap Hydroponic farm.
Pontem was clear about the fact that this was being done to support artists and art, and still, there was some good activity, with over 4200 APT worth of trading volume and a floor price of over 10 APT.
What’s happening in the NFT space?
Topaz has a lot of changes
The top trading marketplace on Aptos, Topaz, has added many features and changes to how your profile looks on the website.
- Listings go into another tab and not on the profile page directly.
- Collection folders on the profile – Easier to view and find stuff if you had like 50 NFTs from one collection and a huge profile
- Collection folders now have the current floor price and the estimated total value of your folder based on the floor price
- The estimated total value of all collections on the Profile page on top
- Leaderboard of different traits on the Collection pages
- Wallet activity added to your profile page, privately only for the user – shows everything including listing, delisting, buying, selling, etc.
- Social card previews are live for Topaz – Share your NFT page link on Twitter and see how it shows up
- The mobile version of Topaz finally has the activity shown for collections, and this was much needed for users to understand the activity before they decide to buy or sell any NFTs when they have access only to a smartphone
AptoRobos Announcement
Okay, for those who aren’t aware, AptoRobos is my idea and our experiment of building a community on Aptos. A total of 1111 Robos will be minting sometime in February, with this being a free mint, and the idea behind this being a free mint is that we aren’t building some amazing tools and utilities that the projects here are building and that require any heavy resources or manpower. We are a team of three, and a group of community heads joined hands to volunteer and help out in trying to build one of the most amazing communities. Early days, so it will take time before we reveal what we have in the plans, but the hunt for genuine users is on, with the Discord server opened a couple of days ago, and getting over 8000 members interested in grabbing a spot for minting the AptoRobos NFT for free.
InSilva Kreachers are Revealed
The Kreachers had minted just around the time when I wrote the last chapter, and they were revealed just today. It was a very neat reveal experience with a website taking advantage of the Aptos tech, and the metadata for each of the Kreachers was attached only when it was revealed, not before. Kudos to the efforts done there. Y00ts on Solana have a similar concept of attaching the unique traits only when the t00bs are burned and the Y00ts get revealed. Regardless of the rank, the Kreachers do have a cute look to each of them. It will be interesting to see how they play out on the secondary markets, as InSilva mentioned the number of Kreachers you will need to hold in order to be eligible for minting an InSilva main collection NFT for free, and for a discount.
Aptos Monkeys hinted at an upcoming marketplace
Okay, not revealing a lot here, but what was shared with the holders was about something around a token marketplace and it is just a few days away. If you are holding an Aptos Monkeys NFT, you should be knowing this already, but AptosMonkeys is not doing these only for holders, so the ecosystem and holders of other collections, and projects should be excited about what’s coming!
Aptomingos 1/1 auctioned and sold for 400 APT
Even if we see Aptos still as a new chain with small yet active communities, the word is getting out there with an influx of users from other chains coming in. One of the indications here was when Aptomingos hosted their first auction on the chain, and the Picasso Mingo 1/1 was put up for an auction, and it got sold for 400 APT (about $7200 at the time of the sale). Aptomingos has set the standards since its inception, and the first auction itself speaks so much about how things could be in future auctions.
Starspace entering the Aptos ecosystem
Starspace has been building and working on the background as far as we see, but we finally see them entering the vibrant Aptos NFT ecosystem. Starspace isn’t only a marketplace but also a launchpad for projects. The announcement was rather done via a series of tweets involving most of the biggest NFT and DeFi projects, all of them being generously responded to by the users. It will be interesting to see how Starspace does, and it always is good to see multiple projects working toward the same goal. Competition is always good for the end consumers.
Do we hear Nevermores de-rugging?
Nevermores de-rug has been a story for weeks now. There was a team that was trying a bit but it never went to the next step, but now, a new Twitter account emerged out of nowhere and started doing the “Caw Caw” noise. Again, while this doesn’t confirm anything, the Tweets from that account were replied to by some of the major Aptos personalities, raising eyebrows. That was followed by some quick picks of the Nevermores NFTs on Topaz and the floor of 0.2 APT ran to about 1.5 APT at one point, with many Nevermores being swept.
It would be absolutely amazing if someone brings them back for good. It was one of the best art that Aptos had seen, and the way things ended after the mint, many had lost their trust in NFTs in the ecosystem.
Let’s talk about Free Mints and the sudden influx
Okay, this was something I was asked to talk about. I myself am doing a free mint for the AptoRobos collection, and I was caught in the timing where some other projects are doing free mints too. Is it wrong? Is it bad? Are free mints only here for some quick cash grab and nothing else? Why choose free mint if you should be raising funds for delivering things?
So many questions, yet I am sure many won’t be able to answer them with ease. That’s understandable. If you are building tools, games, or even anything that needs resources and manpower, it is a fact that you will need funds, and it does raise eyebrows when big promises are made and large roadmaps are put up there while you are doing a free mint. On the other side, it is also understandable why some projects choose to do a free mint. Since we are here, let me clear out why AptoRobos is a free mint. Read on.
Why is AptoRobos a free mint?
I’ve personally been into Aptos since its testnet days, and I am not a grinder (I grind enough on my own stuff) and thus missed out on some of the early projects that I bought on secondary since that is how I can understand the communities, the founders and creators, their vision and plans, and I built connections early because I have been transparent about my suggestions, my support to each of them. The idea of having a community was there since November, but it was not until I was pushed to the edge to announce it, I kept holding on to get known as someone who talks about Aptos and is an unbiased writer giving all his opinions about things in this ecosystem. AptoRobos was a free mint since the day I had given a thought about the collection, and it would have been free even if we had minted in November last year, or in May this year. The reason for this being a free mint is that I am building a community that needs people, not funds. Fundraising by saying we are building a community is a red flag in my eyes. For what is being invested prior to the mint, maybe we could look at it from the royalties, and even if we end up doing nothing in the secondary market, the spending goes from our pockets, but we are okay with that. It’s going to be a fun ride and some experiments along the way (I am not making strong promises but I know what I am doing), and we are going to work hard on a few things but that work would have not gotten lesser anyway so the mint being funded or not, does not matter.
Now, that’s our vision. It cannot be the same for everyone. Some may have their reasons, but you can always ask the project teams why they chose to go for a free mint. Always, do your due diligence irrespective of whether it is a free or paid mint. Time is money.
What else is up?
No further updates from Aptos Alpha Alpacas, and no change from what was in the last story sadly.
The Aptos World Tour Hackathon Series 2023 starts with the first one in Seoul, South Korea from Feb 1st to 3rd. The Hackathon will have up to $3 million awarded to teams across tracks that include Gaming, Social, Media, and DeFi.
End Notes
The Aptos token movement is still very high, if I were you, I would not really follow the charts right now and look at things from the sidelines and buy tokens from Spot to get involved in the NFT ecosystem, and not do a lot in the perpetual markets.
As always, a reminder: Even though I am very open with my thoughts and share what I like and what I don’t, you should always do your own research before investing in anything, and invest what you can afford to lose. Aptos is still new (only 3 months since mainnet) so there will be huge movements both ways, so if you are having a conviction while entering the Aptos NFT ecosystem, remember to not panic and hold on to your assets if there are falls and rises in the NFT floors.
If you have any major updates to share that I might have missed, you can always reach out to me on Twitter @thecaptaingates or Discord Chetan#7559 and we can discuss!
