NFT Market's RED. But it Ain't Dead (yet

GM Readers!📪 It's BitDegree Insider, and here's your cup of Web3 matcha.

⭐️Today's selection:

• 🍿NFT Market's Red, Yet It Ain't Dead
• 💰Venture Mondays
• 👌Selected Meme of The Day
• 📰Bite-Sized News

NFT MARKET IS RED. BUT IT AIN'T DEAD (YET?)

So, here's an update.

The NFT market has sharply fallen again over the last 24 hours. Let's get more precise.

• BAYC has dropped by 16% and saw their prices falling below 30 ETH
• MAYC has fallen by 20% and is barely holding around 5 ETH
• Azuki has fallen by 11% and managed to fall below 6 ETH but bounced back... nonetheless for Azuki, it's a loss of more than 12 ETH regarding their floor price from over 10 days ago.

But… There are two sides to every coin token. At the same time, DeFi tokens are doing relatively better!!!

As an example: Compound(COMP) is +67%; Maker(MKR) +34%.

The overall market value of the NFT market has dropped by 53% to 3.33 million ETH over the past year.

We talked about the dark side of NFTs on Friday. Today is more like the red slide of NFTs. Yet, let's dig a little deeper!

1. SUSPICIOUS DAO

Looks like AzukiDAO wants the founders of Azuki to use 20,000 of the ETH they raised on NFT sale last week (which is almost $40M) to support the community with more rewards.

But… It's a bit suspicious.

The founder of this DAO is just some from "OG Azuki holders" who have locked their eyes on the founding team. But, it's a bit odd.

A member of the AzukiDAO initiated the voting to sue the core team. They present themselves as "OG Azuki holders," but the community was surprised at seeing these unfamiliar DAO members.

Also, the voting happened via a scammy BEAN token launched just yesterday. So.. That's most definitely not mega reliable.

Chiru Labs (the company behind Azuki) hasn't yet commented on the situation.

1. SUMMARY OF A DISAPPOINTMENT

So, continuing with Azuki, their project is struggling a lot due to an obvious art mistake (that we discussed last Wednesday).

It's actually mind-blowing how something that was supposed to be a positive turn of events turned into something so negative.

Meanwhile, BAYC is over-diluted and their founders (Yuga) are going all in on a video game. It's not a metaverse game, but a video game without bored apes as the main characters!

Apparently, a new type of robot-like characters will be the center of this game. That's the reason why overall interest in apes is falling down. Everyone is just so confused!

A collection known as Captainz, created by Memeland and intended to compete with the top-tier collections in the market, has been revealed.

However… the art appears to be rather simple… and confusing (at first):

Why would two identical images appear in the same collection? Is it a mistake?

Indeed, the team behind this much-discussed NFT collection has introduced a new feature: traits can be swapped an unlimited number of times, leading to constant updates in the images based on the holder's changes.

However, there's a current issue: the traits available are limited, and there's no information about when new ones will be introduced. This uncertainty is causing FUD.

Another project, which was anticipated to climb to the top following Azuki's stumble, encountered its own hurdles.

Initially, the team behind Ether (not Ethereum or ETH related!!!) announced a mint of 10,000 NFTs, they started with selling just a portion to active community members.

BUT, they delayed the public sale by two weeks, setting the price at 0.65 ETH. 

All in all, the price on the secondary market now nearing 0.65 ETH already, dropping from an initial 1 ETH after the community sale. So, the founding team decided to cut the supply of all NFTs in half, but it did not help… This sequence of events has ultimately stirred up the FUD.

While current disappointments may seem disheartening, they actually open up new opportunities for newcomers, including developers, creators, and artists.

So, another bluechip project, Degods, delayed their plans for 2 weeks, to re-align and make sure everything will be smooth for them.

All in all, What's your take?

TL;DR: NFT market prices have dropped, including collections like BAYC and MAYC, while DeFi tokens like COMP and MKR are performing better. AzukiDAO's request for funds and suspicious actions by "OG Azuki holders" raise concerns. Azuki and BAYC face challenges, and a new collection called Captainz has confusing traits. Ether NFTs (not associated to ETH and Ethereum) are close to failure due to delays in the public mint. What all together create opportunities for Degods.

VENTURE MONDAYS

Behold… The biggest investment over the past days:

LA based Web3 video game development studio Mythical Games raised $37M in a Series C funding round led by Scytale Digital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto), ARK Invest, Animoca Brands, Proof (Moonbirds), MoonPay, WestCap, Gaingels, Signum Growth Capital, Struck Capital.

Since it is related to GameFi, and this is not yet a bull-run, the company is focused on business optimization. They plan to achieve it mainly by upgrading the platform, improving infrastructure, and launching new games in development (getting ready for the bull market).

Polygon Fund is placing non-disclosed investments in Delysium, an open-world game under AI management. While the details of the investment's magnitude are not disclosed, this financial backing serves a critical role: firstly, it comes from crucial player like Polygon, secondly, it may be launched in the future on ZK rollups developed by Polygon. And lastly - it the team of the game is really happy since they received such a massive hand in propelling the company closer to its ambition - transforming the way we experience life within the virtual realm. We will see how it works out

It's crucial to keep in mind that from last week's investment market, funds did not solely end up in gaming projects.

Decentralized p2p lending protocol on Ethereum & Polygon PWN raised $2M in a funding round from Starkware, Nethermind, Safe (ex Gnosis Safe), Digital Finance Group (DFG), Jsquare, Dialectic, Next Web Capital, F actor, IQTEC, Ematiq.

These funds will facilitate the company's objective of pioneering the decentralization of mortgage financing for digital assets, and also initiating the community-governed PWN DAO.

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

BITE-SIZED NEWS

• Hong Kong Introduced a Specialized Task Force to Oversee Web3 Development. Hong Kong is determined to become a global Web3 hub.
• CryptoZoo Investors Still Await Promised Refunds from Logan Paul. Patience wears thin as CryptoZoo investors await Logan Paul's refund.
• Binance Destroys 2.65 Billion Terra Classic Tokens in Latest Burn Round. Through its 11 sessions, Binance burned 35.5 billion LUNC tokens.