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An unidentified NFT trader has lost more than 1,000 ETH, most of it via purchases of the much-hyped Moonbirds.
Moonbirds was launched in April last year by Kevin Rose’s Proof Collective and was supposed to build connections between NFT collectors. It was also planning to host an NFT conference, however, this has now been canceled.
The Proof of Conference was meant to be the jewel in the Moonbirds crown — but it was pulled due to lack of interest. Organizers feared the event would play to a mostly empty venue. Moonbird holders were allowed to purchase their conference tickets at a discounted price.
Moonbirds was one of the most hyped NFT launches in history, making its debut at a sale price of 2.5 ETH. Sales climbed to an average price of more than 11 ETH on the first day and within two weeks, the average sale price hit the 25 ETH mark. The highest sale for Moonbirds was 350 ETH, which was more than one million dollars at the time. However, it couldn’t maintain this momentum and today, the average sale price is just 7.3 ETH.
Moonbirds was supposed to be a top-five collection
The launch of Moonbirds raised $58 million in five days for Proof Collective. Kevin Rose announced he would use the capital responsibly to give back value to holders, by creating one of the top-five NFTs.
One of the initiatives designed to create value for Moonbirds was called ‘Nesting,’ a sort of non-custodial staking where holders would ‘nest’ their Moonbird in exchange for rewards, like a black hoodie.
The NFT market has cooled down dramatically since the explosive hype of 2021 and 2022. January 2022 saw a total trading volume of more than $4.5 billion on the OpenSea marketplace while this month’s total trading volume barely hit the $500 million mark.
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This is due in part to the successful opening of a new NFT marketplace called Blur, which has surpassed OpenSea in trading volume. When launched, Moonbirds was the most-traded NFT collection but today it’s not even in the top 25.
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