Original title: "Why did Curry spend 1.16 million on an NFT avatar? On the Popularity of NFT Avatars", by Chenglin Pua
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Stephen Curry's home page Source: Twitter
This is the first time Curry has changed his avatar after the death of the legendary NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. Zhang took a group photo. The move to change the avatar has aroused widespread concern.
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The originator of NFT avatars, CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks is an early avatar NFT project built on Ethereum. The project was created in 2017 by mobile game development company Larva Lab. CryptoPunks issued a total of 10,000 NFT avatars, each representing a different "punk style" pixel avatar.
The total number of NFT avatars for CryptoPunks is fixed, and no new NFT avatars will be generated. In the early days of creation, users with an Ethereum wallet could claim a CryptoPunks avatar for free. Today, users can only buy CryptoPunks' NFT avatars on secondary trading venues such as the LarvaLabs website and Opensea.
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CryptoPunksOfficial Site
On the CryptoPunks website, each avatar has their attribute characteristics and ownership and sale status displayed. Since the CryptoPunks pixel avatar is the earliest NFT avatar, coupled with the encryption and scarcity brought by blockchain technology, it is as collectible as a work of art.
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CryptoPunk No. 7610 purchased by Visa
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CryptoPunks transaction record leaderboard (in consideration of transaction amount), source: CryptoPunks official website
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The sudden emergence of The Bored Ape Yacht Club
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The Bored Ape Yacht Club official website
The initial release didn't receive much attention until May 1st, when renowned collector Pranksy took notice of the project and announced that he had purchased more than 250 apes. From the moment he tweeted, BAYC's sales, users, and transactions began to surge. After only 117 minutes, BAYC sold out. According to the BAYC team, they never had a personal communication with Pranksy.
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Various BAYC NFT avatars with different shapes
Buying a BAYC NFT avatar is not just buying a digital artwork, the buyer can also obtain the qualification to enter the BAYC club. The BAYC NFT owned by the buyer is a digital identity, which can enjoy the benefits and products unique to the club. According to a BAYC user comment: BAYC club is like a college club, everyone will connect with each other, everyone will set the avatar of the social network as an ape, and will pay attention to each other, blowing up the "Ape follow Ape" trend trend.
Many celebrities have also started buying apes, which has brought even more attention to the project. For example, NBA player LaMelo ball, NBA chairman Daryl Morey, well-known DJ duo Bassjackers, well-known DJ 3lau and many Chinese stars including Chen Bolin, Vanness Wu and Shawn Yue. They have used BAYC's avatar as their social media avatar. These celebrities have greatly stimulated the public's interest in BAYC.
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KSI announced the purchased BAYC NFT on Twitter
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Ape 9361 worth 500 ether
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The Hundreds and BAYC joint hat
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Source: OpenSea
Pudgy Penguins, the cute NFT avatar
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PudgyPenguins official website
Pudgy Penguins NFT avatars have issued a total of 8,888 NFTs of cartoon fat penguin avatars in different shapes. The Pudgy Penguins NFT avatar is loved by many Twitter users due to its cute appearance. Among them, Reddit co-founder Lexis Ohanian tweeted his Pudgy Penguins, and the New York Times even made a special report on the incident .
All 8,888 NFTs of Pudgy Penguins NFT avatars were sold out in less than a week. A single-day transaction volume record was set on August 14. A total of 15,667 ethers were used to purchase Pudgy Penguins NFT avatars, surpassing the 15,453 ethers of the founder CryptoPunks. Among them, the transaction price of the Pudgy Penguins NFT avatar numbered 5687 is 100 ETH, which is equivalent to 350,000 US dollars (2.26 million RMB) at the current price of ETH.
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Animetas, an NFT avatar featuring anime
Animetas is also an NFT project based on Ethereum. It uses animation as the theme and configures virtual identities for each human being and other species. With these virtual identities, users can live, work and play in the virtual world Animetaverse.
