A Complete Guide to Moonbirds in 2024

From a $300 million debut to the overthrow of its founder and acquisition by one of the biggest names in Web3, this nft collection has been through it all and continues to this day.

That nft collection is Moon birds.

These owls prove that an nft collection can fall but never disappear, but what are they, what should you know about them, and how did they get to where they are today?

Here is our complete 2024 guide for <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/moonbirds” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Moon birds.

What is Moonbirds?

Moonbirds is a series of 10,000 owl nfts on the ethereum blockchain, created by <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/proof_xyz” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>TEST Collective. Designed by <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/JustinMezzell” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Justin MezzellProduct Director at PROOF Collective, each Moonbird fuses a select number of algorithmically generated traits, such as faces, clothing, accessories, and more.

The idea for the collection came from <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/kevinrose” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Kevin Rosaan internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of a news aggregator. <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/digg” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>dig. He founded PROOF Collective, a group of nft enthusiasts that included <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/beeple” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Beeple and <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/garyvee” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Gary Vaynerchuk – as a way to boost the nft industry.

At launch, 2,000 Moonbirds were reserved for members of the PROOF Collective, with 7,875 available to the public and the remaining 125 held by the PROOF team for future initiatives.

Moonbirds nfts have a unique staking mechanism called “nesting.” By nesting a Moonbird, the holder gains ever-increasing benefits and rewards, but cannot sell or transfer the nft while doing so. These benefits include early access to future products, community benefits, merchandise delivery, and more.

PROOF Collective was acquired by the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club Yuga Laboratories in February 2024, with Yuga now leading the management, planning and outlook for the collection as a whole.

The story of the moonbirds.

Moonbirds were minted on April 16, 2022 and were priced at 2.5 eth each. Despite this price, all 10,000 Moonbirds nfts sold out in just two days, and rampant trading on the secondary market saw the collection quickly surpass $300 million in trading volume, making it the biggest debut of nfts in history.

In May 2022, PROOF was published <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/oddities_xyz” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>raritiesan associated 10,000-piece ethereum-based nft collection for Moonbirds, available through the nesting system.

In August 2022, Moonbirds and Oddities adopted a CC0 license, putting nft art into the public domain. This caused a huge backlash, as instead of the rights going to each holder, they were now publicly available without the need for permissions. <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/Lakoz_/status/1555570398267412480″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>a holder He claimed that they lost a “six-figure licensing deal” as a result of this previously unannounced move.

In April 2023, PROOF introduced the $TALONS token, earned by nesting Moonbirds. This token could be used to purchase exclusive merchandise, earn pass passes, and more.

At the same time, PROOF also revealed Mythics, a second ethereum-based companion collection with 20,000 nfts that could be acquired by nesting Moonbirds or burning Oddities nfts.

With three nft collections diluting the perceived value of Moonbirds, a switch to the CC0 license that was widely criticized, and a poor reception to the $TALONS token, the Moonbirds price floor plummeted from an all-time high of 37 eth to less than 2 eth. in 12 months.

Its poor community sentiment would fall further when on May 29, 2023, co-founder Kevin Rose stated that Moonbirds was “not as bad as BAYC in USD terms.” This statement, which came at a time when Moonbirds was below 2 eth while Bored Apes was at 45 eth, was received incredibly poorly and only fueled growing discontent.

Moonbirds continued to sink, falling below 1 eth in January 2024. By then, rumors had begun to circulate that Rose was looking to sell the collection, and numerous community figures posted public offers to buy out management of Moonbirds on the networks. social.

The rumor became reality, with the announcement in February 2024 that PROOF Collective and all of its nft collections, including Moonbirds, had been acquired by <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/BoredApeYC” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Bored Ape Yacht Club creators <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/yugalabs” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Yuga Laboratories.

In April 2024, Yuga introduced the Moonbirds Universe, a metaverse-like virtual world that planned to integrate with its existing ones. <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/OthersideMeta” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>other side metaverse

The month also saw Yuga Labs revoking the CC0 license for Moonbirds and Oddities, a widely praised move that many saw as correcting the mistake made by PROOF when issuing the license in August 2022, ensuring that holders retained the rights to their image. nfts.

New illustrated artwork was introduced for each Moonbirds nft in June 2024, and holders were able to switch between the original pixel-based art and the new hand-drawn illustrated style.

Despite much excitement surrounding the acquisition, Moonbirds has remained largely silent since the new artwork arrived, with no major new developments to highlight. This lack of movement is reflected in the price floor, with Moonbirds now trading at around 0.34 eth at the time of writing.

What's next for the Moonbirds?

Unlike many other so-called “top of the line” nft collections, such as Azuki, Doodles, and Bored Apes, there is no clear plan, direction, or roadmap for what the future of Moonbirds will look like.

The last major update was the reactivation of the Talons Marketplace, which allows users to spend $TALONS tokens on nfts from other collections, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/squiggleDAO” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>chrome doodlesDeadfellaz and <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/cryptoadzNFT” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>CryptoToadz. Although Moonbirds benefits from what's happening in the Yuga ecosystem in general, the Yuga team's focus has decidedly shifted away from Moonbirds in recent months, at least publicly.

Despite this, the Moonbirds social accounts continue to move forward, building a narrative around Moonbirds and exploring the lore and world around them. In terms of evidence that they're building a future for the collection, this is all we've seen so far.

With Yuga Labs behind the collection, we'd be surprised if, less than a year after purchasing, they ran out of ideas or motivation to work on the Moonbirds. Will the Moonbirds Universe be a success? Can the Moonbirds recover from their current all-time low? Only time will tell.