Animus NFT Tease Pushes Clone X Floor Price 55% – Yuga Labs/RTFKT Collab on Horizon?

Potential Clone X Yuga Labs collaboration gets the community excited.

The creators of the Clone X NFT collection, RTFKT Studios, have teased Animus, an apparent new collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club innovators Yuga Labs on October 7th, leading to a surge in NFT trading activity for Clone X. 

The new project will launch in 2023 with an EggDrop for clones announced on November 22, 2022. RTFKT previously teased Clonetober, pushing the floor price of a Clone X from around 7.7 ETH to 8.8 ETH after the teaser dropped on Twitter.

The latest announcement trailer is very cryptic but includes an avatar from the RTFKT universe walking with what looks like an Alpha Shark character behind, followed by a character similar to one of the Otherside Kodas—suggesting a partnership. 

Koda’s are from the Otherside metaverse. We don’t know their roles in the future metaverse yet. We can only see that they are an essential part of the game. Land in the Otherside metaverse with Koda metadata is far more valuable than plots without. In a nutshell, there are 10k Kodas in 100k plots of land, making them very rare. 

Get ready for Project Animus 🪬🥚 pic.twitter.com/pYAzy6RX8w

— RTFKT (@RTFKT) October 7, 2022

The EggDrop part of the announcement suggests that holders of a CloneX will be liable to receive an egg to mint an Animus. Which, looking at the trailer, seems to be a companion. The hype is real as traders try to secure an NFT with potential useability in the Yuga Labs and RTFKT ecosystems. 

Clone X Floor Price Up 55% 

The surge has pushed the Clone X collection of NFTs by Takashi Murakami into the second position on DappRadar, where in the previous seven days, the floor price of a Clone X shot up more than 50%. At the same time, buyers caused trading volume to swell to more than $140 million—surpassing Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks trading volume in the previous week. 

The floor price of a Clone X shot up dramatically as traders looked to secure one in the hope of potentially receiving an EggDrop or priority position to mint once the potential collaboration between Yuga Labs and RTFKT launches. The floor is now around 9.4 ETH, but average sale prices are slightly higher at 11.4 ETH, or about $16,000.

At writing, the most expensive Clone X NFT to change hands is CloneX #18704 for 18.18 ETH, or around $25,000. We also see sales just 10 hours prior that sold for more than 2 ETH less. This indicates that the surge continues and that the average price will keep increasing. Potentially until the EggDrop in November. 

What is Animus? 

Despite few details about the video or potential collaboration, the rumor mill started, and the internet went to work looking for clues and easter eggs that would further reveal some info about Animus. 

One detective highlights the branding on the shark avatar’s jacket. They note that it’s pretty similar to the BLCK TCTL Vest trait seen on other Clone X NFTs, leading to speculation that Animus will be a fashion-centric NFT collection. At the same time, other tweets focussed on an RTFKT and Animus side quest. There will undoubtedly be hundreds of scams floating all over the internet looking to cash in on NFT hunter’s money, so be vigilant. 

Another internet investigator added that the likeness between the Yuga Labs Koda depicted in the Otherside trailer and the one shown in the RTFKT trailer is quite different. 

While there are likenesses, you would expect a trailer about a collab between the two companies to feature an actual Koda. However, it is a teaser. Meanwhile, others speculate that RTFKT is just copying and pasting a winning strategy from the Yuga Labs playbook-which seems highly unlikely.

Animus is still a mystery

All easter eggs and conspiracies aside, nobody knows what Animus will be once it launches. At this stage, we can only speculate that the EggDrop will be an event to watch. One obvious thing is that the hype around Clone X and Animus is palpable due to the possibility of the two companies being involved. 

Yuga Labs has grown to be a Web3 powerhouse in a short time and now overlooks some of the most critical IPs in the NFT and blockchain world. Think Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, World of Women, and more. With its forthcoming Otherside metaverse, Yuga looks to shake up the landscape and become a real player in Web3 with fingers in NFTS, gaming, and crypto through its Apecoin. 

Clone X is the profile picture NFT collection produced by RTFKT featuring art by Takashi Murakami. Since Nike acquired RTFKT, the two have explored several initiatives that blend physical merchandise with metaverse collectibles—collecting billions of dollars along the way. 

Broader NFT industry trends 

Typically, in the blockchain space, one action leads to another, and as one collection grabs attention, it can take others for the ride. In this instance, a mere trailer showing what looks to be a Koda has got the trading volume of Clone X NFTs pumping.

Another clear thing is that Ethereum NFTs still flex hardest and excite the blockchain space.  NFTs are grabbing eyeballs for those betting big on Web3. Even as mainstream media paints a picture of doom and gloom, using data comparing record highs with recent times, I might add. 

Also interesting is the surging interest in crypto art. Especially pieces traded on the Ethereum-based Art Blocks curated marketplace, where art changes hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even in a bear market. Fine art has always been a solid bet against inflation, and savvy crypto traders appear to build new investment trends in Web3. 

Many are generative art NFTs, which can alter and change over time, offering holders something more than a pass to a metaverse or Twitter avatar. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and crypto art is no different. The thirty-day trading volume of nearly $10 million on Art Blocks would agree. 

Moreover, NFTs never fell off a cliff, as claimed early in 2022. Other blockchains outside Ethereum joined the action, and most NFTs stabilized to a point where they can no longer be called a bubble or fad. Sure, the rubbish collections and scammers got weeded out, and many lost hard-earned money. 

Monthly sales volume has settled at around half a billion dollars. But trading volumes peaked in the summer of 2021, hitting more than five billion dollars in August 2021. Not bad for an industry peddling what most people would describe as overpriced JPGs. 

The above does not constitute investment advice. The information given here is purely for informational purposes only. Please exercise due diligence and do your research. The writer holds positions in various cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and RADAR.