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The global NFT community is guessing about the motivation of Machi Big Brother, who sold over 1,000 NFTs of four Tier 1 collections for over $18 million in one day. Last week, he became one of the largest beneficiaries of the Blur (BLUR) airdrop by an upstart OpenSea competitor.
Machi Big Brother initiates "largest NFT dump ever," Nansen's Andrew Thurman says
Andrew Thurman, a cryptocurrency analyst in a leading research company Nansen, noticed intriguing activity of Jeffrey Hwang, a veteran NFT trader colloquially known as Machi Big Brother. On Feb. 23-24, Hwang was mass-selling his NFTs, including ones from the most expensive collections in the segment.
In what's likely the largest NFT dump ever, in the past 48 hours Machi has sold 1,010 NFTs, including:
— Andrew T (@Blockanalia) February 24, 2023
- 90 BAYC for 5707 ETH
- 191 MAYC for 3091 ETH
- 112 Azuki for 1644 ETH
- 308 Otherdeed for 582 ETH
But he's not registering much profit for these collections. Why? pic.twitter.com/4NyMF3gzuy
For instance, amid other 1,010 NFTs, Hwang sold 90 Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) tokens, 191 Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) tokens, 112 Azukis and 308 Otherdeed NFTs. In total, Machi Big Brother made over $18 million by his selling campaign.
At the same time, he bought back the lion's share of this massive portion of tokens the next day. Also, he deposited 7,000 Ethers (ETH) to the deposit pool of Blur (BLUR), the most overhyped NFT marketplace of 2023 and the most dangerous OpenSea competitor.
The whale is still holding 11,000 ETH in various NFTs, so his attack on markets might be very far from open.
It is worth noting that Machi Big Brother received 1 million BLUR tokens as the result of a recent airdrop. He immediately sold all of his airdrop rewards for $1.3 million, Arkham analysts unveiled.
Top-tier NFT collections trading at discount
Nansen's researcher mentioned some aspects of Hwang's motivation. First of all, he might be interested in getting additional BLUR airdrops for his activity. Then, he could just be "booking" his profits from previous trading.
Also, we might be witnessing a large manipulation: Thurman stressed that such selling campaigns are in the spotlight of NFT traders and might catalyze interest in buying BAYC, MAYC and other top collections.
As a result, 21 out of 25 top-tier NFT collections have seen their floor prices decline in the last 24 hours. CloneX NFTs are the worst performers: their floor price lost 9.2%.