The highly-anticipated CyberKongz VX NFT project has launched with a bang! The project’s launch this weekend saw users minting the gorilla NFTs left, right, and centre. As a result, CyberKongz VX topped the ETH burn leaderboard in the past 24 hours!
At the time of writing, CyberKongz VX surpassed NFT marketplace OpenSea (position 2) and decentralized exchange Uniswap (position 3) to take the top spot. The minting of these gorilla NFTs burnt around 1,437 ETH or around $4.65 million in Ethereum in the past 24 hours. As opposed, OpenSea and Uniswap had only burnt 1,049.25 ETH and 507.27 ETH respectively.
What is CyberKongz VX?
CyberKongz are 1,000 randomly generated, unique 2D/3D NFTs that debuted in March 2021. Recently, these 34×34 pixel CyberKongz images surged in popularity, as people began putting them as their profile pictures on social media. Soon, it became a community-based project, leading to the development of Banana tokens. By burning these tokens, users could add characteristics to their gorilla NFTs and breed them to make Baby CyberKongz.
“CyberKongz are gamified collectibles with utility,” the project notes on its website. “They are intended to be avatars for both the two-dimensional space as well as playable avatars on platforms such as The Sandbox.”
Its VX Initial Offering took place at 19:00 UTC on August 15. During the launch, the project released 15,000 voxel gorilla avatars into The Sandbox metaverse. It reserved 5,000 of these for Genesis collection holders. Meanwhile, the remaining 10,000 was available on the free market.
Following the launch, scores of users began competing to mint a gorilla NFT. Furthermore, the “gas wars” sent the gas prices soaring, hitting over 1800 gwei. On Sunday, at its peak, 27.90 ETH ($91,205) was burnt per minute, reported Crypto Briefing.
At the time of writing, a total of 12,500 CyberKongz VX are listed on OpenSea, with a floor price of 0.37 ETH.
Ethereum’s London Hardfork Upgrade and ETH burning
The current high gas prices are resulting in the increased burning of ETH. This is due to the Ethereum blockchain’s long-awaited London Hardfork Upgrade, which went live on August 5. A significant Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) of the upgrade is the EIP-1559.
EIP-1559 resulted in major changes to the network, including the introduction of a base fee and Ether burning. This means that during every transaction, the network will burn the base fees paid for transactions, causing a “deflationary pressure” on the network. Over time, this deflation will cause ETH prices to soar. In fact, according to DappRadar, ETH price has increased by 27.8% since the upgrade went live.
At the time of writing, the network had burnt over 53,000 ETH worth around $172.26 million. As new NFT projects continue to launch, the network will burn more ETH. As a result, we can expect Ethereum’s deflationary pressure to continue.
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