On January 4, 2023, The Captainz NFT assortment started its 48-hour mint interval. Priced at 1.069 ETH per mint, the gathering of 9,999 pirate-themed NFTs has seen 6,790 ETH (greater than $9 million) in buying and selling quantity within the first 5 days of its existence. With a flooring value at present sitting at a wholesome 5.34 ETH, The Captainz is monitoring on OpenSea’s High 10 collections listing by each 24-hour and 7-day buying and selling quantity.
However The Captainz’ success didn’t come out of nowhere. The gathering is simply the most recent iteration of one of many NFT house’s most profitable and irreverent communities: Memeland. Right here’s what makes the Web3 model such successful, and why it’s best to count on even greater issues from the neighborhood in 2023.
What’s Memeland?
Memeland is a Web3 enterprise studio created by Web2 mainstay 9GAG, the Hong Kong-based meme-centric leisure web site that launched in 2008. Having constructed up a following of greater than 200 million throughout its varied social media platforms since then, 9GAG was well-positioned to bridge into the Web3 house when it introduced Memeland in April 2022.
9GAG CEO Ray Chan and workforce began Memeland because the social platform’s Web3 enterprise wing, which has the self-stated purpose of underpromising and overdelivering, in line with the studio’s official web site.
“The core mission for Memeland is to create a creator financial system on Web3,” defined Chan in a September 2022 podcast episode with The Nifty. “We [are trying] to construct social media on Web3, however within the sense that, hey, can the creators have possession of what they create?”
Memeland’s method to Web3 is straightforward: watch the market, observe tendencies which have change into acquainted to NFT communities, and “micro innovate” on prime of these to supply their neighborhood added worth. The technique appears to be working. In fact, it doesn’t damage that Memeland’s advisors and traders embody Animoca Model’s analysis arm Animoca Digital Analysis, Moonbirds’ Kevin Rose, and VeeFriends’ Gary Vee.
Thus far, Memeland has launched three NFT collections, every serving as a degree of entry into the Memeland financial system, which is prone to embody a metaverse sooner or later within the enterprise studio’s future.
YOU THE REAL MVP
Memeland’s inaugural NFT drop got here in June 2022 with YOU THE REAL MVP, a premium alpha-group membership go of 420 golden trophy JPEGs that grant holders entry to and details about upcoming Memeland drops, non-public entry to the Memeland Discord MVP Lounge, IRL occasions, and collaborations. The gathering represents the highest tier of the Memeland financial system and was a transparent sign to the NFT neighborhood that 9GAG’s Web3 arm goals to construct a mission to compete with a number of the most outstanding gamers on the scene.
Memeland launched the gathering by way of a blind public sale that set the value of every NFT within the assortment at a hefty 5.3 ETH. Inside seven days, Memeland claimed that YOU THE REAL MVP generated greater than 900 ETH in income. Regardless of the bear market, its momentum has grown — with the gathering’s flooring value at present standing at 38 ETH.
The Potatoz
The follow-up to the YOU THE REAL MVP launch, Memeland’s Potatoz was a free-mint assortment of 9,999 PFPs that dropped on July 20, 2022. The gathering options potato-themed characters and traits impressed by memes and popular culture and serves because the base-level entry level into the Memeland financial system.
The potato theme comes from 9GAG’s long-standing custom of rewarding readers of lengthy meme posts on the positioning with an image of a potato that includes the phrases “sorry for the lengthy submit, right here’s a potato” excessive of it. Early collectors might “develop” their Potatoz NFT, a course of much like Moonbirds’ “nesting” course of, to evolve it from Stage 0 to Stage 5. The extra a holder stakes their Potatoz, the larger the possibility they’ll have of receiving advantages down the road because the Memeland financial system expands (by way of allowlist spots for future drops, entry to IRL occasions, and Memeland’s future token, $MEME).
Over time, the NFTs within the assortment slowly developed from semi-anonymous twerking potato characters, plant sprouts, donuts, and varied different types into fully-fledged animated potato humanoids that look straight out of a online game character choice menu. With 4,189 homeowners, the gathering has seen greater than 20,357 ETH ($27 million) in gross sales quantity since its launch and at present has a flooring value of two.1 ETH.
The Captainz
Having gone via two profitable assortment mints in 2022, Memeland launched what it calls its “premier” assortment, The Captainz, on January 4, 2023, for a mint value of 1.069 ETH. Like The Potatoz, The Captainz is a group of 9,999 utility-enabled NFTs that acts as a mid-level entry level to Memeland, sitting between YOU THE REAL MVP and The Potatoz. The utility and perks to Captainz holders have but to be totally revealed, and the paintings stays a thriller.
The Memeland web site signifies that Captainz holders will obtain advantages associated to its $MEME token and Treasure Islandz, its upcoming mission rumored to be a Memeland’s metaverse expertise. Within the few days since its launch, The Captainz has accomplished 6,774 ETH ($9 million) in buying and selling quantity and has a present flooring value of 5.34 ETH. Within the wake of the gathering’s success, the Memeland Twitter account responded in true 9GAG-inspired trend.
Captainz holders even have a say within the Memeland DAO, serving to to make choices concerning the DAO treasury, future model partnerships, governance guidelines, and extra.
The way forward for Memeland
Memeland has exhibited a stable understanding of the NFT and crypto markets, creating and delivering to its neighborhood throughout one in every of the bottom factors the trade has but seen. Much like Reddit’s NFT wizardry, 9GAG has proven Web2 social media platforms that it’s potential to intelligently navigate the Web3 house, even when they’re not native to it.
Memeland has repeatedly emphasised that its coming $MEME token might be totally different than the common NFT token that “regular individuals don’t care about.” How their workforce introduces that token sooner or later will considerably have an effect on the ecosystem, doubtlessly driving it to even larger success. Likewise, its nonetheless mysterious Treasure Islandz mission has the Memeland and larger NFT neighborhood ready with bated breath.
Past this, the Memeland web site notes that it has a number of different tasks within the works, together with a “Tripadvisor in your Web3 journey,” a tongue-in-cheek “Web3 OnlyFans,” a web site for crypto staking, and a platform for pet lovers. These sound like a tall order, however given what the Memeland workforce has accomplished within the final seven months, it’s not unreasonable to count on them to ship in spectacular trend.
