Moonbirds debuted as one of the most hyped NFT collections in 2022 since it is developed by PROOF, a company co-founded by veteran Internet entrepreneur Kevin Rose. Despite the fact, this comes as a surprise considering the mint price was a whopping 2.5 ETH ($7,800 at the time).
To serve as a comparison, Bored Apes mint price was less than $200 and DeGods was at $474.
But if you had bought that it would have multiplied eight-folds five days later, when the owl collection had reached an all-time high of 20 ETH ($62K).
On top of an all-time trading volume of over 169.1K ETH (As of September 2022) for Moonbirds alone, PROOF also raised another $50M in a Series A round. This goes to show how much reputation still matters even in web3.
Moonbirds is not the easiest project to understand. It has many moving parts that eventually go together as it builds its metaverse called Highrise.
This article is intended for readers who are keen to know about Moonbirds and its ecosystem. If you’re trying to decide whether to buy or not, we recommend you read from start to finish in order to increase your chances of making an informed decision. They are quite expensive, mind you.
What are Moonbirds?
Moonbirds is an Ethereum-based NFT collection of 10,000 utility-enabled profile pictures (PFPs) featuring pixelated owls with various algorithmically-generated attributes. Every avatar is unique and holds multiple benefits for its owners to unlock over time.
It basically serves as the PFP of the PROOF community, reflecting a wide variety of PFP traits. They can look all-seeing, wise, knowledge-driven, profound, cute, or anything. It seems like they can stare at you, only to find yourself hypnotized by their charm. However, they have more to offer that meets the eye, which shall be covered in the next sections.
Additionally, Moonbirds has no roadmap, but most of its activities were designed to quickly grow the project’s community. For instance, the team distributed the 10,000 PFPs in three different ways depending on their uses: 7,875 for allowlist winners through a public sale; 2,000 for PROOF collective members, receiving two free mints for 1,000 total passes; and the remaining 125 for future purposes.
All the generated funds were also allocated to PROOF, which aims to explore other opportunities in the metaverse through launching new products and creating additional value for the community.
Nesting
Nesting is Moonbirds’ advanced staking mechanism that allows holders to stake their bird NFTs without the asset leaving their wallets. Staking Moonbirds NFTs give holders benefits that upgrade over time depending on their respective tiers. Generally, the longer a Moonbird is nested, the more the rate of rewards increases.
For example, rare Moonbirds can get additional benefits compared to commons. Rewards come in the form of various perks, including access to IRL events, airdrops, physical goods, and the most awaited of all, the chance to mint Moonbird Mythics.
Note that stakers can only reach the next levels by completing a nesting streak. If a streak is broken, which happens when a holder un-nests his NFT, the rank resets.
Holders can nest their feathered friends in the Moonbirds nesting portal by connecting their web3 wallets.
Moonbird Oddities
Moonbird Oddities is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that serve as Moonbird pellets, meaning they are the ‘expelled food’ that the Moonbirds regurgitate (gross but funny, eh?). It is made by the same developers as Moonbirds, obviously. The project comprises randomly generated traits and features, but each combination is unique.
These NFTs are also inspired by the imagination of Gremplin, forming an artist and Moonbird Oddities collaboration. Although the project is relatively new, holders can expect to see more of its world as the team continuously digs the ancient eggs, which seems like an adventure for the hunters, but no one will ever know until it comes.
Projects like to create on-chain games like these for the community to enjoy and maybe help bring awareness to the project (if the community likes it).
Moonbirds Intellectual Property
The project team redefined the copyright terms for Moonbirds, moving forward with CC0 public license, which grants anybody the right to use the Moonbird NFT artworks under certain conditions. This means that even non-holders can recreate Moonbird pfps, print similar designs on wearables and monetize them, launch a derivative collection, and many more.
This decision was met with mixed reactions, with various community members rallying for and against it. The largest criticism of CC0 for Moonbirds is the fact that holders will lose their exclusive rights to their NFTs.
However, the founders strongly believe in the importance of applying web3 principles in making Moonbirds inclusive and open to all by enabling on-chain records to dictate “true ownership”, not state- or corporate-run record house or servers.
Check out the full announcement of Kevin Rose here. For further reading on NFT IP rights, see our NFT copyright article.
