Daily Archives: April 30, 2022

The extreme success of Moonbirds is the NFT story of the year so far. The collection opened up so strongly that it archived instant blue chip status and a place at the top of the charts. The market for NFTs is bearish at the moment, how did the pixeled owls accomplish such a feat? It certainly wasn’t just the art, even though the Moonbirds have a distinctive look and probably make excellent profile pictures AKA PFPs. 

Let’s uncover the story. This one has it all; a nascent but powerful organization, crazy numbers, internet legends, an ambitious roadmap, light controversy, and, of course, metaverse plans.

Moonbirds: Formal Characteristics

There are a total of 10K Moonbirds, they were issued under the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. The mint price for each one was a whopping 2.5 ETH. That means that, at current prices, the Proof Collective made over $70M on that first day. The madness doesn’t end there,  according to CryptoSlam, the Moonbirds have generated $481M in sales so far. That’s 160K ETH from almost 12K buyers. And for every sale on the secondary market, Proof received a 5% cut.

According to the Moonbirds official site, the organization distributed those original 10K owls as follows:

• 7,875: Public sale to allowlist winners

• 2,000: PROOF Collective Members (1,000 passes) each receive two free mints

• 125: PROOF wallet for future collaborations, marketing, and advisors

All interested parties, including Proof Collective members, were able to enter a raffle to be whitelisted for that public sale. Of course, there was controversy, which we will cover. The Moonbird NFT collection promised the usual, membership to a private group and a Discord server, and future yet-to-be-revealed utilities. A staking mechanism, cleverly named “nesting” and a future metaverse codenamed “Project Highrise.”

According to the Moonbird’s site, their “unique take on the Metaverse” will be “a dramatic departure from the existing ‘never-ending’ worlds that feel like a digital ghost town. Ours is uniquely different, and you’ll have first access as a nested Moonbirds holder.” 

It’s also worth noting that, “owners of Moonbirds have full commercial art rights for the Moonbird they own.”

ETH price chart for 04/30/2022 on Oanda | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com

What Is “Nesting” And What Can It Do For You?

Staking is a DeFi staple. It locks assets and takes them off the market, which benefits all other holders and the project in general. In Moonbirds, the process is called “nesting,” and “the longer you nest your Moonbird, the more rewards you’ll accumulate.” What rewards exactly? That’s not yet clear. And the nesting process is not yet available. 

However, the Moonbirds site already lists certain characteristics. Nesting will be “non-custodial (no need to transfer it to another contract) and the holder numbers displayed on OpenSea etc will not be impacted.” Those stats are very important for NFT projects. Holders can’t sell their NFTs while nesting, but they can transfer them. “The intent is to allow holders to move their Moonbirds between their own accounts, e.g. if they compromise their wallet via a rogue signature.”

There’s also this vague promise, “as soon as your Moonbird is nested, they’ll begin to accrue additional benefits. As total nested time accumulates, you’ll see your Moonbird achieve new tier levels, upgrading their nest.”

Controversy. Of Course.

For the level of success that the Moonbirds accomplished, the controversy around them is pretty mild. One could argue that the first two aren’t the Proof Collective’s fault, and the third one is pretty standard practice. Let’s go through them:

• Their raffle got hit with a Sybil Attack. That means, a person or organization created more than 400 wallets to get as many tickets, or chances to win a whitelist. They earned more than 50 spots. This Twitter user unveiled the whole thing:

Looks like someone created 400+ accounts to Sybil Attack the @moonbirds_xyz raffle:

They’ve already sold the majority it looks like. Just at a quick glance they won 20+

One example: pic.twitter.com/szgJGT5JXO

— zachxbt (@zachxbt) April 16, 2022

• According to The Next Web, they found “at least 10 hacked Twitter accounts across countries ranging from athletes to politicians posting scammy links that lead you to a fake Moonbirds website. ”Their aim was to get the unsuspecting audience to send them ETH in hopes of getting a non-existent Moonbird. When pressed, one of the Proof Collective founders said, “Oh the spam is terrible! We’re doing everything we can to contain it. Lots of bad actors doing their play.”

Oh the spam is terrible! We’re doing everything we can to contain it. Lots of bad actors doing their play. This wasn’t project criticism (which is of course valid) so much as gatekeeping which projects deserve recognition or success.

— Justin Mezzell (🥃,🦉) (@JustinMezzell) April 19, 2022

• The NFT Ethics account did its best to attack the Moonbirds project, but all they could do was accuse the Proof Collective of wash trading to pump up the price for their other NFT project and of gifting those memberships to influencers. “GaryVee (Gennady), his brother AJ, Beeple and some old friends received the Proof collective for free.”

