The mysterious organization known as The Proof Collective defines itself as “a private members only collective of 1,000 dedicated NFT collectors and artists.” To join the Proof Collective someone would have to, you guessed it, own their NFT. So, in theory, anybody can be a part of it. In practice, though, the floor price for one of their passes is around 88 ETH at the time of writing. The size of the investment keeps the undesirables away.
The Proof Collective is all about NFTs. Because it’s the law, they run a private Discord in which you can probably receive the biggest alpha available. The organization also provides NFT info via its social media, produces a podcast in which they interview the biggest names in the NFT world, and, reportedly, owns a huge NFT collection. At least its members do.
According to the website, those members own 153K NFTs, including 148 CryptoPunks and 817 Bored Apes. Who are those members? We wouldn’t know for sure. Its founders are Kevin Rose, of Diggs fame, and illustrator Justin Mezzell. And it has been widely reported that the Proof Collective gave free memberships to digital artist Bleeple and motivational speaker and NFT millionaire Gary Vee.
Enter The Influencers
In the following video, one of the Proof Collective founding members, Internet legend and Diggs co-founder Kevin Rose, says. “This is the very beginning of what’s going to be a multi-decade journey to build a new media company.”
He also promises that Proof will combat FUD that comes with success by constantly shipping product. Moonbirds holders can expect benefits, airdrops, and physical objects related to the nascent brand.
What Is The Proof Collective?
The Proof Collective NFTs’ main benefit is the world’s most valuable currency: information. Besides a social club of sorts, the organization believes in “group bottoms-up-driven research.” Besides that, the members are early NFT adopters that own all of the projects you hear about on social media and are looking for the next one. If you play your cards right, that Proof Collective NFT might pay for itself in a few months.
The organization takes things one step further, though. As “a new media company,” The Proof Collective produces and releases its own NFT masterpieces. Their first product where the Grails, which mint was solely for the members of the organization and had the slogan, “20 artists. 20 unique pieces of art. Artist names revealed after the mint.” So far, they’ve unveiled art by Tyler Hobbs, Claire Silver, Mike Shinoda, Larva Labs, Rachel Ryle, and Gary Vaynerchuk among others.
The Proof Collective’s second product was the incredibly successful Moonbirds, who conquered the world on a bearish market. “There are a total of 10K Moonbirds, they were issued under the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. The mint price for each one was a whopping 2.5 ETH. That means that, at current prices, the Proof Collective made over $70M on that first day,” our report said.
At the moment, the floor price for the Proof Collective NFT is 88 ETH, which at today’s prices is more than $200K. And the prices of the listed for sale ones go up to a whopping 700 ETH. Currently, these NFT tickets sit at #17 in Cryptoslam’s “NFT Collection Rankings by Sales Volume” list. It has sold more than $800K in the last 24 hours and more than $52M since the Proof Collective’s creation.
BTC price chart for 05/10/2022 on Gemini | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
We Need A Little Controversy
Look, they don’t have any proof (no pun intended), but NFTethics suggests there’s something shady going on. “Some mentioned that we should check the purchases of proof collective, as many wallets only contains the proof collection and the floor is now 88 ETH. Wash trading is so common (…) these days that it’s not even noteworthy anymore.”
3/ Also nepotism is completely standard in the NFT space, so the fact that GaryVee (Gennady), his brother AJ, Beeple and some old friends received the Proof collective for free is standard. We saw quite a lot of other “old” friends that received the proof collective for free/$3. pic.twitter.com/o20NOgfIM4
— NFT Ethics (@NFTethics) April 15, 2022
Wash Trading is the process of buying and selling an asset in order to increase its perceived price. “In some situations, wash trades are executed by a trader and a broker who are colluding with each other, and other times wash trades are executed by investors acting as both the buyer and the seller of the security,” according to Investopedia.
Could the Proof Collective have done that? Maybe. But there’s no evidence, all of this is mere speculation.
In Conclusion
The Proof Collective entered the NFT space with a bang. The space has never seen an ascension this fast and a track record this clean. So far, they’ve done everything right. Does that guarantee future success? No, it doesn’t. But it certainly is impressive.
Check the previous edition of the Blue Chips NFT 101 series, Solana’s “DeGods.”
Featured Image: Proof Collective NFT, promotional image from their site | Charts by TradingView
Bitcoin, likewise other cryptos, have had a hard seven days. So investors across the crypto have understandably been wary of the market and any investments at this point. This has played out in the way the digital assets have done in the market. Various dips have put the market into what looks like a long-suffering form. But while most investors hold their breaths in wait for what happens next, whales are on the move with their bitcoin investments.
Whales Gearing Up For Next Bitcoin Rally
Whales have been known to move large amounts of cryptocurrencies across wallets. These happen both in times of bull and bear markets. One thing that metrics have shown recently is that whales are using the current price crashes as a buying opportunity. Movements from BTC wallets holding around 100 to 10,000 bitcoins, otherwise known as whales, show that these investors are completely unfazed by current market trends.
Related Reading | How Shrinking Short-Term Supply Of Bitcoin Is Affecting The Asset’s Price
Data shows that wallets with at least 100 to 10,000 BTC have been increasing their holdings in the last couple of days. These whales have now accumulated over $2.9 billion worth of bitcoin since the week began. Following the price crash that happened on September 7th, the market entered into a period of low momentum. Price remained around the $45K to $47K, with not much in the way of movements either way. Presenting a perfect opportunity for big-time investors to fill up their bags.
BTC price trading in the mid-$47K range | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Another interesting metric is the spending rate of the whale wallets. On-chain analysis shows that these wallets are not doing much in the way of spending their bitcoins. Rather, the assets held in the wallets have remained in their position. Usually only moving in what looks to be the investors or entities moving their coins to other personal wallets. In short, the whales are accumulating and they do not plan to sell anytime soon.
Market Sentiment Turns To Neutral
The market crash last week saw market sentiment do a complete 180. The Fear & Greed Index the week before had shown increasing positive sentiment amongst investors, when the index had moved from greed into extreme greed. This put the market under immense buy pressure the week leading up to one of the biggest news of bitcoin adoption; the sovereign nation of El Salvador making BTC a legal tender.
Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course
The market, however, did not respond the way it was expected to on the day the law became official. Instead of triggering a continuation of the bull run the market had been in, BTC had lost over 17% of its value in a flash crash. The Fear & Greed Index promptly moved into the fear region after the crash, where it stayed for the rest of the week.
Fear & Greed Index moves into neutral | Source: Fear & Greed Index on Alternative.me
Now, though, the index has moved into neutral. Gaining 7 points from last week’s Fear 46 to put it in a neutral spot. Although the index shows a drop of five points between yesterday and today. Showing that the index is slowing sliding back into neutral, given that market sentiment is still greatly skewed towards the negative.
Featured image from Pinterest, charts from TradingView.com and alternative.me