Following yesterday’s excitement over Binance Labs and SkyArk, it looks like it’s open season with crypto twitter influencers are going after other projects.
One fave target is NFT collection Valhalla. Launching in August 2022, the 10,000 PFP collection raised $4 million from its mint, which has done $38 million in lifetime trading volume. The most expensive single sale was $34,400.
Self-defined as “the crypto native brand for gamers” — although seen by many as an Azuki copycat — Valhalla emerged from US startup Stacked, which had previously raised $15 million from the likes of Pantera Capital and Line Ventures to build a gaming streaming platform.
The launch of Valhalla was designed to synergize Stacked into becoming a web3 streaming platform. To-date, Stacked remains a fairly lightweight video platform — without web3 — although they have just added “reactions”.
Instead CEO Alex Lin has announced ARTIFACT-01, a mechanical keyboard, which will be produced in a limited-edition of 300, because it’s so expensive. Price TBA but NFT holders get a discount.
And it’s this which appears to have been the final straw for some NFT holders, who amongst other complaints point out mechanical keyboards were not on the original roadmap.
As for Lin, he’s posted a long tweet explaining his side of the situation, albeit with the comments turned off and then cancelled a planned AMA. Crypto KOLs are arguing back — here, here and here.
And the market is voting him down too. From a floor price of over 1.3 ETH in early 2023, you can currently pick up an NFT for an all-time-low of under 0.1 ETH. Someone’s even offered to buy Lin out of Valhalla entirely, although the price — 69 ETH; $159,645 — looks more meme than solid business proposal.
Obviously, the success of Pudgy Penguins following the buyout of the original team by US entrepreneur Luca Netz is the model here. The contrast is Netz paid $2.5 million.
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