Bill Murray’s NFT Drop On Coinbase Provides A Blueprint For Future Celebrity Launches

What happened

Last week, in collaboration with the CHIVE online community and its brand subsidiary Project Venkman, actor and comedian Bill Murray launched the first drop of his Bill Murray 1000 NFT collection.

The Bill Murray 1000 collection consists of 1000 NFTs made up of 100 unique stories containing anecdotes, observations, advice, memories, “Murray-isms” and more. These real-life stories range from how Hunter S. Thompson saved Murray’s life to the day Murray met President John F. Kennedy.

The digital artwork depicts a portrait of Bill Murray drawing qualities that are photorealistic yet surreal with matching physical acrylic-on-canvas pieces by artist David Grizzle. The team will auction off the physical artwork and Bill Murray NFT #000 next month. In addition, they will donate the proceeds to several charities chosen by Murray.

The collection activates Bill Murray fans by also offering specific aids such as in-person events with Bill Murray, rare coins minted for the collection, exclusive merchandise and member access to The Shack – a Discord community filled with other NFT holders.

Notably, the collection was the first release for Coinbase’s beleaguered NFT marketplace. The initial sale was for 82 of the 1000 NFTs, fetching 1.5 ETH each (~$4500) and a total of 121.5 ETH (~$180,000). Sale dates for the remaining assets have not yet been announced. Coinbase reported that they had over 500,000 visits to the Bill Murray NFT release page in the first week, and nearly 5,000 people had subscribed to the waiting list. Interestingly, over 60% of the purchases were made from wallets that did not contain any previous NFTs.

Broader context

As discussed earlier, NFT markets have been soft alongside weakness in the broader crypto and equity landscape. The performance of celebrity NFT drops has been similarly uninspired, with many projects failing to capture audiences and catalyze them to participate in sales.

Singer Chris Brown recently launched his Breezyverse NFT Collection, a series of 10,000 3D animated NFTs with sound and visual effects implemented on the Ethereum blockchain. Additionally, the project offered NFT holders exclusive amenities including VIP concert tickets, backstage passes, meet & greets with Brown, music video wardrobes, tour wardrobes and video calls with Brown.

The Breezyverse project launched on June 30th at a public coin price of $420, and despite having 116 million Instagram followers, to date there are only 748 (7.5%) NFTs of the total collection. While the project team had hoped to achieve ~$4 million in primary sales, they have only been able to raise ~$300,000.

WWE wrestler and actor John Cena called his own NFT project a “catastrophic failure”. Launching in August 2021 at a price point of $1,000, the NFT set sold only 37 units of the total supply of 500. The NFT set included digital NFT and physical items such as an autographed canvas, belt, hat, shirt, and bracelet.

Key players

Bill Murray – popular movie star, author and comedian

theCHIVE / Project Venkman – theCHIVE – an online community known for irreverent content and merchandise partnerships with celebrities such as Bill Murray, Chris Farley, Kevin Smith, SuperTroopers and John Daly. Project Venkman is theCHIVE’s technology and branding subsidiary leading the Bill Murray NFT release

Coinbase NFT – Coinbase’s NFT platform that launched in April 2022

Key quote

“Storytelling animates our lives, our businesses, and now it animates our NFTs,” said John Resig, co-founder of Project Venkman, theCHIVE, and Atmosphere. “Working with Bill Murray to put the first ever biography on a blockchain was one of the great honors of my life. But to see this community, especially the younger generation, embrace Bill the way they have has been nothing short of incredible .”

“This first Coinbase NFT release and theChive’s first membership program exceeded all of our expectations. For the web3 industry to move forward, we need to bring new communities on board,” said Gavin Gillas, CEO of Project Venkman.

“The most exciting part of this drop is seeing that over 60% of owners immediately joined the member chat on Discord. Most of the secondary trading remained on Coinbase NFT, showing that adding drops helped drive secondary trading volume and adoption.”

Key statistics

Up until the launch of the first primary drop, Coinbase’s NFT platform had faltered, seeing a trading volume of just $3.4 million from 9,700 total users. Conversely, during the same time period, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea had done $6.2 billion in trading volume among 836,000 users.

Prospects and implications

Despite the mistakes made by many early celebrity NFT projects, the Bill Murray collection, among several other successful drops, suggests what a possible playbook could be for celebrities to exploit Web3.

Prerequisites include a compelling public figure with a broad, engaged and largely digital audience as well as a combination of tangible benefits such as physical objects or experiences (live or virtual). They must also fully commit to building out their Twitter and Discord communities, continuously engaging and growing their communities on Web3 native social platforms.

For example, EDM artist Steve Aoki and rapper Snoop Dogg found early success through their NFT drops. In collaboration with Sandbox, Snoop Dogg sold out all 10,000 units of his NFT avatar collection “The Doggies”. Doggies represent playable avatars in the Sandbox metaverse. Similarly, Steve Aoki’s A0K1VERSE passport collection provides a mix of real and metaverse features and tools. These benefits include pre-sale access to future Aoki NFT drops, metaverse performances and free tickets to Aoki’s shows, and access to exclusive merchandise.

Successfully meeting these criteria can also help assets maintain their value long after the initial drop. The Bill Murray collection has a floor price of 14 ETH ($21,000), a +900% increase from the selling price of 1.5 ETH. Floor prices represent the cost it would take to acquire the cheapest asset for sale in the collection.

Finally, it is likely that the Bill Murray collection benefited from the fall of Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US, which had more than 9 million transactional users as of Q1 2022. The choice of venue likely influenced the wide number of first-time NFT buyers who attended in the release.

This phenomenon, known as the ‘Coinbase bump’, is well known in the crypto industry. It occurs when new tokens rise in the immediate hours after being listed on the exchange. In fact, the SEC just charged a former Coinbase product manager with insider trading, alleging that he and two accomplices front-run tokens that were about to be listed by Coinbase to make profits in excess of $1 million. However, the long-term track record is uneven as most assets eventually settle into a price equilibrium. It remains to be seen what happens here.

Decision points

Users looking to participate in a drop will do well to track activity and engagement on social platforms, as it is the most direct indicator of whether or not a project will succeed. The top two social platforms that NFT projects leverage to grow their communities and facilitate discussion are Twitter and Discord. Trading volumes can also be a good factor to consider, as projects with deeper liquidity suggest healthier trading markets than more illiquid assets.

Finally, it will be important to track how the ‘Coinbase bump’ applies to NFTs. There may be times when it makes sense to buy an asset right at launch, but if you want to hold for the long term, it will be worth waiting for the initial hype around a project to die down before buying.

Editor’s note: Nothing in this report should be considered financial advice.