Gitcoin Presents… Vitalik NFT? Degens Get Rekt, Accidentally Fund Charity.

Gitcoin Presents… Vitalik NFT? Degens Get Rekt, Accidentally Fund Charity.

This week saw an NFT collection go from hype to hazard. "The Quadratic Funding Record" was quietly dropped on March 7th by Gitcoin and Metalabel. These NFTs include a digitized edition of “Liberal Radicalism” a paper about Quadratic Funding that was co-authored by Vitalik Buterin. Because of Vitalik’s involvement, the philanthropic, ‘use web3 for good’ ethos of Gitcoin was forgotten; instead, NFT degens got wind of a “Vitalik NFT” and aped in!

Quadratic Funding Record, Gitcoin Presents

What started as a modest 0.05 Ethereum mint, turned into a rollercoaster of boom and bust. At its peak, this Gitcoin presents collection had a floor price North of 0.75 Ethereum. Influencers like Farokh shilled the collection. Whales like MachiBigBrother swallowed up the supply. Then the banking crisis news hit. The rally was crushed. 

Currently, the collection is trading back around mint price, 0.05 Eth. Many lost money on this crashing collection–at least they inadvertently funded charity! No one lost as big as Machi who realized an estimated ~3500 Eth in losses before gas fees! 

This incident is indicative of a degen attitude prevalent in NFTs: blind Anons following blind influencers, money being spent without any meaningful research backing the buys. Usually cases like this fund scams! Thankfully this episode saw over 11,250 Eth spent on a charitable effort. However, the idea that this was a "Vitalik NFT" in any meaningful way was and is laughable. His only involvement is that he wrote a paper that is commemorated in the NFT. It's not like, as some people thought, he is a dev of this new project. These facts are easily found on the collection's mint site.

NFT degeneracy is alive and well! As the bear market continues, it is worth pondering if this behavior indicates that the bottom is NOT yet in. In most cases, the bottom of a market is indicated by an absolute dearth of market participants; however, the NFT market has consistently found buyers despite a tough two years. While it seems unlikely that Ethereum will go below the $880 low from 2022, it does seem unusual that interest and prices in NFTs have not completely cratered since the highs of 2021. Perhaps degens are here to stay no matter the market conditions? Whether the market gets better or worse, it is always important to DYOR and second guess any influencer shills!

Writer and Redlion's editor-in-chief. Musician, 🥁 streamed over 100,000,000 times playing for Caught A Ghost, Magic Bronson and more. 2017 Experian hack victim... made the benefits of web3 easy to understand. Listening is his superpower.

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