While bitcoin is nearing its previous monthly lows caused due to China’s new crackdown on crypto mining, the NFT market is slowly bouncing back after OpenSea recorded over $110 million in trading volume on November 14th. It was the biggest day in over a month.
Though it’s still early to say “NFTs are back”, we are seeing positive signs across the market indicating a big uptick in the coming weeks. The top NFT collections, BAYC and MAYC, pretty much recovered to their previous floor prices. Surprisingly, Mutant Ape Yacht Club reached a new all-time high of 7 ETH. We also see tons of land parcels being bought in metaverse-based projects like The Sandbox and Decentraland. As the metaverse craze builds up, we can expect this trend to continue and even amplify to a higher degree.
Now that we understand how the broader market is looking, it is time to dive into our weekly NFT picks. Like every other week, we have five collections that stand out in terms of art, community, and future roadmap. I hope you find something you like and connect with. Let’s get started.
#1 The Wild Ape Gang
Inspired by the BAYC NFT collection, the Wild Ape Gang is bringing you 10,000 unique apes with over 180 hand-drawn traits. If you have been following the NFT market, you know that collections based on Apes and Punks catch fire quickly. People who missed out on the original BAYC or MAYC collection want to own Apes, and the demand for it is not going down. So, if the Wild Ape Gang continues to build their community and add value, we can see this collection sustain long term.
Unlike other ape collections, the Wild Ape Gang has its own bloodlines. Though we can’t say which one is rarer, they all carry a unique personality. Also, this collection doesn’t make any big promises out of the gate and they want the community to decide what the future holds. That shows a great deal of transparency, as so many collections promise utility via token, but in reality, it doesn’t add any value to the holder.
In case you want to buy one of these NFTs, you should know the perks you’ll be getting. The team rewards NFT holders with airdrops and member access only shops with limited-edition drops designed in Europe. The Wild Ape Gang team has four members who are digitally native and have expertise in marketing and blockchain.
Things you need to know
- Twitter– 10,800
- Discord– 26,500
- Instagram– 2,186
- Mint Price- 0.08 ETH + GAS
- Max Mint Allowed- 5
- Date- November 29th, 2021
#2 Kingdom of Dwarves
A cinematic quality NFT collection with 4,000 NFTs is Kingdom of Dwarves. It is soon going to launch on Solana. I picked this project because it has a different story, and the team is highly experienced. The artist of these dwarves previously worked on some of the biggest television projects such as Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Gears of War. Another team member is an Academy award-winning art director who worked with Pixar, Disney, and Sony. Even the developers and marketing leaders of this project are fully engrossed in the NFT space.
Outside of proven expertise by the team members, the actual art and story of this collection also ticks off all the right boxes. They have divided their roadmap into four main chapters. In the first chapter, the team mainly concentrated on building a passionate community through giveaways and raffles on Discord and Twitter. We see organic growth in both areas, so that is a positive sign.
Moving on to the second chapter, the team planned airdrops, merch, and StoryDAO. With the tokens released by the DAO, NFT owners can influence the Kingdom’s lore. Chapter 3 is where it gets interesting. You can change the outfits of your dwarf and battle against others to gain prestige. The team will also develop a new faction by that time.
Things you need to know
#3 Pixlr Genesis
We saw quite a few projects take on AI-generated approaches for creating their art pieces, but very few took it to another level. Pixlr Genesis is taking AI art to a whole new level by creating a one-of-a-kind decentralized art museum. There will be 10,000 pieces of NFT art, but they will not be sold all at once. They are divided into five phases where 2000 NFT art pieces will be sold in each phase. This ensures there is a variety of art displayed in the museum galleries.
The company building this metaverse-based art museum is Pixlr. It is an image editing platform that has over 20 million active users on the web and mobile. So, the company behind this collection already has a massive user base who might be interested in exploring NFT art. Also, they have a passionate community built around the editing application, which adds significant value to anyone holding premium passes for Pixlr Genesis.
The NFT passes not only help holders gain access to a wider art network, but also provide them with premium NFT art drops. The team plans to release new collections every six months to build the best art museum in the metaverse. In addition, every owner can display one of their favorite NFT in a virtual museum. And as Pixlr continues to grow, the NFTs on display will also accrue more value.
The first set of NFTs of Pixlr Genesis will launch on Ethereum, but the team is also planning to explore Solana and Binance Smart Chain.
Things you need to know
#4 Elementa
This is a tricky one. We know to play to earn is dominating the blockchain gaming industry and NFTs play a huge part in it. Elementa is an NFT collection that aims to build a fantasy novel with a P2E game directed by the holder. Having that in mind, I have selected this project. The utility lies in the game. We can talk about liquidity pool being a usable function, but the game will be the primary driver.
Your NFTs or avatars will be used to pick battles and climb the leaderboard. As the entire storyline of the novel after the prologue is directed by NFT holders, it will be a unique experience that we have never seen before in this space. You can read the Novel here.
In terms of uniqueness, the art features 140 hand-drawn traits and 7 bloodlines. Each character carries a different set of armor and weapons, making it more immersive when playing the actual P2E game.
The Elementa team is led by Edwards, the lead developer of this project who has a development agency in the UK with a large client base. The art master of this collection is Jensen who worked on multiple triple-A gaming projects.
Things you need to know
#5 Modern Mobsters
Modern Mobsters is a 10k NFT collection that aims to integrate their NFTs into the Metaverse and create an exclusive club for the holders of these cartoon-based crime syndicates. The collection is mainly going to feature a shooting game in the metaverse. And in the latter stages of the roadmap, we will also expect to see a cartoon series with the Mobster characters.
The art of Modern Mobsters gives the same vibes as any other PFP collection. It has over 200 hand-drawn traits, and from the looks, it seems as if the ones with weapons will have a higher rarity ranking.
The team is putting in its best efforts to build a loyal community. In October, they announced a giveaway of a 2-person trip to Italy to five people who mint a Mobster. Recently, they also gave away a few NFTs for active community members. If implemented well and the game is ready on time, we can see this collection add a lot of value to its holders.
Things you need to know
Wrapping Up
The crypto market is experiencing a slight pullback right now, so we will see blue-chip NFT collections recover. But that doesn’t mean we will have a full-blown bullish NFT season moving forward. It always depends on the correlation. Having said that, you can explore the above-mentioned projects and get in at a good discounted price. Before you ape in, make sure to talk to different community members and see if everyone is on the same page. It will give you clarity on where the project is headed.
That’s it for today. I hope you found something you like. I will be back next week with more NFT collections. Till then, stay safe and don’t FOMO into any projects without doing proper research.
Born and brought up in India, Karthikeya Gutta is a crypto journalist and freelance contributor for ItsBlockchain. He covers various aspects of the industry with in-depth analysis and research. His passion towards blockchain and crypto ecosystem is mainly because he believes it can really change the world and help millions of people.
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