1/ Some people contacted us to ask our opinion on @moonbirds_xyz that is minting tomorrow for 2.5 ETH, which would take out more than 75 million USD out of the ecosystem. As usual, many are afraid to speak out because they don’t want to offend “powerful” Web3/NFT influencers/VCs. pic.twitter.com/YXvAqs8mwn

— NFT Ethics (@NFTethics) April 15, 2022

All in all, the controversy is hardly anything to write home about. On the next “Blue Chip NFTs 101” we’ll take a look at the organization behind the Moonbirds, the Proof Collective, and their other NFT project. A membership to the influential group. It might be the NFT with the most valuable utility to date.

Feature Image Moonbirds sample from the official website | Charts by TradingView

The Brazilian Senate has approved a recently presented cryptocurrency policy, advancing the project to discussions in the deputy chamber. The proposal will have to be greenlighted by the deputies of Congress and signed by President Jair Bolsonaro to be approved as law. The project presented is the result of the fusion of several law projects dealing with crypto.

Brazilian Senate Greenlights Crypto Law Project

The Brazilian Senate has greenlighted a cryptocurrency law project that seeks to give more clarity and protect users from different cryptocurrency-related scams that have happened in the country. The project will now advance to the Chamber of Deputies, which will be responsible for debating and approving or rejecting this new project.

The project was elaborated by choosing different projects that were presented earlier by taking some parts from one, and some from another. Senator Flávio Arns, senator Styvenson Valentim, senator Soraya Thronicke, and federal deputy Aureo Ribeiro all contributed to the final text. This was announced by local media before, which informed the institution was taking steps to achieve the approval of a cryptocurrency law before the end of Q2.

While discussing the law project, rapporteur Iraja Abreu stated:

We advanced the discussions of the report so that we could here today finally vote on this matter of regulation of crypto assets… The central bank was constantly demanding Congress to position ourselves in relation to a regulatory framework that could understand the dimension of this new business environment.

Law Project Dispositions

The cryptocurrency law project approved by the Brazilian senate establishes the concept of cryptocurrencies and virtual asset service providers (VASPs), but leaves the faculty of naming the institution destined to oversee them to the Executive branch of the government. In earlier iterations of this project, this faculty was assigned to the Central Bank of Brasil. The executive branch of the government will be able to assign these tasks to an existing organization or create one just for this.

The subject of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) was left outside the scope of the regulation, with the regulation of these tools being left to another law project due to their special traits. However, the document does amend the penal code of the country to include a new crime, denominated “fraud in the provision of services of virtual assets, securities, or financial assets,” with penalties going from imprisonment from two to six years plus fines.

The document also proposes tax benefits for cryptocurrency mining operations that use 100% renewable energies and become carbon neutral.

What do you think about the approval of the cryptocurrency law by the Brazilian senate? Tell us in the comments section below.

Sergio Goschenko

Sergio is a cryptocurrency journalist based in Venezuela. He describes himself as late to the game, entering the cryptosphere when the price rise happened during December 2017. Having a computer engineering background, living in Venezuela, and being impacted by the cryptocurrency boom at a social level, he offers a different point of view about crypto success and how it helps the unbanked and underserved.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

FTM was down by as much as 12% to start the weekend, as crypto markets were once again under a red wave. ATOM was also victim to this wave, falling to its lowest level since last August during Saturday’s session.

Fantom (FTM)

Fantom (FTM) was down by double digits on Saturday, as bearish pressure continued to send prices deep into multi-month lows.

Saturday saw FTM/USD fall for a third consecutive session, as prices hit an intraday low of $0.786 earlier today.

Today’s low is the lowest point prices have reached since last September, and comes following a bearish start to the year.

Overall, FTM has traded lower for five of the six last months, ever since recording an all-time high of $3.47 in October.

Looking at the chart, this weakness has pushed prices deep into oversold territory, which is one of the only good signs for remaining long-term bulls.

Despite FTM failing to find a floor in recent months, should this current level hold firm, we may begin to see consolidation, and potentially even reversal in upcoming months.

Cosmos (ATOM)

FTM was not the only token to fall to multi-month lows to start the weekend, with cosmos (ATOM) also dropping on Saturday.

Following a peak of $20.36 during Friday’s session, ATOM/USD started the weekend by falling to a low of $18.96.

This bottom was over 5% lower than yesterday’s high, and sees prices fall to their lowest level since the end of last August.

ATOM is now trading in the red for a second consecutive month, as prices continue to struggle to find a sustainable floor.

Its most recent support level of $21.63 was broken earlier this week, as the 14-day RSI continued to also lose strength.

Now tracking at the 28 level, relative strength seems to have an interim floor, and should this hold firm, we could see an attempt to re-enter the $21 level.

Which is more likely to have a strong rebound, ATOM or FTM? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Eliman Dambell

Eliman brings a diversified point of view to market analysis, having worked as a brokerage director, retail trading educator, and market commentator in Crypto, Stocks and FX.