NFTs, Investing, Tech Culture
Desperate ApeWives Sell-Out: Obsessively Following a Successful 16-Hour NFT Drop
Remember when I introduced you to this project back when it was under the radar? Did you ape in? Because I did! But I also was dying to understand some stats on NFT sales, so I chose it to follow closely.
Wow, was it just three short weeks ago when I wrote in this article that the Desperate ApeWives were “flying under the radar”? Such is life in the NFT world; three weeks seems like (and behaves like) three months! I singled out three particularly stunning projects in that article: Mekaverse, DAW, and ImaKittyCat. Only Mekaverse was well-known among them (and WOW did they do great, becoming the 17th largest drop, by volume, of all time according to OpenSea’s ranking page).
As many of you know, I work in the NFT world full-time (if you can call it that, as I usually work about 17 hours/day, on average). I do generative NFT programming at GenerativeNFTs.io. (More info on generative NFT programming!) So, I’m fanatically obsessive about NFTs, and really love watching the sales happen — just to watch, learn, observe, and usually participate. I’m also really into the investing side of this, of course, and always on the lookout for the next hot thing. (So, if you know it, drop me a line anytime! lol)
So, let’s see how the DAW sale goes, as it’s now 11:00 a.m. where I am, and it’s starting! But first, let’s see where they are:
DAW Presale Stats:
Right. DAW started with a presale yesterday, and they sold 3,625 apes during that. I like this strategy because it allows early adopters and those who aped into the community to have a chance to buy usually without any gas war. As an investor, you want to get in on these opportunities, of course, as it means your initial investment is minimized a bit, and you can reap more profits if/when you decide to flip. (Of course, looking at the art of these apes, they compliment the BAYC so much that the temptation to flip for quick profit, for me, isn’t as strong as the temptation to HODL and see if the floor can raise in the post-reveal market. Could these apes be the next apes?) Anyway, some benchmarks:
Nice pre-reveal animation, btw:
DAW Pubic Sale:
Okay, we’re off to the races. Let’s just check in every so often and I’ll try to remember to sometimes show the gas levels, as I suspect they’ll be outrageous from time to time.
Ha, I see a mint limit of 3 per wallet here:
Understandable… I think we’ll be seeing this as a trend, as we move forward, as it’s generally considered good to have more owners / larger community versus a much smaller group HODLing 25 tokens each or something. Three is a bit ambitious! (But, then again, the current level of the BAYC is < 2 apes per wallet on average. And that’s what all teams aspire to — large, solid communities.)
11:06 a.m.
11:10 a.m.
11:13 a.m.
11:20 a.m.
The web site counter is not showing on my screen, but Etherscan shows 5k tokens sold already:
Gas still super high…
11:30 a.m.
Site counter back on…. says:
Etherscan reports about the same:
11:42 a.m.
12:02 p.m.
12:30 p.m.
12:44 p.m.
12:56 p.m.
1:11 p.m.
2:03 p.m.
2:38 p.m.
- Quick math check: 3 hours, 28 min so far == 218 minutes;
- Began at 3,265; now at 7,198 == 3,933 sold so far;
- Ergo, the average sale rate is > 18 apes/minute.
Interesting stats! So, this isn’t the infamous 15-minute sellout model, but it’s instead the solid slow-burn sale variety. I suspect that 3-ape wallet limit is at play here, and I really think this was a great move on their part. Will check in again in a bit!
3:13 p.m.
3:34 p.m.
4:04 p.m.
4:34 p.m.
4:56 p.m.
5:11 p.m.
5:35 p.m.
6:08 p.m.
8:10 p.m. (long delay here; I took a little break for dinner):
8:52 p.m.
9:41 p.m.
10:18 p.m.
10:51 p.m.
11:29 p.m.
12:04 a.m.
12:41 a.m.
BTW, the drop is starting to show up on OpenSea’s 24-hour rankings, in some lofty company:
12:58 a.m.
1:26 a.m.
1:45 a.m.
2:00 a.m.
2:30 a.m.
2:33 a.m.
Well, the site remained on 9,810/10000, but the DAW’s Discord members noted that the group had saved out the remaining ones for giveaways, promos, and the team (pretty standard). So, they announced the sellout with a video (which I thought was a nice touch and would have posted here, but it’s larger than Medium allows).
For a more analytical (though still informal) look at this drop (which will really show my obsession, I’m afraid), here’s a breakdown of the above showing the pace of sales throughout the entire drop:
Finally, let’s have a look at the floor, immediately post-sale. There were many sub-0.1 ETH NFTs there moments ago, but the floor is being swept quickly here. So, it stands at 0.1 ETH.
Official OpenSea Collection Page: → https://opensea.io/collection/desperate-ape-wives
Well done, Desperate ApeWives (DAW)! Now to the MOON with these ladies! (I’ll update again once the reveal happens, just to show some lady apes!)
