Elon Musk’s NFT rocket launch. What has he done with Milady?

Photo: Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images.

A bright light illuminated the scene of non-fungible tokens this week, but was it a near-death experience for NFTs or a beacon of hope?

Like a moth to a flame, I am drawn in to investigate.

Maybe it’s liquidity fresh in traders’ hands from Blur’s new Blend lending protocol, or maybe the sweet $PEPE and $TURBO gains are finally trickling back into NFTs, but NFTs just had their best single day of selling since mid of March.

It is actually quite easy to see what has happened. The weather in NFTs has been perfect, with good news from established projects, hot tech, some cash in traders’ pockets from trading meme coins, and a well-timed tweet from none other than the current (and soon-to-be) former) CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk.

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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 10 May 2023

No one knew Musk was preparing for a rocket launch this week, but that’s exactly what happened when he tweeted a meme from Milady Maker’s NFT community that has now been viewed over 32 million times. Sales of Milady NFTs exploded, taking the rest of the market with it to a high of $217 million in sales volume this week.

Binance integrated Bitcoin NFTs into their marketplace, giving Ordinals a new way to reach the masses without having to be a technical wizard to trade them. NFTs on the OG blockchain were red hot, with a new flavor of Ordinal called BRC-20s taking off. BRC-20s are Bitcoin’s version of Ethereum’s meme coins, but at their core they are also like an NFT collection. We will provide a technical overview of these new Bitcoin Ordinals in a future edition of On Deck.

The Bitcoin ecosystem seems to be in “just up” mode right now, and when it will end, no one knows. Rib bite.

The Pudgy Penguins project had two announcements this week that added to their feel-good story. First, they announced a new partnership with WME talent agency that brings them closer to movies, games and other mainstream entertainment. Then the adorable crew followed it up with an announcement that they had raised $9 million in seed funding. Not bad for a project that was going down the drain before it was bought by marketing mastermind Luca Schnetzler (Gel Blaster, Vibe Body Care, Cookies n Kicks).

The Pudgy Penguins’ NFT sale probably didn’t have a big impact on the market, but the positive news coming in the middle of a bear market was a welcome bright spot that just momentarily reminded us all that there is real growth going on here.

This is where things get interesting, and if you’re a regular reader of On Deck, you already know this recurring theme. The Discard 500 NFT index reflecting that the NFT market lost over 8% this week.

Yes, high gas taxes are largely to blame, but we cannot minimize the effect of the NFT casino continuing to play. Traders are still trading as we have come to expect, since out with the old and in with the new has become the creed of the day. Established projects have continued to lose value and volume as traders favor the latest drops and hottest trends.