Boardroom dives into the Moonbirds NFT collection, the Web3 company behind it, and how it has been rapidly growing in the past three weeks.
Since it first hit the scene on April 16, the highly anticipated Moonbirds NFT community from PROOF Collective has attracted nearly $500 million in sales — including more than $200 million in sales in its first 48 hours on the market alone.
Over the past 30 days, the promising project ranks as the No. 2 bestselling NFT collection according to data from CryptoSlam.
So, what are Moonbirds, anyway? Why is the NFT community in a frenzy to get their hands on them? Who is the creator behind the collection? You have questions, Boardroom has answers.
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
What is PROOF Collective?
PROOF Collective is a private community of 1,000 NFT collectors and artists that features founder Kevin Rose at the helm. Rose is a serial internet entrepreneur who co-founded a portfolio of tech companies that includes Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk.
PROOF launched in December 2021 and spun out of the PROOF podcast that Rose hosts about the NFT industry. To gain access, members hold a unique PROOF Collective NFT. This token is a key to the exclusive community, including access to PROOF’s private Discord, in-person events, NFT collaborations, the podcast, free NFT drops, and more perks.
PROOF’s mission is to bring together the most innovative minds in the NFT community, including early collectors and strategic decision-makers. PROOF’s members own a collective of 153,940 NFTs, including over 800 Bored Apes, nearly 500 MeeBits, and 148 CryptoPunks, according to its official website.
Following its launch six months ago and the release of its flagship collection in April, PROOF raised $10 million from Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six VC firm. The Web3 company announced the funding news on April 25, roughly a week after releasing the Moonbirds NFT collection.
Rose’s own VC firm True Ventures, has also invested in PROOF.
As PROOF gains more visibility, more NFT enthusiasts have sought to join the community in growing numbers — but the collective hasn’t announced any plans to expand that thousand-person cap. NFT holders who want to get in on the action better get their virtual wallets ready because PROOF Collective NFTs are trading on OpenSea with a whopping 102.5 ETH floor price, or roughly $286,000. The initial mint for the collective’s NFTs sold via a dutch auction with a floor price of 5 ETH, or $14,000.
The first Moonbirds drop
Moonbirds’ inaugural collection includes 10,000 pixelated owls with quirky features such as firey hair, eye patches, mohawks, flower headbands, and colored eyes. PROOF NFT holders each received two Moonbirds NFTs, leaving 7,875 Moonbirds to the broader NFT community to vie for.
Moonbirds had a set mint price of 2.5 ETH, roughly in the $7,000 range, which the NFT community raised concerns about when it came to accessibility. Still, the collection sold out in two days, and resales have been surging on secondary marketplaces since the drop.
Each Moonbird grants holders access to:
- PROOF’s exclusive Discord community and associated rewards
- First dibs on PROOF’s upcoming metaverse project, Project Highrise
- Additional rewards that increase in scale the longer holders keep their Moonbirds NFT. PROOF calls this process “nesting” — Moonbirds’ version of NFT staking — by which holders lock up their assets in exchange for passive crypto income, potential rewards, and other benefits. While Moonbirds are within their nesting period, they can’t be sold on secondary marketplaces.
“As soon as your Moonbird is nested, they’ll begin to accrue additional benefits,” Moonbirds’ official website reads. “As total nested time accumulates, you’ll see your Moonbird achieve new tier levels, upgrading their nest. Upgraded nests enable enhanced drops and rewards.”
Moonbirds’ floor price on OpenSea is 28.9 ETH, or roughly $80,700. This floor price is still high, but it slid a little from 32 ETH since Boardroom last reported on the collection in our last NFT Sales roundup.
Growth and leadership challenges
Rose has always been transparent about his plans for PROOF and Moonbirds. He detailed in a YouTube video that proceeds from the first Moonbirds collection will be used to build a new media company. But even in the name of transparency, PROOF has already had to make some leadership changes following some ineffective financial decisions made by one of its key leaders.
On April 25, the same day that PROOF announced new fundriasing, co-founder and COO Ryan Carson announced that he was stepping down to focus on his NFT investment firm, the 1.21 Gigawatts fund. This was Carson’s first time mentioning he was involved in said fund.
Coindesk reported that Carson’s NFT portfolio is worth $1.2 million.
Naturally, the NFT community did some digging to find out the deeper reason behind Carson’s controversial exit, which came after he purchased $580,000 worth of Monnbird NFTs, some rare, on launch day from a secondary marketplace. Needless to say, that sounds like a conflict of interest. This is especially apparent since Carson knew the project’s inner workings, and most notably, he had insight into the collection’s rarity numbers.
When stakeholders purchase rare NFTs on secondary marketplaces, this process is called “NFT sniping,” as stakeholders often know the rarity of the NFTs and purchase them at a lower price before their values shoot up.
Rose hosted a town hall on Twitter Spaces to shed light on Carson’s departure and rally the community to stick with the promising project. Rose also shared on Twitter that Carson will continue to be a shareholder and PROOF community member.
Despite Carson’s departure, the Moonbirds project has set the industry off, and the Sandbox even grabbed a rare $1 million owl from the collection.
What’s next?
For now, PROOF is riding the Moonbirds wave of success and hasn’t announced what else is coming next. In the meantime, in keeping with its steady growth, the company did share some open roles on Twitter for tech professionals looking for their next best gig.
So, ready to fly this thing to the moon?
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
