Nowadays, there is no entry NFT (Non-Fungible Token non-homogeneous token), it seems to be the outcast of the trend, not to mention the big star - Jay Chou, who has always been quite experienced in art collection, entered the NFT and launched the Phanta Bear project.
Phanta Bear
However, Zhou Dong, who is calling the wind and rain in the Chinese music scene, seems to be a bit unable to play with NFTs. Red Star News reporters saw on OpenSea, the world's largest NFT trading platform, that although Phanta Bear's overall sales ranking is 6th, the total sales ranking in the past 7 days is 37th, and the total ranking in the last 24 hours is 43rd. The original price of each Phanta Bear NFT was 0.26 ETH (Ether, equivalent to 3988 yuan), the highest price reached 7.87 ETH (equivalent to 120733 yuan), and now the average price is only 2.05 ETH (equivalent to 31449 yuan), a decline of more than half. Some fans commented: "Leeks cut too fast, like a tornado." ”
The global NFT market size is only $100 million in 2020, but will reach $22 billion in 2021. For more and more celebrities to enter the NFT project, the head of the NFT crypto art trading platform, NFT buyers, etc. put forward their suggestions and advice, frankly saying that the NFT is a risk asset and will cool down in the next few years. "It will take years for any crypto market (let alone NFT) to gradually function more stably like traditional markets." One data analyst put it this way.
System downtime was caused by a surge in traffic
But it also "passed" faster than expected
NFTs are known as the infrastructure of the metacosm. Unlike bitcoin-equivalent homogeneous tokens commonly found in the market, NFTs are reliable proof of the authenticity and ownership of digital assets. This is equivalent to binding each token to an item on the basis of blockchain and virtual currency technology, such as pictures, videos, intellectual property rights, etc. by means of encrypted credentials. The purchaser has an immutable, transparent and unique "certificate of signature".
NFT technology can clearly show all transaction records and property ownership, ownership and circulation process is permanently engraved on the blockchain, high transparency, can not be counterfeited, greatly improving the convenience and security of transactions. In addition, NFTs do not have centralized servers and will always exist once they are released, regardless of whether the platform on which the NFTs are issued exists or not.
Screenshot of the price of Phanta Bear's official website
OpenSea, the world's leading NFT trading platform, currently has a digital collection of 80 million pieces, and the cumulative transaction volume in 2021 has exceeded 10 billion US dollars. The convergence of new technologies and concepts gives NFTs the potential to grow exponentially in value, constantly generating new wealth stories. It was on OpenSea that Jay Chou's "high-profile" Phanta Bear with goods appeared, and Zhou Dong himself also played the slogan of "Phanta Bear, East Bear West Ape, Love in Front of West Ape" on social platforms. On January 1, 10,000 Phanta Bear NFTs were officially sold, and they were sold out in 40 minutes, calculated at a unit price of 0.26 ETH per bear, and the final total transaction amount was 10 million US dollars. On January 9, the day Phanta Bear had the highest trading volume, OpenSea experienced system downtime caused by a surge in API traffic.
However, Phanta Bear also "passed" faster than expected. Even if the distributor Ezek announced the release of airdrops on Zhou Dong's birthday (January 18), with NFT to receive free T-shirts in offline stores, and posted a 53-second video on a NASDAQ billboard in New York's Times Square, it could not stop its popularity from declining. On January 18, Phanta Bear was ranked 28th in OpenSea's one-day ranking. The day before, Phanta Bear's trading volume was less than 1/10 of the high (4482.9ETH), which was 332.837 ETH (equivalent to 6.71 million yuan). At its high point (7.8717 ETH), the average price of Phanta Bear (4.0849 ETH) has shrunk by nearly half.
Phanta Bear ranked 43rd in last 24-hour sales
As of press time, PhantaBear's overall ranking in the last 24 hours has fallen to 43rd, even higher than the IreneDAO NFT initiated by Singaporean female influencer Irene Zhao. The average price has also been falling, only 2.05 ETH.
The NFT was not launched by Zhou Dong himself
But it is not unrelated to him
From a certain point of view, with the progress of the times and the increasing update of science and technology, Jay Chou's entry into the NFT is a personal choice and also a development that conforms to the times.
For Phanta Bear, although Jay Chou's company Jewell Music has issued a statement saying that the NFT was not launched by Jay Chou himself, it also stressed that he did not achieve any revenue. But it is undeniable that many people are buying for their love for Jay Chou. More true love fans use three exclusive Jay Chou days (birthday, debut day, international Jay Day) to mark prices to express their support for him. After Jay Chou's publicity, Lin Junjie, Mayday Ashin, Xiu Kaijie, Chen Guanxi, Lin Shuwei (Jeremy Lin brothers) have changed their social media avatars to Phanta Bear.
