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In an age with a meme for every occasion, none represents the current bearish crypto market better than “Goblin Town.” A reference to a song (“Down Down to Goblin Town”) from the 1977 film adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the meme captures the gloomy sentiment of the current crypto and NFT markets.
Ironically, a new NFT collection has sprung up from the ashes of this depressing meme, briefly unseating top collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks in terms of trading volume.
Why are these unsightly digital avatars gobblin’ up all the attention and cash? If you have the stomach for rot, fecal matter and other unwholesome obsessions, hold your noses and join us as we dive into the Goblin-town NFT project.
Goblintown NFTs are a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on memes designed as avatars for social media accounts. The collection has sold startlingly well, with Goblin creatures such as dragons, mosquitoes, trolls, wizards, and “Kevin” from Pixelmon.Goblintown NFTs are the sweethearts of NFT enthusiasts at the moment, and these gibberish-speaking, comically bizarre creatures are ranking higher (7th) than many other NFT collections that launched earlier, according to popular NFT and DeFi DApp store DappRadar.
In terms of sales and trading volumes, Goblintown NFTs have also toppled those of BAYC.
The Goblintown NFT derives its name from a cryptic term in the cryptosphere that refers to bearish conditions when prices of digital assets plummet badly. The Goblintown NFT project was launched on May 22, 2022, when the cryptocurrency market was in the midst of a sell-off, and assets were trading far below recent highs.
Even though it had a quiet launch, the Goblintown NFT collection floor price surged from $0 to $11,500 in its first 12 days.
The Goblintown NFT didn’t launch with any campaigns or collaborations, just a promotional offer of free NFTs to the interested public. The project's website, Goblintown.wtf, states that it has no road map, utility, or Discord channel.
Surprisingly, Goblintown went on to gain momentum. It created a buzz in the NFT community and recorded remarkable success in secondary sales for the following weeks.
For now, the team behind the Goblintown collection has not yet been revealed, remaining anonymous. However, the Twitter crypto community has made an effort to unveil the identities of those involved in producing the Goblintown NFT.
One of the individuals tied to Goblintown is Beeple. This came about after Goblintown tweeted, “we, not @steveaoki, we @beeple.”
The famous digital artist has, however, denied this speculation. Others claim that Yuga Labs might be involved in the project, but they’ve also denied any involvement.
Another theory used to explain Goblintown’s creation is that Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge may have been involved in the project's development process. According to one Twitter user, Mike Judge’s style matches that of Goblintown, and he has been active on the NFT scene.
About 2,000 people joined a Twitter space hosted on May 26, trying to figure out what the project was about and those behind it, but to no avail.
The success of the Goblintown NFT Project has convinced people involved with NFTs that the Goblintown team must be filled with prominent names in the cryptosphere.
Goblintown’s floor value increased by 458% in its first six days of launch — in the middle of a bear season when almost every collection in the NFT market had significantly lost value.
In Goblintown’s first week going live, one NFT trader made a 5,039% profit on his Goblintown assets. For context, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs that sold for $400,000 in April dropped by half in that same period.
Globintown NFTs have become the new “to the moon” asset in the NFT and crypto community — and that’s quite a surprise, considering the circumstances surrounding the project’s launch.
As of June 10, 2022, the floor price of a Goblin NFT stands at 3.4 ETH (about $5,225.61) and an average price of 6.63 ETH ($12,600). That’s still not deterring collectors from grappling to get their share of Goblin NFTs, as they believe the project is the bull in a bear market.
The Goblintown PFP NFT project has momentarily snatched the limelight away from “blue-chip” NFT projects like Moonbirds, BAYC, Otherside, and many others that came before it.
Goblintown.wtf has not only succeeded in beating other NFT collections in terms of weekly sales, but it’s also been able to compel users, convincing them of its ability to create something out of almost nothing.
Its increasing popularity is quite surprising, but the unconventional and innovative marketing tactics that Goblintown NFT has employed — along with several other factors surrounding the project — might be responsible for this.
Let’s look at some possible factors behind Goblintown’s launch to the moon.
This NFT project is the brainchild of a team of anonymous developers, although that’s not uncommon in the world of crypto. The anonymity of the team behind such a well-coordinated project has further stirred the pot, causing excitement as the crypto world is on its toes trying to unlock the mystery behind the Goblintown NFT team.
Ultimately, the popularity of Goblintown NFTs is mainly due to the high quality and polish of the project, drawing attention and causing people to speculate that the team behind it must be very good at what they do.
One of the founders of Yuga Labs, “Gordon Goner,” posted a tweet saying, “This guy with great hair showed up to dinner and started making goblin [sic] sounds. What does it mean?”
This tweet aroused a lot of suspicion, and the name that came to people’s mind was Mike Winkelmann (popularly known as Beeple), a prominent digital artist and graphic designer who is known for selling NFTs.
This link with Beeple helped propel Goblintown NFT sales and boost its popularity, as the digital artist is prominent for selling some of the world’s most profitable NFTs.
It was also rumored that King of the Hill creator Mike Judge was either backing the project, or performing an essential role in developing the NFT collection.
Most developers of NFT projects are usually quick to bask in the glory and praise they receive for their project’s success. It seems, however, that the developers of the Goblintown NFT project prefer to remain unknown.
Even if its creators didn’t intend to remain anonymous for this long, the success and popularity the project now enjoys might make them wary of blowing their cover and ruining the air of mystery surrounding Goblintown.
