GQ Magazine NFT Drop Flops—And the Floor Is Falling Fast

GQ is the latest legacy print magazine to make moves in Web3 with the launch of its GQ3 community and the associated Ethereum $NFT drop, which promised various benefits to buyers. But the men’s lifestyle magazine failed to sell out its mint, and now the brand is apparently trying to keep $NFT buyers happy as resale prices fall.

The GQ3 $NFT mint began Wednesday, with 1,661 total $NFT access passes offered up for 0.1957 $ETH apiece—about $290 worth as of this publication. But when the mint window ended this morning, only 1,060 of the NFTs had been sold per data from the OpenSea marketplace.

In a Discord community announcement and also a since-deleted tweet, GQ said that it would randomly airdrop half of the remaining supply of NFTs to existing holders. Projects that do not fully mint out sometimes do this to reward buyers, essentially providing them with additional potential value when an $NFT launch fails to translate buzz into sales.

“This collection is a technical and creative retrospective of sorts; a body of work I built using virtually every technique and medium I have ever utilized, including drawing, photography, collage, vector, and AI." — @NoPattern 🤯 pic.twitter.com/TEkp8wKqfZ

— GQ3 (@GQ3_io) March 9, 2023

“We are going to reward all those who supported our artists and believed in GQ3 by sharing an Issue 001 token to a randomized 50% of unique holder wallets,” the publication wrote in the Discord announcement, further suggesting that $NFT recipients “share with a friend.”

The Condé Nast-owned publication said that it will hold onto the rest of the remaining supply for “community and promotion.” Decrypt reached out to GQ representatives for comment following the completion of the drop but did not immediately receive a response.

Soon after the mint ended, GQ revealed the artwork for the NFTs from artists Chuck Anderson, Kelsey Niziolek, Serwah Attafuah, and the pseudonymous REO.

All the while, secondary market prices for the GQ3 NFTs are falling sharply: the floor price, or price for the cheapest-listed $NFT, currently sits at 0.105 $ETH ($155) on OpenSea and briefly fell below 0.1 $ETH. So far, 27 $ETH ($39,350) worth of NFTs have been traded since the mint ended.

GQ followed the lead of other legacy print publications that have entered the Web3 world via $NFT drops and community efforts, including Time, Playboy, and The New York Times. The publication released an $NFT-themed print issue in 2022 to herald the launch of its GQ3 initiative, including the Discord server, which ultimately led to the $NFT rollout.

Each GQ3 $NFT comes with various upcoming benefits, including a one-year print magazine subscription and digital access, a GQ hat and other merchandise, and access to GQ3 parties starting with one to be held at the $NFT NYC conference in April. Holders can also enter an exclusive part of the Discord server and get priority access for future $NFT drops.

“We are committed and dedicated to GQ3 and in this for the long term,” the Discord announcement reads, “and we want everyone to see the inspiring work our artists created.”

GQ is far from the first legacy brand to fall short with its $NFT drop. In January, auto brand Porsche attempted to sell 7,500 Ethereum NFTs with vague utility and benefits and found little initial interest, only selling about 1,850 NFTs by the time the company announced that it would cut the mint short. Ultimately, less than one-third of the planned supply was sold.

In that example, at least, the curtailed supply appeared to boost demand: secondary prices for the Porsche NFTs have surged, and now start at 1.98 $ETH (over $2,800) on OpenSea—more than double the original mint price in $ETH.