$ASTO Discovery Auction, Murakami Flowers &

Notable Mints
Retail · MAR 30TH, 2022

Teng Yan

Aku Altered State Machine ASTO BAYC CryptoPunks Gem

Metaverse NFT / NFT |

NFT OpenSea XCOPY
Musings Gaming Insights

Disclosure: Members of our team may own NFTs or tokens related to the projects
mentioned here and may participate in the upcoming mints. This statement is
intended to disclose any conflict of interest and should not be misconstrued as a
recommendation to purchase any token or participate in any mint. This content is
for informational purposes only and you should not make decisions based solely
on it. This is not investment advice. Please exercise extreme caution if you intend
to participate in these opportunities.
State of the Market

We’re seeing some life in the NFT markets, with transaction volumes continuing
to rise slightly from last week (OpenSea volumes at 0.9B, +15% week-on-week).
This week, a new contender entered the ring with Universe.xyz launching its beta
marketplace on 25 Mar, a product that has been in development for the past 9
months and uses entirely different smart contracts from OpenSea. Universe
integrates directly with Gem.xyz too. We’ll be watching to see if it can gain
significant traction in the coming weeks.

Another major story that’s evolving in real time is Ronin’s announcement on 29

Mar that there was a security breach on the network resulting in 173,600 ETH and
25.5M USDC drained. The total value of the exploit was north of $600M, making it
one of the largest hacks in crypto history. Axie/Ronin transaction volumes will
likely be adversely affected for a period of time as users and investors ponder
the implications of this.

Over 328,000 unique wallets purchased at least 1 NFT in March. This is a

decrease of 25% from the peak in Jan 2022 but is still higher than any other
month in 2021. Given the huge design space for NFTs & growing mainstream
interest from celebrities and brands, it is a question of when, not if, these
numbers will start to pick up again.

Tiffany & Co. is the latest big brand to join the NFT movement by acquiring a Tom
Sachs: Rocket Factory NFT this week (alongside its partnership announcement).
Visa also just formally announced its new creator program, “an initiative that aims
to help digital-first artists, musicians, fashion designers, and filmmakers
accelerate their small business through non-fungible tokens (NFTs).”

Ethereum continues to maintain its dominance of sales volume by blockchain

since our last look at this in February (83% this week, unchanged). However, total
sales volumes are down significantly since then. What’s interesting though is that
Solana is capturing a rising proportion of sales volume (10% this week vs 6%
previously) from other chains. The leading NFT marketplace on Solana today is
Magic Eden, but will likely face stiff competition given OpenSea’s announcement
this week that it’ll support Solana NFTs in April.

Top NFT Collections This Week

It’s been a relatively slow week for the “Blue-chip” collections. BAYC, MAYC,
CryptoPunks, and Clone X remained stable with no significant price change.
Azuki, on the other hand, saw a whopping 50% increase in its floor price (12E to
18E). This has largely been sentiment-driven as more people now believe Azuki
could be the “next BAYC” and are positioning themselves accordingly (especially
those who missed getting into the BAYC ecosystem when prices were more
affordable). There is also speculation that Azuki could be the next major
collection to launch a fungible token (similar to $APE). If the uptrend continues,
we could see Azuki become the next 10k PFP collection to break the 20E barrier.

The top traded collection this week is World of Women Galaxy, the 2nd
collection by World of Women (WoW). All WoW holders were able to claim a free
WoW Galaxy NFT and another 10,000 were put on public sale via Dutch Auction
which sold out quickly at 1E each. It is worth keeping an eye on high-quality
Dutch Auctions because these can be profitable opportunities. Zeneca explains
how he made an on-paper profit of 4 ETH within an hour through the auction,
even though it did not “feel good” to him. Notably, WoW floor prices fell by 4E
after the drop, which indicated that the steep price increase we saw last week
was likely from buyers FOMO-ing in anticipation of the WoW Galaxy drop.

I anticipate that in the coming months we will see more top-quality PFP projects
with high floor prices drop a second collection, similar to BAYC-MAYC and WoW-
WoW Galaxy. This is a logical way to expand community membership beyond
those who hold an initial 10K collection once there is sufficient demand,
indicated by a stable or high floor price. Could Doodles be next?

