On the 16th April 2022, the NFT project Moonbirds was launched. An NFT project created by a group called “Proof Collective”, consisting of Web2 Silicon Valley venture capitalists. These venture capitalists showed a glimpse of the force that is institutional money, running up the relatively unknown Moonbirds NFT drop to a historical 110K ETH in traded volume in just a few days, something no other NFT drop has even come close to. That’s around $315 million USD in traded volume in a matter of days!
But why? Why would the first mark of institutional money making its way into the NFT space happen at this time. It does seem as if these VC’s sideline liquidity from investing and winning big with Web2 internet giants has entered the NFT space deliberately at this time. Here’s why:
There are only 2 NFT projects that have made it into mainstream and global success.
1. CryptoPunks, which next to no one had a chance to mint back on June 9, 2017.
2. The Bored Ape Yacht Club, which was minted on April 23, 2021, which only passionate NFT enthusiasts picked up on.
Naturally, if institutional money is going to enter the NFT space, they’re going to pick the blue-chip projects to invest in, ideally at mint price. Since these two projects were the first of their kind to see astronomical growth and mainstream coverage, there really haven’t been any opportunities since.
However, by now it’s clear the Bored Ape Yacht Club is on a tear and nothing is getting in its way. With the ongoing success of everything they touch turning to gold, people continue to pile in. ApeCoin continues to rise in value (up 61% in the past month) despite the team at Yuga Labs giving millions of dollars in APE tokens away, a showcase of community force if ever there was one.
It’s no secret that this weekend, the Otherside metaverse mint date arrives. With little known aside from the inclusion of other elite and prestigious NFT projects, the metaverse run on ApeCoin is rumored to have 55,000 available pieces of land.
With a shortage of only 15,000 KYC users having signed up for the mint – since most crypto users despise KYC identity and background checks – it seems the VCs of Silicon Valley have seen their opportunity to enter the NFT space in a powerful way. The predictable success of the Otherside along with the timing of their own record-breaking NFT drop marks either a clear indicator of testing the waters or is otherwise the biggest coincidence of the year.