On January 4, 2023, The Captainz NFT Collection began its 48-hour minting period. Priced at 1,069 ETH per mint, the collection of 9,999 pirate-themed NFTs has seen 6,790ETH (more than $9 million) in trading volume in the first five days of its existence. With a floor price that currently sits at a healthy 5.34 ETH, The Captainz is in OpenSea’s top 10 collection list by 24-hour and 7-day trading volume.
But the success of The Captainz didn’t come out of nowhere. The collection is just the latest release from one of the most successful and irreverent communities in the NFT space: Memeland. This is what makes the Web3 brand so successful and why you should expect even bigger things from the community in 2023.
What is Memeland?
Memeland is a Web3 venture studio created by Web2 mainstay 9GAG, the Hong Kong-based meme-focused entertainment website that launched in 2008. Having amassed over 200 million followers across its various social media platforms since then, 9GAG was well-positioned to connect with the Web3 space when it announced Memeland in April 2022.
9GAG CEO Ray Chan and his team founded Memeland as the Web3 business wing of the social platform, which has the stated goal of under-promising and over-delivering, according to the studio’s official website.
“The core mission of Memeland is to create a creator economy on Web3,” Chan explained in a September 2022 podcast episode with the ingenious. “Us [are trying] to build social networks on Web3, but in the sense that, hey, can creators own what they create?
Memeland’s approach to Web3 is simple: watch the market, watch the trends that have become familiar to NFT communities, and “micro-innovate” on top of that to deliver added value to your community. The strategy seems to be working. Of course, it doesn’t hurt for Memeland advisers and investors to include The research arm of Animoca Brand Animoca Digital Research, Moonbirds’ Kevin Rose and VeeFriends’ Gary Vee.
To date, Memeland has released three NFT collections, each serving as an entry point into the Memeland economy, which will likely include a metaverse at some point in the venture studio’s future.
YOU THE TRUE MVP
Memeland’s inaugural NFT drop came in June 2022 with YOU THE TRUE MVP, a gold trophy 420 JPEG premium alpha group membership pass that grants holders access and information on upcoming Memeland installments, private access to the Memeland Discord MVP Lounge, IRL events and collaborations. The collection represents the top tier of the Memeland economy and was a clear signal to the NFT community that 9GAG’s Web3 arm is aiming to build a project to compete with some of the most prominent players on the scene.
Memeland launched the collection through a blind auction which priced each NFT in the collection at a hefty 5.3 ETH. Within seven days, Memeland claimed that YOU THE REAL MVP generated over 900 ETH in revenue. Despite the bear market, its momentum has grown, with the minimum price of the collection currently standing at 38 ETH.
the potato
The follow-up to the release of YOU THE REAL MVP, Memeland’s Potatoz was a free collection of 9,999 PFPs that dropped in July 20, 2022. The collection features potato-themed characters and traits inspired by memes and pop culture and serves as an entry-level entry point into the Memeland economy.
The potato theme stems from 9GAG’s long tradition of rewarding readers of long meme posts on the site with an image of a potato with the words “sorry for the long post, here’s a potato” above it. Early collectors could “grow” their Potaz NFTa process similar to the “nesting” process of Moonbirds, to evolve it from Stage 0 to Stage 5. The more a holder of their Potatoz bets, the higher the chance they will receive benefits in the future as the economy of Memeland expands (via allowlist spots for future releases, access to IRL events, and Memeland’s future token, $MEME).
Over time, the NFTs in the collection slowly evolved from semi-anonymous characters of potatoes, plant sprouts, donuts, and various other shapes to fully-fledged animated potato humanoids that look like they’ve been ripped straight out of a video game character selector menu. With 4,189 owners, the collection has recorded more than 20,357 ETH ($27 million) in sales volume since its launch and currently has a floor price of 2.1 ETH.
the captain
Having gone through two successful collector’s mints in 2022, Memeland released what it calls its “premier” collection, the captain, on January 4, 2023, for a mint price of 1,069 ETH. Like The Potatoz, The Captainz is a collection of 9999 utility-enabled NFTs that acts as a mid-tier entry point to Memeland, sandwiched between YOU, THE REAL MVP, and The Potatoz. The usefulness and benefits for Captainz holders have yet to be fully revealed, and the artwork remains a mystery.
The Memeland website indicates that Captainz holders will receive benefits related to their $MEME token and Treasure Islandz, their next project rumored to be a Memeland metaverse experience. In the few days since its launch, The Captainz has made 6,774 ETH ($9 million) in trading volume and has a current minimum price of 5.34 ETH. After the success of the collection, the Twitter account of Memelandia he responded in a truly 9GAG-inspired way.
Captainz holders also have a voice in Memeland DAO, helping make decisions about DAO treasury, future brand partnerships, governance rules, and more.
The future of Memeland
Memeland has shown a strong understanding of the NFT and crypto markets, creating and delivering to its community during one of the lowest points the industry has seen yet. Much like Reddit’s NFT magic, 9GAG has shown Web2 social media platforms that it’s possible to navigate intelligently in the Web3 space, even if you’re not a native of it.
Memeland has repeatedly emphasized that your next $MEME token will be different than the average NFT token that “regular people don’t care about”. How your team introduces that token in the future will significantly affect the ecosystem, which could lead to even greater success. Likewise, his still-mysterious Treasure Islandz project has Memeland and the larger NFT community waiting with bated breath.
Beyond this, the Memeland website notes that it has several other projects in the works, including a “Tripadvisor for Your Web3 Journey,” a tongue-in-cheek “Web3 OnlyFans,” a site for cryptocurrency staking, and a platform for cryptocurrency lovers. pets. . This sounds like a tall order, but given what the Memeland team has done in the last seven months, it’s not unreasonable to expect them to do it in spectacular fashion.
