Pranksy & The Bored Apes: Using Nansen for NFT Alpha

Pranksy & The Bored Apes: Using Nansen for NFT Alpha

NFTs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Currently Nansen offers ERC721 based analytics geared towards NFT collections such as Board Ape Yacht Club and The Wicked Craniums.

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NFTs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Currently, Nansen offers ERC721 based analytics geared towards NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and The Wicked Craniums. Such collections often feature around 10,000 NFTs, with each NFT bearing individual traits making some more valuable than others. 

Nansen Chart - Bored Ape Yacht Club
Aesthetics or scarcity? Despite Bored-Unshaven-Pizza being the rarest trait (0.26%), the aesthetically popular Fur-Solid-Gold (0.46%) currently attracts a floor-price premium of +44% (around +21,000 USD).

Having traits in common with other NFTs enables collections to foster a sense of community and exclusiveness. Using such an NFT as a social media avatar gives holders added social capital and allows an instant connection with like-minded people. The premium attached to exclusive NFTs has led to a booming collectibles market. Early investors who can decipher genuine innovation from a quick money-grab often reap both the reputational and economic benefits. 

Nansen Chart of Realized Gains - Bored Ape Yacht Club
With 1630 ETH (3.2 million USD) in realized gains, the renowned Pranksy tops the leaderboard for the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

From Minting to Secondary Market

NFT collections often begin in a minting stage where users create new NFTs directly from the contract through the project’s own website using a MetaMask extension. Once all NFTs are minted the activity moves to the secondary market. Most secondary sales happen on OpenSea, which is also a good place to check the traits of a new NFT. 

Nansen - NFT Collections
Nansen’s NFT God Mode: The steady growth of Bored Ape Yacht Club in volume and price has been equally matched by the number of unique wallets purchasing NFTs from the collection.

NFT collections have developed their own breed of tokenomics with each project developing new quirks and innovations. Here are some key questions to ask when a project is just starting out: 

  • What is the price of the NFT initially and how many NFTs are there in total?
  • Is there a bonding curve on the minting contract that increases as more NFTs are minted? This acts as a discount to early buyers.
  • Is the NFT and its traits revealed instantly or is there a set reveal date in the future?

NFT Paradise 

NFT Paradise allows a comparison of NFT projects over the last 24 hours. Nansen’s automated data gives market insight for NFT collections from the moment a new contract is deployed.

Nansen - NFT Paradise
NFT Paradise: Key metrics for NFT collections over the last 24 hours.

‍What do all these columns mean? 

  • Volume in ETH has become a leading metric for evaluating NFT markets whereas the estimated market cap (avg price x total NFTs) indicates the total value of a collection.
  • The Max, Avg and Min price columns reveal the price range and nature of market activity. 
  • The %Opensea+Rarible column is the percent volume of sales coming from Opensea and Rarible marketplaces. It will begin to increase as a collection moves from the minting stage to the secondary market.
  • The Transfers and Unique Sends column indicates popularity and allows users to flag potential manipulation by projects seeking to inflate volume.
  • Last but not least, the Contract Date column can sort a collection by the newest deployed contracts allowing projects which have just started minting to be quickly identified and tracked.

Want to track which NFTs Smart Money wallets like Pranksy are buying? Sign up for a Nansen account here!

NFT God Mode

Once a user is interested in a particular NFT collection they can click through from NFT Paradise to drill down further into data using NFT God mode.

Of particular importance here is the scatter graph called Individual Transactions. This graph reveals the floor price and confidence level. Floor price is a term used to denote the minimum price any NFT can likely be sold for. Whilst an NFT with rare traits might attract a large premium, the more common NFTs are usually traded at the floor price. As NFTs are not fungible the floor price is an important indicator of how liquid an NFT collection is and the best price for a quick sale. The scatter graph also allows inspection of the most valuable NFTs and again allows a price estimation for potential sales. If you’re curious about why a specific NFT trades at a higher price, click on the scatter graph dot to follow it through to the item profile dashboard. 

Nansen - Individual transactions
Tightly clustered dots in the scatter graph indicate a good confidence in the floor price: Here the Bored Ape NFT floor price is pushing 4 ETH (11k USD) from a mint price of .08 ETH (200 USD).

Top tip: The golden dots in the scatter graph highlight notable users buying and are an indication of the overall reputation and influence of an NFT collection.  

Breakdown

In breakdown, you can see who the top buyers are and what they are doing. This is where Nansen’s labels contribute to a deeper level of insight into how the market is shaped. In Top Balances we can see who owns the most NFTs and if they are buying or selling. Clicking a name links through to the NFT wallet profile which includes a further breakdown of all NFTs owned by that wallet. NFT God Mode also offers additional graphs and tables showing historical balances for top holders, smart money and different types of collectors. 

Nansen - Top Balances by total NFTs owned
Top Balances: Dingaling.eth is the top holder for Bored Ape NFTs whilst Pranksy sees a weekly outflow of +100 Apes. 

At the time of minting Pranksy owned over 1,200 Bored Ape NFTs (over 10% of the market) and has slowly sold many as the collection gains popularity. What happens when that sell pressure ends? We can gauge sentiment in this question by investigating the trades tab and seeing if smart money or legendary wallets are buying or selling. 

Nansen - Legendary Collector Buying
Legendary Buyers: It’s a bullish indicator for Bored Ape Yacht Club to see such a concentrated number of legendary collectors buying. Yet a drop in the number of buys over the last few days may suggest a temporary lack in appetite from this notable group of collectors. 

Nansen specialises in tracking smart money wallets who have previously made savvy investment decisions (denoted by the 🤓 emoji). Recently we have extended a new category of NFT labels based on the volume of NFT transactions by a wallet. More about our labels can be found here.

Nansen - NFT Collectors
Nansen NFT collector labels: A further level of insight into market activity is gained by identifying influential wallets.

These are just a few of over 30 features from 4 NFT dashboards currently being developed by Nansen for NFT based analytics. The dashboards come with a hefty disclaimer and are still undergoing beta testing with new features and coverage being constantly developed. You can currently gain access by purchasing an Alpha or VIP subscription at https://www.nansen.ai/plans. Whilst it is certainly not a good idea to follow investors such as Pranksy and dingaling.eth blindly into trades, it may be helpful to understand what key players are doing and how these emerging markets are increasingly shaped by reputation and influence.

Want to track which NFTs Smart Money wallets like Pranksy are buying? Sign up for a Nansen account here!

We are currently looking for trial users who can feedback improvements. If you are interested, please email with a little about your background to support@nansen.ai

Disclaimer

The authors of this content and members of Nansen may be participating or invested in some of the protocols or tokens mentioned herein. The foregoing statement acts as a disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and is not a recommendation to purchase or invest in any token or participate in any protocol. Nansen does not recommend any particular course of action in relation to any token or protocol. The content herein is meant purely for educational and informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as financial, investment, legal, tax or any other professional or other advice. None of the content and information herein is presented to induce or to attempt to induce any reader or other person to buy, sell or hold any token or participate in any protocol or enter into, or offer to enter into, any agreement for or with a view to buying or selling any token or participating in any protocol. Statements made herein (including statements of opinion, if any) are wholly generic and not tailored to take into account the personal needs and unique circumstances of any reader or any other person. Readers are strongly urged to exercise caution and have regard to their own personal needs and circumstances before making any decision to buy or sell any token or participate in any protocol. Observations and views expressed herein may be changed by Nansen at any time without notice. Nansen accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or liabilities arising from the use of or reliance on any of this content.

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