Screenshot of Zhou Dong's social media
According to the official information of the Ezek platform, Phanta Bear NFT was jointly initiated by jay Chou and his friend Ric in 2006, the fashion brand PHANTACi and the decentralized entertainment platform Ezek. Ezek's parent company, Starvision Entertainment Ltd. (S.E.L), was founded by Jay Chou's friends Liu Qihong and Geng Zhan. The Phanta Bear is a 10,000 randomly generated digital collection that also doubles as a membership card for the Ezek Club. Each Phanta Bear is unique and unlocks different levels and corresponding Ezek Club membership benefits.
According to the Ezek platform: "When filming Jay Chou's self-written and self-directed film "Rooftop" in 2013, I wondered if there could be a virtual space that allowed the audience to not only watch the movie, but also enter the romantic scene of the film aesthetic to enjoy it, and wanted to combine our fashion vision with the new blockchain era by establishing Phanta Bear NFT." ”
Red Star News reporter found that PHANTACi has a total of 6 stores around the world, all concentrated in Asia, but there are less than a thousand fans on official social media, and the content has not been updated for a long time. "There are very few products around, the shoe rack SKUs are not enough, the cardboard boxes on the floor are very cold." On January 3, on the Dianping Network, a user who claimed to be a fan of Jay Chou commented after visiting the PHANTACi Shanghai store. Ezek's official social media has nearly 100,000 followers, most of whom are directed at Jay Chou.
Phanta Bear corresponds to Zhou Dong's tide card
Why does Zhou Dong not move the NFT?
Relevant experts dissect the reasons behind it
Why can't Zhou Dong move the NFT? In this regard, Zhang Li, co-founder and chief technology officer of the Umx.art, the first domestic NFT crypto art trading platform, told Red Star News, "The NFT project itself is in China, if you don't talk about the currency circle, it is more difficult for others to enter this circle." Most of Jay Chou's fans are in China, and if they want to enter the world of NFT and buy this thing, they have more understanding of blockchain before, such as he has played virtual currency, and such people will enter the NFT market a little more. ”
In Zhang Li's view, the NFT market in China needs to be cultivated. "If there is too much hype in the early stage, it will cause it to be bad in the later stage, which is the same as stocks." Therefore, the fan group's lack of understanding of the NFT project, as well as the suspected excessive hype, are the two main reasons why Zhou Dong cannot move the NFT.
Chen Minzhi, a public relations consultant at Nanjing University and part-time tutor for MBA, is a senior NFT collector. He also paid attention to the NFT project that Jay Chou participated in, "Zhou Dong's NFT project is sold overseas, but a large number of his fans are from China, and they will be restricted from the technical level." Foreign IP is transferable, and a considerable part of the buyers are actually scalpers, and he buys this thing not for collection, but for hype and resale. In China, at present, NFTs can only be collected, and there is no way to transfer. ”
Chen Minzhi told Red Star News that Zhou Dong's statement that the NFT was not launched by Jay Chou himself, emphasizing that he did not achieve any benefits, was also the reason for the continuous decline of the Phanta Bear project. "This rumor came out, in a sense (let people) feel that the correlation between Zhou Dong and Phanta Bear is not particularly strong, so suddenly everyone feels that the value of hyping this NFT project is reduced."
At the same time, Chen Minzhi's analysis, from a long-term perspective, cannot exclude the appreciation potential of Phanta Bear. "This is the same as in China, NFTs were issued in large quantities at the beginning. Because we have the data in hand, after the release, in fact, the sales are not good. But after a while, I suddenly found that sales rose at once. Zhou Dong's Phanta Bear NFT project may also have such a situation. ”
OpenSea's second-best-selling Bored Ape Yacht Club
NFT has become a new favorite of stylistic stars
But ordinary people have a natural disadvantage when they play
Before Jay Chou, a large number of cultural and sports stars have "entered the pit" of NFTs. In September 2021, basketball star Curry spent about $180,000 on a blue Bored Ape avatar. Bored Ape Yacht Club is a rising star in the NFT, and the image of 10,000 apes has different costumes, expressions, and styles, and is hotly sought after. In November 2021, Boring Ape also appeared on the cover of the American music magazine Rolling Stone, becoming the first digital cover NFT. At present, boring apes have more than $1 billion in sales in NFTs. Stars such as Aime, Lin Junjie, Yu Wenle, and Chen Bailin have also become fans and replaced them with boring ape heads.
Yu Wenle now has a collection of 79 NFT works, And Christie's Auction House conducted an online auction of Yu Wenle's Collection in September last year, which not only contains physical artworks, but also NFT works, such as CryptoPunks, the originator of NFT avatars. In the top ten best-selling on OpenSea to date, CryptoPunks, created in 2017, topped the list. At that time, Christie's asked Yu Wenle about his views on NFTs, and he believed that NFTs were the big trend of the future and represented the model of an era. Prior to this, Yu Wenle had changed his avatar to CryptoPunks. Yu Wenle's social media and OpenSea avatars, which cost 120 ETH when purchased, and he also has 8 CryptoPunks, are currently worth more than 10 million US dollars.
