Author: Revc, Golden Finance

Bull market liquidity begins to nourish the dry river bed of the NFT sector

Recently, TheBlock co-founder Mike Dudas posted on social media to disclose that OpenSea has registered a foundation in the Cayman Islands, Azuki Waleswoosh, an anonymous researcher on the NFT series, also posted a screenshot of OpenSea’s registration in the Cayman Islands. Normally, Web3 project registration foundations are preparing for the issuance of tokens. This move has triggered speculation about the upcoming launch of tokens and user airdrops. However, OpenSea still faces regulatory enforcement by the SEC, making its currency issuance prospects full of uncertainty. In addition, OpenSea previously adopted a traditional financing model, which also limited its currency issuance process to a certain extent. However, facing the incentive competition from platforms such as Blur and Rarible, it is difficult to gather liquidity without a points system. It is expected that OpenSea will launch a relatively compromise solution to benefit users.

The listing of Magic Eden has injected certain confidence into the NFT market. However, the current NFT trading market has moved away from the core narrative of the encryption industry. Although its token price once hit a high of $10, it has now fallen back to $3.68. The encryption industry has recently seen a large number of “zombie projects” rush to the market, and the negative impact on the industry is still borne by users.

According to SosoValue data, affected by Upbit’s listing of MOCA, the price of MOCA surged by 380%, which led to a recovery in short-term sentiment in the NFT market. The current logic chain of the triple jump of tokens has been further strengthened, which deserves the attention of investors. Most MEME and Token market value growth follows the following path:

Solana&Base on-chain fermentation— —Binance&Bitget is listed——Coinbase&Upbit is listed

NFT has always been regarded as the cornerstone of the creator economy and the SocialFi track. At its peak, OpenSea’s transaction volume accounted for 90% of the entire sector. Today, it only has an average market share of less than 20%. OpenSea relies on its unique culture and products Positioning, different from the transaction-oriented Blur platform, excellent usersExperience and UI design attract creators and artist groups, and are even their first stop into Web3. If the NFT market recovers along with the encryption industry, OpenSea is expected to re-establish its core strategic position.

OpenSea was founded in 2017 by Stanford graduates Finzer and Atallah. It was originally a Wi-Fi -Fi shares entrepreneurial projects. After being exposed to the NFT concept, they quickly turned to the NFT market and received their first round of financing in 2018. With the explosion of the NFT market in 2021, especially the popularity of artworks such as Beeple, OpenSea has quickly become the industry leader, occupying more than 90% of the market share. The platform’s valuation was once as high as US$13.3 billion.

However, OpenSea's success did not last. Internal problems within the platform occur frequently, including insider trading scandals and platform collapses. At the same time, external competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and the rise of emerging trading platforms such as Blur has diverted a large number of users. With the decline in overall trading volume in the NFT market and the bear market in the cryptocurrency market, OpenSea's revenue and valuation have also shrunk significantly.

In order to cope with the challenges, OpenSea has launched a series of measures, such as layoffs and the launch of version 2.0. But the market's confidence in OpenSea is no longer what it used to be. In addition to market and internal challenges, OpenSea also faces close scrutiny from regulatory agencies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an investigation into OpenSea and requested a large number of documents. The SEC’s investigation focuses on whether OpenSea sells NFTs as securities. If deemed a security, OpenSea could face serious legal consequences. In addition, many tax agencies around the world have also investigated OpenSea’s tax issues. OpenSea’s legal team is actively addressing these challenges, but regulatory risks remain the Sword of Damocles hanging over the company’s head.

Previously, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer announced that the NFT market is planning to make a comeback. Although Finzer revealed limited details, he promised that the new version of OpenSea will be launched in December.

In addition to regular useIn addition to the upgrade of the user interface, the new version of OpenSea pays more attention to the optimization of the trading interface to cater to the habits of professional NFT investors and attract a large amount of liquidity into the market.

Judging from the points mechanism in the preview, the OpenSea V2 version is designed to encourage users to collect Provide NFT liquidity with trading. In addition, the platform has designed a points bonus for liquidity guidance of specific projects. But for now, the mechanism is relatively routine.

Blur increases platform participation through multi-stage airdrops (called "Seasons" seasons) and introduces differentiated token distribution rules. It is expected that OpenSea will refer to Blur’s mechanism and combine it with current market trends and incentive goals.

Season 1 Airdrop

First wave: Targeted within 6 months before Blur launch Traders active in any Ethereum NFT market. Users need to list at least 1 NFT on the Blur platform within 14 days after the announcement to qualify for air investment.

Wave 2: Reward users who actively list NFTs on Blur. Listing points are based on likelihood of sale and collection activity, and listings with full royalties receive double points. In addition, users receive additional incentives through trading activities (5% reward for completing 3 sweeps, 50% reward for 6 sweeps).

The third wave: mainly rewards users who bid on NFT on Blur, aiming to increase platform liquidity and participation.

Season 2 Airdrop

Blur introduces a loyalty scoring system to encourage users to use Blur exclusively Make a transaction. The user's loyalty and the amount of NFT listed determine the reward distribution. A total of 300 million $BLUR tokens were distributed in the airdrop, worth approximately $146 million.

Season 3 Airdrop

Supported by Layer2 Network Blast, users can list and bid and accumulate points through lending and borrowing NFT activities. In addition, users who hold $BLUR can also receive point rewards.

Referring to Blur's airdrop experience, users can prepare from the following aspects to obtain potential OpenSea token airdrops:

If the floor price is stable and the trading volume is active Provide liquidity for NFT projects and pay attention to the return expectations of potential currency issuance projects.

List NFT, even if the price is set much higher than the market, try to reduce the length of the NFT. The situation of time stuck in wallet

Focus on NFT projects that interact frequently with OpenSea, especially projects with higher royalties, because OpenSea intends to attract more creators.

Actively participate in the use scenarios of OpenSea points or tokens to promote token circulation and ecological applications.

As the floor price of NFT rises, the transaction threshold is also constantly increasing. Coin issuance has become an effective tool to expand the community audience and increase market liquidity. By combining NFT with tokens, the project team uses the token incentive mechanism to form The ecological closed loop attracts user participation and improves liquidity. Data shows that the project’s token market value and transaction volume are usually higher than the NFT itself, reflecting the high demand and liquidity advantages of the token in the market.

Note: Due to the complexity of the NFT ecosystem and IP rights, the rights of NFT and tokens do not completely match. The above data are for reference only, and participation in such projects requires a full assessment of potential risks.

The current activity of the NFT market is recovering, and the recent transaction volume has exceeded 200 million US dollars. However, there is still a lot of room before the peak of the previous cycle's transaction volume. If blue-chip NFT projects are regarded as unexplored at this moment Alpha assets, the new version of OpenSea and the points incentive plan are expected to inject new capital flows and user vitality into the NFT market.