Goblintown gained popularity from its launch because it started as free to mint. Minting new NFTs can cost upward of a thousand dollars, and sometimes even more. This gave the Goblintown NFT project a quick head start, allowing newbies to enter the space.
The unconventional yet innovative approach which the creators of Goblintown NFT used to launch the collection seems to have helped it gather a lot of moss. As seen on its largely minimalistic website, they state that the project has “no road map, no Discord, no utility …”
There is in fact no stated road map for Goblintown, and the creators have indicated that there are no plans to launch its native crypto token any time soon, although this remains unclear.
The project was launched without any ceremony or partnerships (as has become the norm in the cryptosphere, where announcements are usually made in advance). Goblintown did the complete opposite.
This nonchalant approach went on to become its biggest selling point. The Goblintown collection has shown, once again, how unpredictable the world of NFT can be.
One of the reasons for the popularity of Goblintown NFTs is the rumor that the collection is associated with Yuga Labs, the web3 company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Nansen, a real-time crypto and NFT insights provider, claimed that the creators of BAYC and Mutant Apes might also be behind the Goblintown NFT.
In a series of tweets published on its official Twitter handle, Nansen was probably the first to try to provide a link to the Goblintown NFT and BAYC projects. These highlighted several similarities between Globintown and BAYC to bolster this claim.
This rumor of a link between Goblintown NFT and Yuga Labs was further fueled by a leaked pitch deck from Yuga Labs, in which Goblins was mentioned as one of the company’s revenue channels.
The NFT community is known for its rich meme culture, on which the Goblintown NFT collection is mainly based. There are many Goblintown NFTs on the internet, and even a one-of-one NFT of Pixelmon’s Kevin.
Meme sentiments in this project are, however, chaotic and unusual. The project is “meme manifested. It is cultural agony, rage, greed, and joy personified,” as one NFT enthusiast on Twitter comments.
Another NFT enthusiast, Cryptobaggie, thinks the Goblintown NFT collection is funny and exudes real meme vibes.
Goblintown didn’t merely wind up on the lips of NFT observers, but also those of some industry names like social entrepreneur Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk. This has helped the project trickle its way into mainstream consciousness.
Kristy Tillman, the director of product design at Netflix, described the Twitter space hosted by Goblintown as “either an absolute new low or brilliance. The line is very thin here.”
Markus Magnusson, founder of the ETH NFT collection Invisible Friends, tweeted “The Goblins got us.” The tweet suggested that the buzz around the Goblintown NFTs was relegating Invisible Friends and other NFT collections to the background.
The characters that make up Goblintown are distinct in a unique way. This NFT collection features an army of crooked-faced goblins that converse in gibberish.
One would think that these “ugly” features would have affected its popularity. Instead, it seems to be compounding the interest, so to speak. According to some Goblintown fans, less is more, and ugly is a type of beauty.
The price of Goblintown NFTs is volatile, given the floor price of one Goblintown NFT more than doubled from 3.9 ETH to 8.95 ETH, essentially overnight.
As of June 10, 2022, the Goblintown NFT’s floor price is listed on CoinGecko at 3.4 ETH. So to join this exclusive community of goblins, you’d have to splurge a few thousand dollars on a Goblintown character.
The most expensive sale of a Goblintown NFT so far is that of “Hoo Let Dat Orc In Hear?” (goblintown #6485), which went for 77.75 ETH ($146,600)
There are 10,000 NFTs in the Goblintown collection. Some are more expensive than others, due to a variety of 205 traits:
Egg
Collrzes
Hedz
Eers
Munchyhole
Stankfinder
Boddee
Eye On Dat Side
Eye On Dis Side
Each Goblintown NFT has its unique features. Some NFTs come with very rare traits and attributes. There are 13 one-of-one NFTs in Goblintown.
Total Assets: 9,999
Asset Owners: 4,577
Floor Price: 3.4 ETH
Most Expensive Sale: 77.75 ETH
Market Cap: 33,996.6 ETH
Goblintown NFTs could be a good investment — especially for the initial investors. Because minting was initially free for everyone at the time it launched, initial investors didn’t have much to lose.
Generally, NFT collections over the past few months have experienced a bear market. Goblintown, however, seems to be weathering the difficult market. The project launched at a time when established NFT PFP projects like Azuki and BAYC had plunged dramatically.
Despite this, Goblintown still saw over 32,000 ETH ($57.6M) in TVL traded in less than three weeks of launch, while minting for free. This enabled it to hold the top spot on OpenSea’s ranking. Between May 22 and May 31, 2022, about $37 million worth of Goblintown NFTs were traded — this in just nine days, which is quite significant for a project that launched in the midst of a bear market.
The hype created in the background by observers also doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soon. As the buzz continues to build up with each passing day, the price could continue to move with it.
For later investors, investing in Goblintown NFTs might be encouraged by the buzz surrounding the project … at least popular NFT whale and DJ Steve Aoki thinks so.
Unusual though they may seem, the rarity and uniqueness of Goblintown NFTs have potential that could see their value appreciate further in the future.
Tailing the success of Goblintown are several other goblin-related derivatives which, in a bid to replicate Goblintown’s success, have also launched their own NFT collections. These derivatives include Goblin Grlz, Baby Goblinz and many more that wish to capitalize on the goblin hype.
Over the past month, Goblintown has provided plenty of newfound energy to the NFT market, despite the current loss of momentum.
Whether this innovative collection was planned by its creators, or happens to just be a stroke of luck, we don’t know — but the project has been able to succeed with the precept that less is more. For more insights, check out our article that discusses how Free-to-Mint NFTs like Goblintown have changed the NFT space.
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