Moonbird #2642, one of the rarest members of the Moonbirds NFT collection, sold for a record 350 ETH (over $1 million) on the OpenSea NFT marketplace on Saturday.
The buyer for the piece is The Sandbox (SAND), a blockchain-based gaming firm that is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands. The seller is called “oscuranft” on OpenSea. He recorded a profit of around $600,000 when he bought NFT a week ago for 100 ETH.
Owl avatars
Moonbirds is an NFT collection of 10,000 owl avatars. It is one of the fastest growing collections and has achieved blue chip status in terms of price floor. Moonbirds was launched on April 16 by Proof, a media startup founded by prominent venture capitalist Kevin Rose .
Rose is currently a partner in technology venture capital firm True Ventures. He was previously a general partner of Google Ventures and has over 1.5 million Twitter followers.
Rose hosts an NFT-focused podcast through Proof. Moonbirds is his second major NFT project after Proof Collective, a private group of 1,000 NFT collectors and artists, including Beeple, who own the Proof Collective NFT and receive certain exclusive benefits.
These benefits include access to Proof’s private Discord, early access to Proof’s podcast, and his private events.
According to the Moonbirds website, NFTs are the “official Proof PFP” (proof picture or profile picture) of the Proof Collective.
According to Dune Analytics, Moonbirds’ NFT total sales totaled nearly $360 million in just over a week. His top 10 sales range from $397,000 to $1 million.
According to OpenSea, the current minimum price of Moonbirds is 33.3 ETH. Proof minted each NFT at 2.5 ETH each. This means that the original holders profit more than 12 times in just one week.
What led the Moonbirds to rapid success?
According to Thomas Bialek , an NFT analyst at The Block Research, Moonbirds’ rapid success was due to several factors: Rose’s support; the success of his previous Proof Collective project; and collectors who currently select NFT projects with a successful track record.
Owners of the Proof Collective’s NFT collection also make big profits. These NFTs were minted last December at a price of 5 ETH in a Dutch auction. According to OpenSea, the current minimum price of these NFTs is 109 ETH.
According to Dune Analytics, Proof Collective NFT’s total sales have exceeded $39 million to date.
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As for the Moonbirds, Rose seems to have big plans. Moonbirds is launching a new feature called “nesting” through which holders can stake their NFTs in non-custodial staking and receive additional benefits.
Rose explained in a recent video that depending on how long holders lock up their NFTs, they will receive different levels of status.
“Because you reach different levels of nest status, this allows us to provide you with different benefits as Moonbird owners,” he said. This will mean meetings and events in real life, and we have some crazy airdrops planned.”
Rose went on to say that this is “the very beginning” of Proof and that he is planning a “multi-decade journey to build a new media company”.
