NFTs, Investing, Beer
Budweiser Quietly Drops 1,936 NFTs And Barely Anyone Knows About It
The quietest MAJOR NFT DROP the world has ever seen.
I’ve got to admit: I’m a little (okay actually a LOT) freaked out by the Budweiser NFT drop that happened 11–29–21. Zero hype, barely anyone talking about it, even after it happened. And yet, there it is — one of the hugest brands in the universe drops its first-ever NFT se — a super-limited set of just 1,936 beer cans — and the floor price on the Budverse Cans — Heritage Edition a day later remains at (as of this writing) just 0.295 ETH??? What the actual F is going on???
Word on the Budweiser Discord (normally THE place to be for NFT drop chitchat) is that the whole drop was purposefully kept quiet, though numerous theories abound as to why. It’s strange, though… As of this writing, Budweiser’s Discord channel has barely 9k members, which (if you’re not Budweiser) is probably about 20k too few to ever hope of a sellout, even for a smaller generative set. On a normally-promoted drop (where the marketing hype builds for literally months), a drop from the likes of Budweiser would probably garner about 250k Discord members (if not much, much more).
So yeah, perhaps with this OG set from them of just 1,936 cans, they wanted to keep quiet and just see what happened with almost zero marketing. (And this from a company that runs Superbowl commercials. So, it’s not like they couldn’t have hyped this bigtime if they’d wanted to.)
It was so quiet that I almost didn’t believe it was actually Budweiser at first. But yes, it’s them. They’d promoted it via their Twitter account, now named with the Ethereum address beer.eth, it’s on the corporate web site at Budweiser.com/NFT, and the Budverse OpenSea collection is clearly verified by OpenSea. So, it’s legit. Here’s what the individual NFTs look like:
About That 0.295 ETH Floor Price
Okay, let’s just talk about the 0.295 ETH floor price for a minute. Here are the facts of the case (I said case there because it sounds good, and also because beer comes in cases. So, see what I did there?) Okay, but seriously:
- This is from BUDWEISER, arguably one of the most recognizable and beloved brands on the PLANET.
- There are only 1,936 NFTs available. That’s a spectacularly LOW number for almost ANY generative art set. But from BUDWEISER, it’s insanely low, ensuring that even the most common NFTs in the set will always be considered rare.
- There are more than 5x as many CryptoPunks, 5x as many Bored Apes, 5x as many Cool Cats, etc. If Cool Cats (using that final example) can have 10k cats valued at a minimum of (currently) 7.1 ETH each, what could the potential for Budweiser’s initial 1,936 NFTs be?
- Barely anyone has been writing, talking, tweeting, or otherwise offering up any significant public attention to this, which means (to me) that it’s still lurking in the PRE-EXPLOSION phase of its existence. It’s eerily quiet now, which is really weird to me! So, what’s going to happen when, inevitably, celebs, crypto-whales, and other A-listers start snatching up Bud can NFTs?
- This was Budweiser’s first foray into NFTs — the genesis set. Anything else that they do (and they almost certainly will because ALL huge brands will surely be getting into NFTs) will make this initial set all the more RARE than it already is.
- Budweiser itself has promised additional utility beyond collectability (which itself should have been enough to make these MOON). They write: “Each NFT will act as an entry key to the Budverse, unlocking exclusive benefits, rewards and surprises for all … NFT holders.” Wow! We don’t even know what the Budverse might be at this point, but clearly they have PLANS! And that’s going to further drive desirability for these as well.
- Finally, this is pretty much a first in terms of a decent generative set on the ETH blockchain from a super-major international corporate brand (unless I’m forgetting something?) There’s no Coke generative set, none from Pepsi, or Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, etc. So, this is pretty significant and unusual.
I don’t know; I could be absolutely wrong, of course. But, I have to believe that NFT buyers, at this point, would be insane NOT to sweep the Budverse floor as soon as humanly possible. Because, if anything out there is absolutely primed to MOON, it’s these Budverse Cans. True, we’ll have to see how something so corporate fits in with the non-corporate PFP brands currently dominating the collection scene (Bored Apes, etc.). But again, I just can’t see this NOT mooning. I mean, as I mentioned, the marketing was SOOOO quiet on this thing. And marketing is usually the #1 challenge of any generative NFT drop. So, what could the floor get to if Budweiser ever decided to more actively market this set? It’s mind-blowing, in my opinion.
🍺 My guess: 7–10 ETH each in 2022. (No idea where I pulled that number from, but I just wanted to pop a guess here and see how I did later on.)
2024 Update: lol, what was I thinking there? As of today (April 15, 2024), the floor is 0.04. Odd as this sounds, if I had funds, I’d probably still sweep this floor, as I have to believe that SOMEDAY these will be worth something. But who knows?
