Powering Through the TS Playoffs 🔌

Good Morning, NFT Crew! Hope you all had an excellent weekend, and a Happy Easter and Passover to those who were celebrating!

Let’s get into all the action from the last few days:

It was a relatively quiet weekend on Top Shot, with Moonbirds capturing the attention of basically everyone in the NFT space (more on that later).

Top Shot aside, we had some AWESOME game ones to kick off the NBA Playoffs — and you just can’t beat the intensity of postseason basketball. It feels like every possession matters — and momentum can swing at any second.

My three favorite series so far (with some highlights we’ll likely see as moments down the road):

Brooklyn vs. Boston — the Celtics realllllly should have tanked a couple more games to avoid that two seed! This feels like an ECF matchup, and whichever team gets out is going to be left bruised and battered heading into the rest of the playoffs. Kyrie Irving is amazing, and what a finish from Jayson Tatum for the rare layup buzzer beater!

This will make for a mighty fine playoff moment:

Minnesota vs. Memphis: You gotta root for a Cinderella, and it feels like the Wolves are a fun, hungry young team that could pull an upset. Anthony Edwards vs. Ja Morant is also must see TV, and Patrick Beverley is the wrestling heel that every good series needs.

Bulls vs. Bucks: You didn’t think I’d leave out my squad, did you? I’ll admit, I expected us to get blown to pieces, so feeling like we were right there (and probably should have won the game) definitely hurts even more. The Doucet Bros. also have the DeMar DeRozan playoff yips firmly stuck in my mind after an awful Game 1. I still think it’ll be a sweep or Bucks in 5, but the Bulls showed more fight than anyone anticipated.

Let’s take a look at the Top Shot market… (*covers eyes*)

Me continuing to subject my eyes to the market:

In Monday’s TFM Pod, LG brought up some really thought-provoking musings on the state of the sports collectible NFT world — with most of the projects similar to Top Shot also struggling to find a healthy balance between supply, demand and user growth:

Highly recommend giving it a listen to hear some recommendations on how sports platforms can innovate in a Web3 manner.

In terms of supply, we’re staring down plenty more moments coming as the playoffs chug along. Speaking of chugging, old friend @chugsnbugs had an idea for a Dapper playoff W:

One of the more hotly anticipated drops of the year happened on Saturday, with Moonbirds grabbing the attention of the entire NFT scene.

The PFP project from Proof Collective and founder Kevin Rose sold the majority of the supply via raffle, at a controversial 2.5 ETH price. However, in just a few days, the project’s floor has surged as high as 24 ETH (around $75,000 USD), and has already done over 70k ETH in secondary sales (already in the Top 15 projects by volume ALL-TIME).

A good thread on the entire story of PROOF/Moonbirds:

While these numbers are staggering, the project is particularly interesting for a few reasons:

While many were quick to jump on the narratives about unsustainable pumps or VC-led negativity, the NFT space has been trending towards this for a while. People want to invest in projects with founders they can trust — and we haven’t seen anything close to the stature and respectability that Rose and co. hold in the space.

It’ll be interesting to see where things go, but we might’ve witnessed the birth of the next major top-tier NFT project this weekend — and a new bar set for incoming founders in the space.

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🎧 Will Sports NFTs Survive?

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🐦 This Week in NFTs | NFL | NBA | Flunks | Alpha

🎧 The DC Comics Multiverse Comes to NFTs

Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint

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