The NFT market is a weird, wonderful, yet a very unpredictable space. Over the last few months, a highly anticipated project called Valhalla has been built, and many thought that it was destined to perform well. However, it appears that this could be further from the truth and that Valhalla is the most recent project to fall mercy to the bear market as you can see in the chart below.
Many analysts speculated that the Valhalla mint was going to suck a ton of liquidity from the market, resulting in many other projects ‘crashing’. Contrary to popular belief, this couldn’t have been further from the truth for a project Cel Mates. While the floor price of Valhalla continued to trend downwards, Cel Mates floor price continued to ‘skyrocket’ over the last few days. The real question is, why is this happening?
Before answering the burning question, let’s take a look at the two projects at hand.
Valhalla
Valhalla is a gaming NFT collection which consists of 10,000 profile picture tokens. It strives to be the “go-to NFT brand” for gamers. Valhalla has a hugely ambitious roadmap, and one of its main goals is to build a decentralized streaming service (think a Web3 version of Twitch). While this may sound like a huge task, Valhalla has a powerhouse team which certainly has the ability to execute. Additionally, it has managed to raise $15 million over two funding rounds, and the mint raised another $6 million.
Cel Mates
Cel Mates are uniquely illustrated convicts, “eternally stuck” on the Ethereum blockchain by artist Mcbess. Mcbess and his team have built brands for the past 10 years, including a streetwear brand, shops, restaurants, a record label, deep connections with renowned artists, and now “a prison”.
Cel Mates tokens are not purely art, but they also act as the holder’s skeleton key to the “steel penitentiary,” a members-only prison where you “want to break in.” Its members-only prison is a space for a counterculture syndicate of creatives to hang out, learn, share and collaborate with like-minded creators. Cel Mates is an entire ecosystem, with multiple components which can all be found on its website and Twitter.
Why Is Cel Mates Outperforming Valhalla?
First, it’s important we understand what went wrong for Valhalla. During the lead-up to its launch, the project and its founder were on the receiving end of a considerable amount of FUD. Considering that the project had already raised a staggering $15 million prior to mint, the expensive mint price of 0.5 ETH was a red flag to many, as it projected cash grab intentions.
If this wasn’t bad enough, the project’s founder was accused of having rugpull intentions by Alex and Bark (with unconfirmed screenshots). At this point, things weren’t looking good for Valhalla, but it still managed to mint out successfully. Its current floor price sits at 0.553 ETH on OpenSea.
Second, it’s important to understand what Cel Mates is doing well. The entirety of the Cel Mates project appears to be ingrained in community, fun, storytelling and lore, all of which we know performs very well in the NFT space. Afterall, the real value of a project is determined by community consensus, then market consensus.
On Twitter, Cel Mates has a strong community presence, and holders are excited for what’s to come. At present, it’s unclear what is in the pipeline, but a Tweet which states “mating is coming,” is highly suggestive. Right now, Cel Mates Crime Reports holds a strong floor price of 0.889 ETH, despite the bearish market condition.
After the rise of the free-to-mint meme-esque meta triggered by Goblintown, the NFT space is now more unpredictable than ever. Cel Mates fits this genre of project far better than Valhalla does, and this could be one contributing factor to why it has outperformed it against all odds.
Many degens are furious at their decision of choosing Valhalla over Cel Mates, and many opinions are being shared publicly. One passionate enthusiasts Tweeted “I can’t f***ing believe I sold my Cel Mates for this s**t Valhalla mint to only see it dump and cel Mates pump.” This is a hard lesson learnt for this person who followed hype, and not their gut feeling.
This is another example of how unpredictable the NFT space can be. Sometimes the obvious ‘play’ is the one to make, but often, there is no rhyme or reason for why things go against the grain. Perhaps it’s the type of trader that this space attracts, as it’s still in its infancy. Regardless, when someone wins, someone must lose. Let’s just hope that you were on team Cel Mates, and not Valhalla this time around.
