Long gone are the days when artists and teams minted out 10,000 supply NFT PFP projects at sky-high mint prices, with some mints charging upward of 2.5 ETH. Today, paid mints are becoming increasingly less common, and hyped free mints aren’t even a guarantee to mint out. This article will discuss how the attention and liquidity in the crypto space has largely shifted from NFTs to memecoins for consumers, what the current creator landscape looks like, and how to become more involved as a creator yourself. Furthermore, the current state of NFTs will be analyzed along with potential future opportunities that may present themselves in the market.

For around the past year or so, memecoins and social-fi apps have dominated the attention in the crypto space as opposed to NFTs. Of course, there are some exceptions with certain collections holding strong floor prices (e.g. Pudgy Penguins). Why have most NFTs fallen off while memecoins have thrived then? It’s a game of attention, and simply put, liquidity has dried up in the NFT market and there’s not much utility for the vast majority of jpegs out there. There was a brief period of time where projects would secure hyped airdrops from upcoming ecosystems, which helped floor prices recover to a degree. However, this was of course unsustainable, and the majority of projects are still severely down from their all time high floor prices. 

Despite the majority of the NFT market underperforming, there are still opportunities to be found. Just last week, “Eggs” by the CryptoKitties team was an open edition priced at 0.008 ETH per mint, available to mint on OpenSea. A total of 3134 NFTs were minted, and the floor price now sits at an incredible 0.284 ETH. While CryptoKitties are of course one of the most famous and original projects in the entire space, this proves that there’s still opportunities out there for collectors today. In the secondary market, Jirasan by PG Group has risen from 0.25 ETH to 0.65 ETH, proving there are still opportunities for skilled traders in the market. On X, @waleswoosh covers upcoming opportunities in the NFT market in depth: https://x.com/waleswoosh/status/1830979179585904758. There are undoubtedly still opportunities in the NFT space; it just may take a little more time and effort to make it worthwhile compared to the NFT bull market of 2021. Furthermore, it seems the market is beginning to heat up once again, but of course only time will tell. 

As for independent artists, it’s certainly more difficult to find success nowadays as opposed to working with a well-known and established project in the space. However, there are still opportunities to create, albeit maybe not in the traditional formats creators are used to. It’s currently very difficult to sell out larger supply paid collections, and many artists have turned to open edition platforms like ZORA where mints are much more casual for collectors. ZORA mints are a great option for creators; specifically, minting a free open edition could prove to be fruitful as there are small ETH rewards that are dispersed to creators every time a collector mints. While ZORA is great, free mints may not be the answer for every piece you decide to mint. In today’s era, it’s important to keep prices very low if you do decide to launch paid mints. It’s still entirely possible to launch and mint out art collections and projects with high aspirations, but it’s essential to be mindful of the current state of the market and the target audience which will be supporting you. 

While NFTs seem to be heating up, memecoins and various dapps have stolen the spotlight this past year. From Fantasy Top on Blast to Friend Tech on Base, there have been many social-fi apps that have popped up and grabbed the attention of the crypto space. This is another area within consumer crypto for creators, especially for developers; many new dapps have found success on various chains and L2s, and there will only be more launching in the future. One ecosystem I’m keeping an eye on is Monad, whose mainnet is scheduled to launch in Q4 of this year and will provide a different perspective with dapps being on an L1 as opposed to an L2 - I’ll be discussing this topic in my next article.

Now is one of the best times to get involved as a creator; this doesn’t only apply to artists. You can write blog posts like this one, network and become active on X and Warpcast, learn new skills, participate on new blockchains, etc. The time to be honing your skills is during a bear market, and that may not be for much longer so always make the most of your time. You should always be continuously learning, and the only way to grow is by putting yourself out into the world. Thank you for reading this article; I hope you enjoyed it and hopefully it was a good read for you - be sure to subscribe to stay up to date with the latest and greatest in crypto!