The extreme success of Moonbirds is the NFT story of the year so far. The collection opened up so strongly that it archived instant blue chip status and a place at the top of the charts. The market for NFTs is bearish at the moment, how did the pixeled owls accomplish such a feat? It certainly wasn’t just the art, even though the Moonbirds have a distinctive look and probably make excellent profile pictures AKA PFPs. Let’s uncover the story. This one has it all; a nascent but powerful organization, crazy numbers, internet legends, an ambitious roadmap, light controversy, and, of course, metaverse plans. Moonbirds: Formal Characteristics There are a total of 10K Moonbirds, they were issued under the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. The mint price for each one was a whopping 2.5 ETH. That means that, at current prices, the Proof Collective made over $70M on that first day. The madness doesn’t end there, according to CryptoSlam, the Moonbirds have generated $481M in sales so far. That’s 160K ETH from almost 12K buyers. And for every secondary sale, Proof received a 5% cut. According to the Moonbirds official site, the organization distributed those original 10K birds as follows: 7,875: Public sale to allowlist winners 2,000: PROOF Collective Members (1,000 passes) each receive two free mints 125: PROOF wallet for future collaborations, marketing, and advisors All interested parties, including Proof Collective members,...