Web2 in Web3: Starbucks and Nike Make Further NFT Inroads

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Sui- The New Kid on the ‘Block’

By RoryKeyz

Perhaps the biggest news to come from Web3 world this week was the arrival of Sui, a Moved-based, Layer-1 blockchain developed by Californian tech outfit Mysten Labs.

The blockchain- which launched on Wednesday at 7.30 AM EST- comes 8 months after the company raised $300 million in a Series B funding round in September 2022. Here, the team behind its creation included a cohort of former Meta engineers who previously worked on the social media conglomerate’s now-defunct Web3 project ’Novi’.

The Native SUI Token

Of course, a crypto token is needed to govern all Sui ongoings, with Mysten Labs opting for a namesake ‘SUI’ ($SUI) title.

$SUI’s tokenomics sees its total supply amount to 10 billion, where to begin with, its initial circulating supply is 528,273,717 (5.28% of the total supply).

To initiate such distribution, the Sui Foundation partnered with CEXs such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Kucoin. In total, these exchanges raised $49 million from over 100,000 users, whilst Binance users staked over $4 billion worth of crypto in order to farm $SUI.

As of the time of writing, the price of $SUI sits at $1.07, which is a 50%+ fall from its $2.16 value at launch. At such price and supply level, its market cap has a valuation of around $564 million.

Sui’s Early NFT Antics

Whilst not all blockchains are built for NFT antics, Sui most certainly is. Further, in the few days following its launch, Sui-supporting marketplaces have dropped multiple sought-after projects, with many selling out in quick time.

Undoubtedly, the biggest headliner hitter thus far has been Fuddies- a collection of 10,000 cartoon owl PFP NFTs which each sport their own distinct style and pose.

Despite its popularity, the Fuddies drop entailed a host of technical problems when launching on (today’s) leading Sui NFT marketplace, Clutchy. Understandably, such circumstance attracted backlash from both collectors involved, as well as Web3 figures working on competing blockchains- where to make matters worse, turmoil was heightened due to the fact that Mysten Labs had helped promote Clutchy in the lead up to its launch.

Nonetheless, Fuddies were offered for 95 $SUI (around $125 at the time) to users on its pre-launch allowlist, with the public sale then adopting a Dutch auction format. Here, assets began at a price of 300 $SUI (around $395), with the collection selling out when the price had decreased to 150 $SUI (a little less than $200).

In wake of a sell-out- albeit problematic- mint, more troubles then arose when Clutchy’s secondary NFT marketplace faced more technical issues. Through this, many speculative traders were unable to flip their Fuddies NFTs for a quick profit- which for some, could’ve been seen as a blessing in disguise from the non-fungible gods (as such behaviour is largely condemned by collectors wishing to build a community of ‘day 1’ holders).

That being said, the collection was still able to amass around 605,000 $SUI (around $792,500) worth of sales in its first 24 hours of activity, which, as its Twitter account acknowledged, was more activity than the entire Polygon NFT ecosystem across the same span.

At of the time of writing, Fuddies has a floor price of 149 $SUI (around $145) and a total trade volume of 1.17 million $SUI (around $1.24 million).

As was (and still is) evident with the introduction of Bitcoin Ordinals into the non-fungible scene, both creators and collectors are always eager to get involved in early antics across new NFT-adopting blockchains, and Sui is most certainly no exception. With this in mind, Clutchy founder and CEO Jacob ‘Dizzy Lizzy’ Lawless has stated that the blockchain has garnered a whole host of interest from such parties throughout its launch period, as well as those of the general Web3 influencer accord.

Of course, what this means is that Fuddies is by no means the only notable collection to come from Sui thus far, as other honourable mentions include Suirfboards, Stork, and ‘Sui Ecosystem’.

In addition, and on the marketplace side of things, Clutchy’s main competitor is former Aptos-exclusive NFT platform Souffl3.

Other Talking Points

Away from the fresh influx of exciting new digital collectibles, bullishness for Sui has also arisen through the fact that it hosts various ‘advanced’ features that can’t be observed across other chains- with its ‘dynamic NFTs’ being the most notable.

What this feature essentially facilitates is the ability for NFTs to be updated in real time- a capability which plays into the hands of blockchain gaming developers due to the fact that in-game assets (i.e., NFTs) such as skins, armour, weapons, and attributes (etc.) can be bolstered over time as players progress.

In fact, the gaming world is already preparing its arrival onto Sui, as Solana transplant game Panzerdogs is due out in a few weeks, as well as a shooter title called Bushi and a Walking Dead game.

In addition to digital collectibles and blockchain gaming, other use cases are slated to come from Sui, such as a system similar to that of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) called Sui Name Service (SuiNS). On the technical side of things, Sui is also reported to have the ability to achieve high throughputs between 10,871-297,000 transactions per second (TPS).

For comparison, Solana- which is touted as one of the fastest Layer-1 blockchains- can only achieve 4,000. For this reason, as well as the flurry of aforementioned ones, many are dubbing Sui as the ‘Solana killer’.

Despite a rather lively start, only time will tell whether the Sui NFT ecosystem will be able to maintain the momentum it’s quickly cultivated. Alternatively, it may follow a similar path to that of fellow Move-based blockchain Aptos, which, after a bullish launch in October 2022, quickly saw its buzz fall off.

Article by RoryKeyz