How did Moonbirds NFT take the world by storm in a bear market?

The extreme success of the Moonbirds is the NFT story of the year so far. The collection opened so strongly that it instantly received blue chip status and a place at the top of the charts.

And this despite the fact that the NFT market is currently in decline. How could the pixelated owls pull off such a feat? It certainly wasn’t just the looks – although the Moonbirds do have a distinctive look and probably make for great AKA PFP profile pics.

Let’s look at the story. It has it all: an aspiring but mighty organization, crazy numbers, internet legends, an ambitious track record – and of course metaverse plans.

The Moonbirds: formal characteristics

There are a total of 10,000 Moonbirds issued under the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. The mint price for each coin was 2.5 ETH.

This means that the Proof Collective has raised over $70 million that first day (at current prices). According to CryptoSlam, the Moonbirds have generated $481 million in sales to date.

This equates to 160K ETH from nearly 12,000 buyers. And for every sale on the secondary market The proof received a 5% stake.

According to the official Moonbirds website, the organization distributed the original 10,000 owls as follows:

• 7,875: Public sale to whitelist winners
• 2,000: members of the PROOF collective (1,000 passes) each receive two free mints
• 125: PROOF portfolio for future collaborations, marketing and consultants

All interested parties, including members of the Proof collective, were able to participate in a draw to be whitelisted for this public sale.

The Moonbird NFT collection promised the usual: private group and Discord server membership, plus undisclosed future perks. A staking mechanism, cleverly called “nesting”, and an upcoming metaverse named “Project Highrise”.

According to the Moonbird website, their “unique interpretation of the metaverse” to be a “spectacular departure from existing “infinite” worlds that feels like a digital ghost town. Ours is unique and as the owner of Moonbird you will have first access.

It should also be noted that “Owners of Moonbirds have full commercial art rights to the Moonbird they own”.

What is nesting and what can it do for you?

Staking is a “staple” of DeFi. It freezes assets and removes them from the market, benefiting all other holders and the project in general.

In Moonbirds, this process is called “nesting” and “the longer you nest your Moonbird, the more rewards you accumulate.” What rewards exactly? It’s not clear yet. And the nesting process is not yet available.

However, some features are already listed on the Moonbirds site. Nesting will be “not mandatory (it does not need to be carried over to another contract) and holder counts displayed on OpenSea etc. will not be affected”.

This information is very important for NFT projects. Holders cannot sell their NFTs while in the nest, but they can transfer them.

“The intention is to allow holders to move their moonbirds between their own accounts, for example if they compromise their wallet with a fraudulent signature.”

There is also this vague promise:

“Once your Moonbird is onboarded, it will begin to accrue additional benefits. As nesting time increases, you will see your Moonbird level up and improve its nest.

So it remains exciting to see how the Moonbirds NFT project will develop.

Text credit: Newsbtc

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