He Nakamigos NFT Project is drawing attention in the Web3 community. After hitting the scene with a public mint on March 23, it took just four days for the collection to overtake the NFT giant. Bored Monkey Yacht Club in lifetime trading and has done 5,423 ETH (nearly $6 million) in trading volume on the secondary market as of this writing.
Arguably, the collection’s success rests on two things, neither of which fails to spark interest in Web3 spheres: the proven track record of its founder, and the wildly speculative intrigue of the project’s origin and associations. Here we take a look at what the Nakamigos project is, who’s behind it, and weigh in on the rumors apparently connecting it to one of the most prominent players in all of Web3.
What is the Nakamigos NFT Collection?
Nakamigos is a 20K PFP project of HiFo Laboratories, a little-known company that claims its team has been producing NFTs and digital projects for the past five years. The NFTs in the collection are 24×24 pixel characters in a style reminiscent of CryptoPunks. The collection derives its name from the pseudonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto (Nakamigos being “friends of Nakamoto”).
According a blog post of the project, the artist behind Nakamigos is “an OG crypto artist” who may or may not choose to reveal his identity at some point in the future. Some have speculated that this artist is none other than Sartoshi, the NFT influencer and crypto artist behind the popular 2021 mfers collection.
The reason for such speculation stems from the fact that the rise of Nakamigos is closely related to Sartoshi’s history in space.
Before creating mfers, Sartoshi had amassed a large following on Web3 Twitter, which helped solidify the project’s success when it launched in November 2021. But in June 2022, Sartoshi decided to leave mfers, claiming he intended to to hand over project leadership and funds to the community in a show of commitment to the Web3 ethos of decentralization.
The move was controversial; many called his abdication a scam, while others noted that the decision was something that various members of the community had been calling for for a long time.
To mark his departure from the project, Sartoshi coined the sartoshi ending – eos pass collection, which served as a sentimental farewell to his community. Six months later, however, Sartoshi returned, and many on Web3 were wondering how he would pick up the pieces of a controversial departure and continue his community.
In a tweet from February 16, Sartoshi apparently delivered. He informed his followers that Nakamigos was going to be a 20K PFP project, and that eos pass holders would be awarded a free mint from the collection one day before it was made available to the public on March 23. However, Sartoshi’s exact role in the relationship with the project has yet to be officially clarified.
The origins of Nakamigos: a connection to Larva Labs?
Since the release of Nakamigos, rumors have been swirling on Web3 Twitter about HiFo Labs’ possible connection to Larva Labs, the company initially behind CryptoPunks (CryptoPunks sold to Yuga Labs in 2022).
Proponents of this theory point to the aesthetic similarities of the collections and the fact that the Nakamigos license agreement is explicitly modeled after the one Yuga Labs did for the collection after they acquired Larva’s IP in early 2022. However, there is currently no evidence to support these claims.
Regardless, Nakamigos clearly felt that he needed address rumors, posting “No Larva. No Yuga. nakamigos. to Twitter on March 27.
Nakamigos holders will retain commercial rights
What is clear about the collection is that the Nakamigos team grants holders commercial rights to their NFTs, allowing them to monetize them however they see fit. He License agreement it states that holders can even register their NFT as long as it is “used in commerce” and not just by intent of use.
While not a Creative Commons (CC0) license, this type of IP usage permission is quite powerful. Allowing trading rights has allowed top-tier NFT holders like Bored Ape Yacht Club to capitalize on their digital tokens significantly, starting everything from restaurants to wine companies as a result.
Where to buy and featured sales
The 20,000 Nakamigos NFTs have been minted. eos pass holders received early access to the collection on march 22, and the public mint went live on march 23 at a dutch auction which started at 1 ETH and went down to 0.01
ETH. However, interested buyers can find them on the Secondary market, with the collection floor currently at 0.18 ETH. However, some of the rarer NFTs in the collection trade for much more than that. Nakamigos #7762, who is wearing an orange hoodie and helmet, recently sold for 1,690 ETH, and ghost Nakamigos #3648 sold for a healthy 16 ETH on March 28.
The Nakamigos team has been promoting the project in a classic Web3 way, having given away 24 NFT fees from Nakamigos to well-known and influential figures in the NFT community. Recipients include Manifold’s Richerd Chan, Art Blocks CEO Erick Calderon, Seedphrase, collector and thought leader Cozomo de’ Medici, and more.
What’s next for Nakamigos?
The future of Nakamigos is as hidden as HiFo Labs itself. With no Discord and no other social media channel other than his official Twitter handle, Nakamigos has so far communicated relatively little to its community and thus remains an esoteric project. But for those looking to get a compelling NFT from a collection that seems to be aiming to be some sort of spiritual successor to CryptoPunks, Nakamigos could be a great buy.
The fact that the team stresses merchandising rights for holders is another interesting aspect of the project, which could signal a larger yet-to-be-revealed IP set from HiFo Labs.
Various Web3 projects have made increasingly frequent efforts to monetize their IP in the last year, and some have been successful in doing so. But that can only happen if the Nakamigos community decides it wants to take advantage of those capabilities, something that will be hard for HiFo Labs to incentivize without first fostering more trust among its owner base. For that, the company will have to come out of the shadows a bit. Hope it does in the not too distant future.