Moonbird Mythics
Moonbirds Mythics is a forthcoming pfp collection that consists of 20,000 NFTs that will expand the Moonbirds universe. Unlike its predecessor, which came in the form of pixelated art, each Moonbird Mythic will have high-fidelity artwork, as the collection is set to launch sometime in 2023.
How to Acquire a Moonbird Mythic
While the collection is not yet live, you can already hatch a Moonbird Mythic in two ways.
The most obvious way to get one is to simply nest a Moonbird. About 25 Mythics will hatch per day, and they’ll be randomly selected among nesters. Another way to hatch a Mythic is to burn an Oddity. There is also a limit of 25 Oddities that can be burned per day.
What is PROOF Collective?
PROOF Collective is an NFT-gated community composed of collectors and artists, with each pass allowing members to gain exclusive benefits. The collective is powered by holders of Moonbirds and PROOF Collective NFTs, founded by the same guy (Kevin Rose; yes he is well-known long before NFTs existed). PROOF revolves around two main objectives: to add value and grow the brand in numerous ways.
What does this have to do with Moonbirds? PROOF will be creating exclusive benefits and dropping new NFTs over time for Moonbird holders to enjoy. It is currently working on Moonbird Mythics
Every PROOF Collective member must have an NFT pass, which only has a 1,000 supply, and is listed in NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, providing everyone the chance to enjoy private access to Discord, podcast, IRL events, and more.
On August 30, 2022, PROOF secured a $50 million Series A funding round to commence the development of its “consumer web3 platform”.
You can buy PROOF Collective NFTs here.
What is the Highrise Metaverse?
The Highrise Metaverse is another PROOF project focused on bringing the community together to share art and establish connections. Moonbirds NFTs will serve as the key to experiencing this never-before-seen vision.
Although the project team only teases small information about Highrise, the plan is to build it with a significant difference from already existing metaverse creations. Moonbirds holders and the PROOF Collective members will be sitting in the front row to experience the new world to be built by Rose and his team.
As the metaverse worlds can potentially grow in the future, PROOF has begun building its own, which aims for the community to get up in the morning with something fun to look forward to.
Who Created Moonbirds?
Moonbirds is led by none other than Kevin Rose himself, an American web2 entrepreneur who co-founded some of the earliest successful social media companies like Digg and Pownce. He also spent years exploring cryptocurrencies, utility NFTs, DeFi, and more.
He works with two other notable people in building the project: Justin Mezzell as co-founder and Ryan Carson as chief operating officer.
The three collectively share their expertise in making Moonbirds and PROOF distinctive projects that will continuously provide value to their communities. Although Moonbirds is already well-embraced in the NFT world, its founding team has more tricks up their sleeves: they claim to be able to make the metaverse a fun-filled space to delve into.
What Makes Moonbirds Stand Out?
Moonbirds became one of the blue-chip NFT projects on Ethereum for a reason. Let’s explore the winning attributes of the project.
Incentivized Staking Mechanism
Moonbirds’ staking process is set up in a way that encourages holders to stay for the long term as their rewards will compound the longer they are staked, which further discourages selling. In fact, some rewards require a certain duration of nesting before they can be claimed.
Lastly, the project team ensures that nested Moonbirds have improved security functions, protecting them from being stolen using common phishing methods.
PROOF
The first focus of the PROOF Collective is to provide DEEP DIVES, concise weekly reports of newly-launched projects prepared by its research analyst team. PROOF members also get an opportunity to be Discord curators, assigning posts and NFT news as highlights based on their respective niche or expertise.
Furthermore, PROOF Collective offers its academy to educate the community about technical-related NFT topics and the like. Membership will also not be complete without the PROOF OF CONFERENCE, where everyone can build valuable connections and let themselves bloom in the metaverse.
Lastly, artists always have a place in PROOF Collective. Therefore, the team launched Grails, an annual event for collaborations where participating designers get 100% of primary sales and 80% of royalties from secondary sales. The community can mint the artworks of the most talented creators and builders in the web3 space, like Gary Vaynerchuk, Larva Labs, and more.
Kevin Rose
What?! He was the face of social media before Facebook took over. He’s kind of a big deal.
How to Buy Moonbirds
If you want to buy Moonbirds, you’re gonna need a web3 wallet that supports the Ethereum blockchain. We recommend MetaMask. Be sure that you have enough ETH in that wallet to pay for your Moonbird NFT plus gas fees.
Once that’s done, you can connect your wallet to OpenSea at any time. Click on the links for the associated NFTs you’d like to buy:
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