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2023 NFT Development Review | Blur Points, Elementals Controversy, Ordinals Soaring

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2023 NFT Development Review | Blur Points, Elementals Controversy, Ordinals Soaring

Cryptocurrency researcher moca compiled a timeline of important NFT events this year, with Blur's emergence disrupting the market, Azuki's controversial new project Elementals, and Ordinals Protocol's skyrocketing popularity marking significant moments of the year.

Table of Contents

NFT 2023 Timeline

January

The third NFT project led by the 9GAG team, Memeland, set the minting price for the Captainz series at 1.069 ETH, quickly gaining market attention and surging to 5 ETH due to successful marketing strategies from previous projects.

  • Azuki released the Hilumia NFT series to commemorate the project's one-year anniversary.
  • DeGods' second-generation NFT project, y00ts, announced its migration to Polygon.
  • Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched Dookey Dash, allowing NFT holders to mint Sewer Passes.

February

Designer Jack Butcher released the Checks – VV Edition series amidst the Twitter blue check controversy, receiving positive market feedback for its unique meme-style and burning mechanism, with over 250,000 NFTs minted featuring circles and checkmarks.

Checks – VV Edition
  • Opepen, known for its multiple blind box openings, was launched in February, another experiment by Butcher.
  • The DigiDaigaku project aired advertisements worth millions of dollars during the Super Bowl.
  • Blur issued tokens and began airdrop point activities.
  • Doodles introduced the wearable gear series Dooplication on the Flow blockchain.
  • Ryan Carson's Flux project faced community criticism for its failure and ultimately exited the Web3 community.
  • A Dookey Dash golden key was sold for $1,615,460.

March

  • Meta announced the abandonment of NFT projects related to Instagram and Facebook.
  • Rumors circulated about Amazon starting to build an NFT marketplace.
  • Otherside launched the second game experience event, Second Trip.
  • Game company Animoca Brands introduced Mocaverse as its flagship NFT project.
  • Nakamigos appeared on a Beeble painting.

April

  • The Azuki team's Chiru Labs announced a partnership with Line.
  • Singaporean team Imaginary Ones released the Bubble Rider series.
  • Opensea renamed its NFT aggregator Gem to Opensea Pro in an attempt to counter Blur, sparking rumors about its token airdrop, but ultimately no tokens were distributed.

May

Since its launch, the Ordinals Protocol on the Bitcoin network experienced explosive growth in May, initiating a trend of creating inscriptions using the smallest unit of Bitcoin, "satoshi," with people gradually changing their avatars to orange backgrounds.

This sparked debates on whether the Bitcoin network should serve as a carrier for NFTs or other applications.

  • Pudgy Penguins launched physical toys on Amazon.
  • Lebron James appeared wearing Nike NFT sneakers by RTFKT.
  • Blur introduced the NFT lending platform Blend.

June

The Azuki team held an event in Las Vegas and announced the release of the new Elementals series. However, the similar images received criticism instead of market approval, causing Azuki to collapse to 5 ETH after surviving the bear market.

  • The derivative artwork Ringers #879 was sold for $5.4 million.
  • The Winklevoss brothers sued online detective ZachXBT over allegations related to his past experiences, leading to a fundraising of hundreds of thousands of dollars by ZachXBT, but ultimately settling out of court.

July

Seven months after minting, the Captainz series finally revealed its traits, with images changing based on the holder's actions. However, due to high visual similarity among initial NFTs, prices plummeted, sparking discussions in the market about the customization of PFPs.

  • X started paying ad revenue sharing to creators.
  • Opepen completed over 70,000 mintings through its multiple blind box mechanism.
  • The For the Culture movement succeeded, with ThreadGuy changing his Twitter avatar to Opepen.

August

Opensea announced a reduction of royalties to 0% by 2024, leading to Yuga Labs expressing displeasure and stating their intention to establish their own NFT exchange.

  • DeGods announced the launch of the third-generation NFT project, but community dissatisfaction arose as holders still needed to pay for purchases.
  • Trading volume for Bitcoin Ordinals reached a new high.
  • Friend.Tech sparked the SocialFi trend.

September

  • The metaverse project Otherside finally made a move, launching the strategy game Legends of the Mara and airdropping Meteorite Fragments Vessel to Otherdeed holders.
  • Pudgy Penguins announced that their toys would be available at Walmart in the United States.
  • Mainstream media outlets circulated the article "95% of NFTs are Worthless".

October

Memeland introduced the Memecoin MEME token mining event, which garnered astonishing results with a market value exceeding $2.5 billion upon its grand launch on major exchanges.

  • Azuki hosted a Garden tour, holding five events across the Asia-Pacific region.
  • The metaverse company ZTX airdropped tokens to NFT holders.
  • Flooring Protocol launched a fragmented NFT trading market.

November

The second Blur point reward airdrop settlement took place, with the team announcing the launch of their Layer2 network, Blast, using a marketing tactic of trading points for future airdrop opportunities, attracting billions of dollars in funding to the network.

  • The Simpsons released episodes discussing NFTs.
  • MocaID was introduced.

December

  • Solana's NFT ecosystem flourished with the support of Mad Lads.
  • Pudgy Penguins announced the upcoming launch of Pudgy World.

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