coindesk.com
Another week, another hit collection of pricy non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with the latest star being a project called The Saudis.
The collection of 5,555 NFTs, whose artwork is a derivative of the famed CryptoPunks collectibles, were free to mint on July 9 and sold out within hours.
The project’s floor price (which is the price of the cheapest edition currently for sale on the open market) is around 0.75 ETH (roughly $867), after peaking at around 1.3 ETH (roughly $1,650) on Saturday.
The collection has so far totalled 6,700 ETH (roughly $7.7 million) in sales volume since its mint, the most of any project during that span.
The project’s momentum is fueled by its “kingdom” of Twitter followers, many of whom create Saudi Arabia-inspired meme videos to fuel the project’s hype.
The anonymous (and at times offensive) founding team behind the project is just the latest in a string of free-to-mint, performance art-driven NFT projects of this nature.
Goblintown is the most notable of the bunch, which did over $7 million in sales volume in its first weekend. The project kept its momentum going with goblin noise-filled Twitter Spaces and influencer partnerships, most recently taking over NFT.NYC with a slew of ghoul-themed parties.
Controversy
Like the performance art-driven projects that have come before it, The Saudis’ first few days on the market weren’t without some controversy, most notably from a bot created to artificially lower the floor price, which the team eventually banned.
The release also came with its fair share of NFT influencer drama, with fingers being pointed at popular Twitter personalities who were able to profit off early knowledge of the mint.
The project’s sales have since cooled off from its weekend highs, but the return of buzzy mints and their Twitter pandemonium are a welcome sign for many in NFT land given recent market conditions, with The Saudis being the first popular project to launch since the price of ETH crashed as much as 50% in early June.