Goblins, Nihilism and Poop: Here’s what’s going on with Ethereum NFTs

The NFT market has gone from “we must all do it“to” we are all going to die. “

Ever since NFT collectors went crazy Goblintown– profile picture avatars of urinary golem creatures – the market mood has changed. In recent weeks has NFT space has become dystopian and depressed, with creators doubling down on dark memes and toilet humor in an apparent attempt to tackle the bear market.

A burden of collections focused on elves, fecal matter, death and loneliness has flourished at OpenSea’s top collection rankings, accounting for 45% of the 20 most sold collections in the last week. Some traders are listening to Kanye West’s Pablo album on repeat in Twitter Spaces to cope with the market downturn. And yes, it’s now NFTs – unique blockchain tokens that mean ownership – who holders is dedicated to this.

“Right now I think the bear market is making everyone a little dull, and if you do something different you can catch the market attention,” he said. Bored Ape Yacht Club holder Professor M on Twitter, who says she teaches marketing and studies consumer culture.

The rise of Goblintown

But NFT the market was not always like that.

Last year, when NFT traded further Ethereum flourished to more than $ 20 billion in sales, projects such as CryptoPunks and Bored Apes – and later Doodles, Cool Cats and Azuki – dominated both charts and headlines.

Now that the WAGMI honeymoon is over, it seems that traders have realized that no, not everyone “will make it.” And now it’s down to Goblin Town.

Goblintown Ethereum NFTs has topped the OpenSea rankings and has seen over 32,000 ETH ($ 57.6 million) in total volume traded in just two and a half weeks after its initial launch as a free coin, meaning it costs nothing (other than transactions) fees on Ethereum) to purchase these NFTs upon launch. “Goblin TownIs a term used to describe a bear market, and it has become an increasingly popular meme among crypto traders over the past year.

NFT trader ConciergePhysician told Decrypt in an interview that he works as a doctor a day and has a portfolio of over 1000 NFTs worth seven figures, including Boring monkeysMutant Monkeys and CloneX NFTs. He said that in his view, Goblintown started the current meta with deliberately ugly NFTs.

“The art is awful,” the ConciergePhysician said of Goblintown. “People are just trying to be degenerate so that they can actually turn around and make a lot of money.”

The word “dough” – an abbreviation for degenerate – has become a common term (often self-imposed) for a crypto trader who is chronically online and spends several hours every day tracking and trading these assets, often at the expense of other things in their lives.

ConciergePhysician said he spends three to five hours a day researching the NFT market, either early in the morning or late at night. He believes that when “blue chip” NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club saw one recent decline in price due to the wider crypto bear market, traders were upset but were still determined to find a way to make money.

“There is always money to be made, even in a bear market,” he said, but added that for him ugly art is not worth the risk.

For other “degenerates”, Goblintown is a rallying cry for hungry traders who want to meme and make money while doing so.

“Goblintown has created the 10s [sic] of derivatives, but the art style and colors are fresh – a bit “ugly” in most aesthetic bluechips I think has aroused interest … like all bluechip – a green chip, “said the Goblintown owner dgen.eth Decrypt via Twitter DM.

Dgen.eth currently owns 12 Goblintown NFTs, including 1 of 1 Goblintown Wizard NFTs.

“The fact that the guys from the project all use voice synth to make them sound like goblins on their twitter posts only contributes to the mystery. Everything is so well done […] the imagery, the sound, the interface and the contract – it just screams rich and believable Web3 supporters, he speculated.

Bash and death are on trend

After Goblintown, the We Are All Going to Die (WAGDIE) NFTs have taken the second top spot in OpenSea’s weekly rankings. Another free coin collection, WAGDIE’s OpenSea description reads “There is no map, only death,” a reference to the lack of the kind of roadmap for future development that NFT collections or other projects usually give their investors.

WAGDIE generated more than 9,000 ETH ($ 16.2 million) in sales volume in just one week.

The WAGDIE collection attracted attention on Twitter on Monday when it shared that it had purchased a Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT for 21 ETH ($ 37,800) with plans to burn the asset, a process that permanently removes NFT from circulation.

The burnt MAYC has now become part of WAGDIES history.

“The creature screamed in pain as over 1,500 devotees watched with joy as they sang to each other … Burn the Ape,” Fandom page reader.

Apparently, burning NFTs for public viewing is appealing to many degenerates. In a Twitter room late Tuesday night for Goblintown and Cereal Club NFT holders, a Goblin holder expressed his opinion on burning NFTs.

“Burn everything to the damn ground!” they shouted.

But Goblintown and WAGDIE are not the only nihilistic NFT collections to see volume. Other top collections of free coins that were traded last week include ShitBeast, ill poop it nft, mcgoblin.wtf, Goblin Grlz, Leave Me Alone NFT, troll-town.wtf, Begin as Nothing and ShitPlunger, to name a few.

Many of these collections also boast that they have no Discord server and no website, elements that are usually expected to be launched along with any NFT collection.

“I would not be surprised if many, four or five […] run by the same people, “said ConciergePhysician about the attack on feces and NFT-themed projects.

When it comes to themes and emotions in these societies, their names say it all – nihilism and bodily excretions are in trend.

“Your NFT is just a shitty 10,000 pile of shit on your ‘blue chip’ NFT or whatever jpg you are doing, you are ngmi,”sick poep it nftThe description of the collection reads, whose assets currently have a floor price of over 1.1 ETH ($ 1,980) for a single “poop” JPEG.

“There are a lot of copy and paste projects,” said ConciergePhysician about poop and NFT-themed NFT trends.

“90 or 95% will fail […] let’s wait two, three or five years and see where they stand. “

Light at the end of the tunnel

Although some NFT fans may be looking for “copium” through stern-themed NFTs, the outlook is not bleak. ONE report earlier this week from the cryptanalysis site DappRadar suggests that the NFT market is more resilient than the broader crypto market and can be disconnected as the NFT area matures.

And while OpenSea’s monthly volume dropped from around $ 3.5 billion in April to $ 2.6 billion in May, according to data from Dune Analytics, these figures are still comparable to what OpenSea generated back in November 2021, when bullish sentiment dominated the area.

NFT enthusiast and comedian Kmoney has gained the upper hand 100,000 followers on Twitter last month from his sketch videos mocking the state of NFTs, which often include cult-like mantras such as “We Build” and “WAGMI” repeated ironically for comic effect.

“I think the place became obsolete when the market broke out, so again they’re just having fun,” he said Decrypt.

To begin with, Kmoney was not a fan of this new wave of deliberately ugly, disgusting and depressing NFTs.

“[But] then I accepted it and have never felt so much fun and joy. “

So far, NFTs have gone to the elves.

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