OpenSea's hottest number one, CryptoPunks
Xu Jinglei is also an avid fan of NFT avatars, and her collection of NFTs is as high as more than 700, including not only the popular boring ape series, but also the niche bear NFT series. Lu Han also spent $4,450 to replace his social media avatar with NFT project Kaiju Kingz, which consists of 3,333 pixels.
Red Star News reporter found that as early as Phanta Bear, Fang Wenshan cooperated with Soka Art to launch Fang Wenshan × Jay Chou joint limited edition "Punk Cat Sting" (blue and white porcelain model) collectible doll, and attached NFT anti-counterfeiting certification. In May 2021, singer Ardor released the first NFT digital music work "WATER KNOW" in China, using NFT encryption technology and auctioning the cover and the attribution rights of the song for a public auction, with a transaction price of more than 300,000 yuan.
"For most ordinary people, playing NFTs is a natural disadvantage, and once the hype period is over, it is difficult to sell, and for those influential KOLs, this is a game of steady profit." An NFT investor told Red Star News that the speed at which NFTs make money and lose money is staggering. Indeed, NFTs are not suitable for ordinary retail investors. According to a study in the journal Nature, 10% of traders complete 85% of NFT trades. These traders are either in charge of trading funds or have poor information, or they are "scientists on the white list", and it is difficult for retail investors to survive.
OpenSea's third-best-selling Mutant Ape Yacht Club
Hidden worries under the aura of star NFTs
Don't aim at hype or making money\t
There is no doubt that NFTs have become a symbol of social identity and wealth status, and NFT avatars are more like a passport to online social networking. Celebrities using such NFTs not only stimulate public interest in avatars, but also create a sense of identity and satisfaction among holders using the same identity as celebrities. NFTs are also an important way for celebrities to monetize their attention and influence, and for fans, buying a celebrity-endorsed NFT is an official certification of their fan identity, and they can also enjoy exclusive fan rights. In a way, celebrity NFTs are an extension of the fan economy. In the traditional business monetization path, celebrities have the means of creating fashion brands and selling peripherals, while NFTs provide stars with a more brutal and direct way - just a few lines of code, you can quickly get tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
"The main reason why cultural and sports stars enter the NFT is that they naturally bring fans and naturally bring traffic. So the purpose of his operation and marketing is to target his fan base. If you're not a fan of them, it's hard to buy his NFT project. "In Chen Minzhi's view, celebrities enter the NFT and still take the set of traffic economy." Because NFT art is a collectible concept, it is more of a long-term, potential collection value, with intrinsic artistic value. But these NFT projects of the stars are relatively not of high artistic value. ”
In this regard, Zhang Li held a different opinion, believing that the star's NFT project was collectible for fans. "Star NFT projects, don't release too many and rotten, just like fried sneakers, there must be classic models." The classic model has a great collection value, its uniqueness, long-term, just like the classic forever. "Because NFT distribution at home and abroad is a completely different region, it is also critical that the NFT content that stars choose to develop is also critical." In foreign distribution, stars have no way to add value, (their NFT projects are) very ordinary NFT projects; in domestic distribution, if there is no scarcity, uniqueness, it is likely to be said by public opinion that you are purely circle money. So they're also very cautious and come up with something to test the waters. ”
Therefore, the traffic that the star brings with it, in the NFT, is a relatively short-term behavior. "It's not a valuable product for the NFT project they've developed. It takes celebrities to empower their NFT projects to maintain their long-term value. Zhang Li told the Red Star News reporter that in theory, Jay Chou's NFT sales should be very high, because he has been popular for more than ten or twenty years, and the fan base is large, "but China's market still needs to be cultivated, that is, many people in the NFT itself do not fully understand where this value is." ”
For celebrities entering the NFT, Chen Minzhi frankly said that it is still "sooner rather than later", suggesting that each star should have his own NFT project. "You don't have to send too much, but you have to have it first. The most important thing is to choose a good platform, some small platforms I do not recommend to release, there is no point. Zhang Li also suggested that star artists should actively participate." Artists involved in it, to collect some NFT artworks, can promote the development of the industry. For example, if a celebrity shows some of his NFT collections on social media, his audience will know such a thing, and more people may recognize its value. ”
However, Zhang Li warned both celebrities and ordinary consumers that playing NFTs in China must pay attention to compliance or non-compliance. "In China, you can't use virtual currency to trade, you have to play NFT, first of all, to see if you like it, can't be for the hype to buy and sell." If you start from this point, whether the value of this NFT is high or low in the future, at least you have bought something you like. So I think people should not buy NFTs from the purpose of hype or making money, but to say that I just like it, I like my stars, I support my stars, I buy his, which is very normal. ”
Red Star News reporter Ren Hongwei intern Yu Xuejiao
Edited by Li Jie
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