In a nod to the massive strength of his brand, XCOPY’s MAX PAIN Open Editions
(covered in last week‘s Upcoming mints) sold a whopping 7,394 editions in 10
minutes. At 1E each, this is equivalent to $25M in sales. There are very few other
artists (mainstream or otherwise) who have been able to accomplish a similar
feat. Even at such a high supply, early buyers are still in profit based on current
prices.

Notable Upcoming Mints

Please note that this is purely for informational purposes only. This is not
investment advice and does not represent an endorsement of any particular
project. Minting of new projects is high-risk. The projects chosen below are
subjective and determined by the author based on the ones they find most
interesting and/or have sparked early interest from other NFT participants. We do
stress to DYOR given the risk associated with any new NFT drop.

PREMINT 2022 Collector Pass is the NFT drop by PREMINT, a tool used by
NFT projects to manage their mint access lists that’s quickly gaining
traction. Owners will be able to get access to a private calendar feed of
registration times/mint dates for all projects on the platform, track public
projects, and see which projects they qualify to be whitelisted for. This is a
timesaver for anyone whose trading strategy involves minting new projects.
Murakami.Flowers by artist Takashi Murakami is evocative of Japanese TV
games created in the 1970s. The number 108 takes the centerpiece in the
collection; a combination of 108 backgrounds and flower colors make up a
field, and there are 108 fields. Each field has 108 flower images, resulting in
11,664 flower images in total. Holders of RTFKT’s Clone X with Murakami
Drip are automatically whitelisted and are already able to mint: flower seeds
are selling for 6.5E on the secondary market! Another 6,751 will be sold via a
public raffle: register here (closes on 4 Apr). Be careful: phishing emails are
going around and be sure to verify that you are on the correct link from the
official Twitter account with the verified checkmark.
Lost SamuRise is a faction-based strategy game based on elements from
Samurai culture in classical Japan. They have partnered with Treasure DAO
and gameplay will happen on Arbitrum. In Phase 1, holders will be able to
stake their NFTs without locking in an escrow contract (i.e. tokens will be
non-transferrable but remain in the owner’s wallet), making it truly non-
custodial. Holders can also alter the appearance of their PFP by equipping
different items on it. Read the “Washipaper” here.
Akutars are a collection of 3D avatars in the Akuverse, which is centered
around an animated digital explorer named Aku. This is the creation of
former MLB player turned artist Micah Johnson (who also happens to be the
first Visa-sponsored artist). Aku NFT chapter holders will be able to claim a
free Akutar, so refer to this FAQ for more details on the drop mechanics and
eligible NFTs. The early teasers look amazing. The snapshot will be taken on
7 Apr. The remaining Akutars will be sold via public sale on 22 Apr.
 Akutars

The Possessed is a fun PFP collection in development by @tmw_buidls and

@whatthefurr. Each NFT includes a fully animated character with 2 static
PFPs (blessed / possessed) and holders will be able to select which state
they wish to use as their PFP. The amount of interest I’m seeing is
reminiscent of Invisible Friends, which makes this something worth eyeing a
whitelist for. No discord is available yet, likely within the coming weeks.
“Test Subjects” (whitelisted) are selected through various contests on
Twitter (e.g. there was a fan art competition lately).

Degen Mints

By popular request, this is a fun sub-section that lists a few mints that I would
consider extremely high-risk or speculative but may provide opportunities for
experienced traders. Note that these tend to be PFP-style plays with anon teams
and there is a much higher chance of rug pulls or project failure. Please do your
own research.

Battle Growlies is a 3D PFP collection comprising of fiesty animals by

@artbyonem & @C_reu_d, with 12 characters and over 500 traits. The reveal
will be on 8 Apr.

Weekly Highlight – $ASTO Discovery Auction

Introduction. Altered State Machine (ASM) is a platform for the ownership,

training and trading of AI agents via NFTs, which can be used across gaming
worlds and financial applications. The NFT collections include 10,000 Genesis
Brains and 40,000 AIFA All-Stars. Brains are the containers that house machine-
learning AI models for the AI agents. AIFA is a soon-to-be-released online soccer
game with players who can compete with one another. We hosted the
founders on The Delphi Podcast (available to all).

