From $300 million in trading volume on debut, to the ousting of its founder and a takeover by one of the biggest names in Web3, this NFT collection has been through it all – and it could yet still rise again. That NFT collection is Moonbirds.
These digital birds prove the mantra that an NFT collection can be down, but never out – but what are they, what should you know about them, and how did they get to where they are today?
Here’s our complete 2024 guide to Moonbirds.
What is Moonbirds NFT Collection?
Moonbirds is a collection of 10,000 pixel-art owl NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, created by PROOF Collective. Designed by Justin Mezzell, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of PROOF Collective, each Moonbird features an array of algorithmically-generated traits, such as facial expressions, clothing, accessories and more.
The collection is the brainchild of Kevin Rose, a serial internet entrepreneur who is perhaps best-known for being one of the co-founders of news aggregator Digg. He created PROOF Collective – a cohort of NFT enthusiasts that previously included Beeple and Gary Vaynerchuk – as a way to further the NFT medium.
On debut, 2,000 Moonbirds were reserved for PROOF Collective members, with 7,875 available to the public via a whitelist raffle, and the remaining 125 held by the PROOF team for future initiatives.
Moonbirds NFTs utilise a unique staking mechanism known as nesting. By ‘nesting’ a Moonbird, its holder gains levels of perks and rewards – but is unable to sell or transfer the NFT during that time. Some of these perks include early access to future products, community privileges, merch drops and more.
PROOF Collective was acquired by Yuga Labs in February 2024, with Yuga now in-charge of the day-to-day management and strategic planning of the Moonbirds collection.
What has Moonbirds accomplished so far?
Moonbirds minted on April 16, 2022, priced at a hefty 2.5 ETH each. Despite the high price, all 10,000 Moonbirds NFTs sold out in just two days, with trading volumes on secondary marketplaces quickly exceeding $300 million USD, making it the single largest NFT debut to date.
In May 2022, PROOF released the partner collection to Moonbirds, titled Oddities – a collection of 10,000 NFTs on Ethereum that were available to Moonbirds holders via the nesting mechanic.
August 2022 saw both Moonbirds and Oddities adopt a CC0 license, putting the NFTs into the public domain. This caused sizeable backlash, as by putting the art of each NFT into the public domain, the rights to the images were no longer with the holders – with one holder claiming they lost a “six-figure licensing deal” as a result.
April 2023 saw PROOF introduce the $TALONS token, earned by nesting Moonbirds, and used to claim exclusive products, event passes, and more.
In the same announcement, PROOF also revealed Mythics, a second companion collection of 20,000 NFTs on Ethereum that could be acquired by nesting Moonbirds NFTs, or burning Oddities NFTs.
After the launch of a third NFT collection, a widely-panned move to CC0 licensing, and the lacklustre reception of $TALONS, the floor price of Moonbirds had fallen from an all-time high of 37 ETH to below 2 ETH in just over a year – and community sentiment was falling fast.
This sentiment would fall even further when on May 29, 2023, co-founder Kevin Rose said via a Twitter Space that Moonbirds wasn’t “down bad as BAYC in terms of USD”. This statement – said at a time when Moonbirds were trading below 2 ETH whilst Bored Apes were at 45 ETH, was poorly received – and a sign of things to come.
Moonbirds continued to decline, trading below 1 ETH by January 2024. By this point, rumours began to swirl of an impending sale of the collection, with numerous individuals posting public bids on sites such as X.
This culminated in the announcement in February 2024 that PROOF Collective and all of its collections – including Moonbirds – had been acquired by Bored Ape Yacht Club creators Yuga Labs.
Early April 2024 saw Yuga unveil the Moonbirds Universe, a 3D virtual world that aims to integrate with their existing Bored Ape-focused metaverse, Otherside.
The month also saw Yuga Labs revoked the CC0 license from Moonbirds. This was seen by many to be correcting the mistake that PROOF made in issuing the license in August 2022, ensuring that holders retained the rights and value to their NFTs.
June 2024 saw the reveal of new illustrated artwork for each Moonbirds NFT, with holders able to toggle between the original pixel art style and the fresh new illustrations.
Since then however, other than some merch drops, integrations into Yuga’s existing products such as Dookey Dash: Unclogged, and seasonal events, Moonbirds has been largely silent. This is reflected in its floor price, with Moonbirds trading at around 0.3 ETH as of the time of writing.
What does the future hold for Moonbirds?
Unlike many other top-tier NFT collections – such as Azuki, Doodles, Bored Apes and more – there is no clear indication of what the future holds for Moonbirds.
Its latest major update was the re-activation of the Talons Marketplace, allowing users to spend $TALONS tokens on a range of NFTs, such as Chromie Squiggles, Deadfellaz and CrypToadz. Although Moonbirds are benefitting from activities in the wider Yuga ecosystem, Yuga’s focus – at least as of writing – appears to be elsewhere.
Despite this, Yuga is continuing to build a storytelling narrative around Moonbirds, mostly through social media posts that dive a little deeper into the lore and world of the Moonbirds NFTs – though in terms of hard evidence of progress, this is all we’ve yet to see.
With Yuga behind the collection, we find it difficult to believe that, less than a year post-purchase, they have run out of ideas for the Moonbirds. Time will tell if the announced Moonbirds Universe will be a success, and whether Moonbirds itself can recover from its current depths.
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