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Animeta official website
There are two reasons for the attention of the Animetas project: The time of the NFT release happened to be the night when Ethereum London was upgraded. After the upgrade of Ethereum at that time, the launch of the project caused the gas fee of Ethereum (the cost of completing operations on the Ethereum blockchain) to soar, exceeding 1250GWei at one point, causing serious network congestion in Ethereum.
Its founder revealed in an interview that the name Animetas is a combination of the Japanese cartoon style Anime and meta. Animetas has issued a total of 10,101 NFT avatars, and the initial issue price of each NFT is 0.08ETH. The avatar style includes retro style and future style, reflecting the creator's nostalgia for the past pop culture and imagination for the future world. Animetas NFT avatars are mainly divided into different groups, including humans, zombies, superheroes, and aliens.
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social status symbol
Eugene Wei, who worked as a product leader at well-known companies such as Amazon, Hulu, Flipboard, and Oculus, is now one of the best scientific paper authors on the Internet. He previously published the article "Status-as-a-Service" in February 2019. In this article, he makes two fundamental points:
Humans are status-seeking monkeys
Human beings seek the most efficient way to maximize social capital
BAYC issued a total of 10,000 ape head NFTs. BAYC's official website states, "This is a limited edition NFT collectible, where when you become a member of the Monkey Club, the value of your tokens will double."
Unlike CryptoPunks, BAYC is a brand new project released on April 30. Today, however, it's the third most popular NFT avatar collection, perhaps thanks to its combination of social capital and his usability. Kyle Chayka of The New Yorker magazine wrote a piece called "Why Bored Ape Avatars Are Taking Over Twitter". In the article, he expressed that BAYC has become a status symbol, like wearing a cool watch or wearing a pair of limited edition sneakers.
The rarity, social circle, and the purchase of various celebrities have brought blessings to BAYC, making it gradually collectible and further pushing up the selling price. It's like the rich people buying sports cars, famous watches and other actions.
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decent rate of return
The skyrocketing price of NFTs has also led some to view them as investment products. For example, the initial issue price of BAYC's NFT avatar was 0.08 ETH, but now the floor price has reached about 25 ETH, and the return on investment is 312 times! Anyone is afraid of missing this opportunity to get rich. This attribute gradually endows the NFT avatar with the attribute of investment, and the purchase price will gradually increase. Others such as Animetas NFT avatars were issued at 0.08 ETH, and the current floor price is 0.62 ETH, with a return on investment of 7.75 times.
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Many people resell NFT for the second time, source: nonfungible.com
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Regulation in the NFT field
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Source: Forbes Magazine
At present, the legislatures of major economies in the world have not yet answered some essential questions about NFT, such as the need to clarify whether NFT is a virtual currency, a certificate of virtual currency, or a virtual asset. Some countries recognize virtual currencies, and some crack down on virtual currencies, but there is no regulation on the NFT field.
In China, more and more companies are also launching NFTs. In June of this year, Alipay and Dunhuang Academy of Fine Arts jointly launched the payment code skin NFT based on two AntChains, and Tencent also launched the NFT trading platform in August and launched the first digital art collection. In addition, leading companies such as Netease, Visual China, and ByteDance have all made moves in the NFT field.
However, the practice of NFT in China is different from that in overseas markets. Due to China's strict regulatory measures on virtual currencies, Chinese companies are more concerned with copyright protection, emphasizing the exploration of currency-free NFT. The NFT digital products launched by Tencent and Alipay all use the alliance link line, mainly based on popular IPs such as audio and painting. Users only have the right to collect and display the purchased NFT products, and cannot conduct second-hand transactions or give them as gifts.
At present, China has no clear legal constraints and regulatory requirements for NFT. However, industry insiders believe that the government's regulation of NFT may refer to the current regulation of digital currency. At present, China's regulatory policies and attitudes towards digital currencies are more cautious than other countries.
The regulation of NFT will appear sooner or later, it is only a matter of time difference. Regulation can never catch up with the speed of technological development, and NFT appeared later than cryptocurrencies. Over time, the corresponding regulation will gradually catch up.