This week is a major milestone for ASM with the launch of the $ASTO
token. Practically, this means:

1. [From 29 Mar 6pm ET] Genesis Brain owners will be able to claim $ASTO
here
2. [From 30 Mar 6pm ET] $ASTO Discovery Auction lasting 1 week

The total supply of $ASTO is 2.384 billion and the only circulating supply of
$ASTO at the start of the Discovery Auction will be from the Genesis Brain
airdrop. The utility of $ASTO includes:

Genome staking – Stake $ASTO to mine Gen 2 brains

Training of brains for various use cases
DAO governance
Potential use as a currency in future games
Genesis Brains & All-Stars. Genesis brains will be airdropped 3% of the total
$ASTO supply (~71.5M $ASTO). This means each brain will be entitled to 7,152
$ASTO.

It was also revealed in Twitter Spaces this week that AIFA All-Stars will receive
2% of the total $ASTO (~46.6M $ASTO). However, this will happen at a later date
(not announced yet) via a reverse claim mechanism, where owners would
receive more $ASTO the longer they wait before claiming. There may also be a
rarity mechanic involved that affects claim amounts. Several All-Stars are trading
for less than 0.2E on the secondary market.

Discovery Auction. This is a 7-day long event that establishes the starting price of
$ASTO and also generates deep liquidity for the token. It is open to the public,
even if you do not own any brains or ASM NFTs. Unlike typical LBPs, all the
$ASTO in the discovery auction is provided by genesis brains holders and not the
team, thus it is not a fundraising mechanism. Refer to this FAQ for details.

The discovery auction is a modified version of the Liquidity Bootstrap Auction

(LBA) designed by our team at Delphi Labs.

Key things to note:

$ASTO can only be deposited in the 1st three days of the auction while
 $USDC can only be deposited in the 1st five days. Once $ASTO is
deposited, it cannot be withdrawn. Deposited $USDC can be withdrawn
day 5, with the amount eligible for withdrawals tapering off on day 6 through
the end of day 7 (see above chart).
After the 7-day event, all deposited $ASTO & $USDC will be converted into
LP tokens proportionally and locked up for 3 months. A Uniswap pool will
be available for trading of $ASTO.
The main advantage of participating is that depositors will earn weekly
$ASTO rewards. 1% of the total $ASTO supply will be distributed to locked
LP token holders over 12 weeks, with 75% going to $ASTO depositors and
25% going to $USDC depositors.

Final Thoughts:

If you have a genesis brain and $ASTO, your main decision point is whether
to participate in the auction.
If you choose to participate, you will need to claim and deposit your
$ASTO by Day 3. Note that some of your $ASTO will be converted into
$USDC (as LP tokens). You will lock your tokens for 3 months and earn
LP rewards but risk impermanent loss if $ASTO price rises significantly
after the auction. $ASTO depositors receive the lion’s share of the
rewards, so it could be substantial depending on the total amount of
$ASTO deposited.
If you do not participate, you have the option to sell your $ASTO on
Uniswap after the auction is over.
If you do not have $ASTO, it is better to watch how the auction goes before
deciding whether to participate, as there is no advantage to participating
early. After Day 3, the amount of $ASTO deposited will be locked in. You
can then calculate the freely circulating supply of $ASTO immediately after
the auction and also have a better estimate of what the potential LP
rewards could be.
As of 30 Mar, the floor price for ASM brains that have claimed $ASTO is 2.5E,
a drop from 4.5E before the claim. This may indicate that market
participants are estimating the value of $ASTO to be approximately $0.95
(2E / 7,152 tokens per brain) before the start of the discovery auction.
Before purchasing a genesis brain on OpenSea, remember to check
 whether its $ASTO has been claimed. You can also check the IQ level and
genome rank of brains using this tool.

Note that none of this is financial advice. Altered State Machine is a trailblazer in
the NFT space with a solid passionate team behind it and I am extremely excited
for what is to come!

Top News

Madonna purchases Bored Ape: “I finally entered the MetaVerse”

Pak releases Chapter Two – Metamorphosis collection.
Cool Cats sign a deal with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to explore
licensing, merchandising & brand partnerships.
Krafton, creator of PUBG:BATTLEGROUNDS, signs a deal with Solana to
develop NFT-based games and services.
Beeple is sending physical art pieces to owners of his “POLITICS IS
BULLSHIT” NFT.

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