The Goose sells for $6.1 million on Sotheby's

Welcome to The Metadata. We summarize our research findings on the latest trends in NFTs & Gaming into a quick read every Wed/Fri. Thanks for being one of our 1,000+ readers!

Today we cover:

• 🌱 Weekly NFT traders are down: Everyone’s touching grass

• 🪿The Goose = Mona Lisa of NFTs? It sells for $6.1M

• 🔥 All about the Azurbala burn

• 🎨 Two upcoming generative art mints to watch for

Market Update: Traders Still Down

The number of weekly NFT traders hovers at 66,900, down slightly from 72,200 last week. Everyone has gone to touch grass or summer vacation. Until we see these numbers start to climb again, it's safe to say the NFT market might be in chill mode for a bit.

There’s been a bit of strength in Pudgy Penguins, Memeland Captainz, and Cool Cats, but weakness in Doodles, the BAYC ecosystem, and World of Women.

The Goose = Mona Lisa of NFTs

Sotheby’s conducted its NFT sale (GRAILS Part II) this week, and it was a resounding success.

The star of the show? A digital artwork known as the Goose. No, not the one that's been stealing your lunch at the park, but a piece of generative art from Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers collection. Ringers is a generative art collection of 1,000 pieces that was released on January 31, 2021 on the Art Blocks platform.

Here, the collision of code and randomness gives rise to unexpected and captivating artworks. The Goose, a unique Ringer, exemplifies the magic of emergent properties and becomes a symbol of community and delight, showcasing the power of automation in art. It’s the Mona Lisa of the NFT art world.

Now, here's where things get spicy. The Goose was originally bought by Su Zhu, the notorious founder of 3 Arrows Capital. He splashed out a whopping 1,800 ETH ($5.4 million) for it during the NFT gold rush. But then, plot twist! His hedge fund went belly up, and the Goose had to be auctioned off.

What’s more astounding: The Goose fetched $6.2 million (post-fees) on an auction in the middle of a deep NFT bear market. It was acquired by 6259, an anonymous crypto-native influencer in the space.

Here’s how the bidding went..

🤑 Why it matters: Well, 6259 is betting big that the Goose's value will only go up, up, up. Grail-level crypto art with this level of historical provenance is going to be very scarce, as digital art potentially expands into a trillion-dollar market.

Sure, some might say that because a crypto-native guy bought it, it doesn't really reflect the public demand for NFTs. But it's also a testament to the conviction of those deep in the crypto world.

This historical sale has given the entire space a symbol to rally around.

The Daily NFT Show in Brief

We summarise PROOF’s daily NFT show in 20 seconds:

• The mystery whale wallet is still making significant purchases, particularly BAYCs.

• Boring Punks, a derivative of Crypto Punks, has seen a significant increase in value and trading volume in less than 24 hours since its minting. An alien sold for 2.8 ETH while a zombie hoodie sold for 2.7 ETH. Be cautious when buying these derivatives as their popularity can be fleeting.

• Art NFTs that had significant sales this week include: a Fidenza (130 ETH), a fuzzy Squiggle (12.5 ETH), an Archetype (10.8 ETH), and a Life in West America (4.3 ETH).

Today's News

• Snoop Dogg launches his NFTs on Arbitrum. The NFTs provide access to behind-the-scenes footage and music playlists tied to Snoop Dogg's 'High School Reunion Tour',

• Otherside releases more info about its Starmap update for its upcoming game, Legends of Mara. Judging by the comments, none of the apes understand what’s going on

• Nike .SWOOSH boxes will start revealing today. Check out what you got in your box.

• Axie Infinity releases June update, says 75% confident that experience points system will go live in next few months

Top Tweets

🐥 All about the Azurbala burn and how you can get in on this storytelling project.

🐥 OCM dimensions on Ordinals selling for 1 BTC (we talked about this on Wed’s newsletter as an upcoming mint)

🐥 The MMORPG is launching their play test in 3 weeks.

🐥 Burn a CryptoPunk ($80,000) to get a whitelist for this Ordinals project. So far, no one has taken it up…yet

🐥 Limit Break launches PAYMENT PROCESSOR, a new NFT marketplace protocol that enforces on-chain royalties and gives creators greater control over their NFTs.

Upcoming Mints

🍿 Gold by crashblossom (James Bloom). This generative art work is dropping in collaboration with Fingerprints DAO on 21 June via an auction. The art changes based on price movements of the NFTs, pretty mindblowing.

🍿 Dopamine Machines by steviep will be the next Art Blocks Curated collection on 21 June. It is the self-proclaimed “hottest NFT of the summer”. All of the machines are interactive, responsive and come with audio-visual content.

That's it for today folks, see you tomorrow. If you want more, follow us on Twitter (@the_metadata). If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe with just one-click:

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational purposes only. None of this is financial or investment advice. It is not a solicitation to buy or sell any assets. Minting and buying NFTs is risky. Please do your own research.