So, you spent too long and you’re wondering – Who on earth is Kevin? Well, there’s no easy answer. Kevin is everything. Or Kevin is probably – actually – nothing. Perhaps he is a picture of everything wrong with the NFT space. Or he’s a symbol of everything we love about Web3 and its meme-driven culture.
In short, he’s an artifact of a historically epic NFT fail by Pixelmon. His mere existence was due to a series of unfortunate and terrible mistakes by the Pixelmon team. For a beginner, you might want to start with our list of NFT memes. But fellow degens, we’re here because we need to talk about Kevin.
You might say that Kevin is the mascot that the NFT community deserves, even if he’s not the one it needs right now.
Kevin – a beautifully ugly phoenix out of the Pixelmon NFT’s ashes
If you’ve been anywhere near NFT Twitter you’ll have heard about the Pixelmon NFT reveal. In short – and to put it kindly – it was an absolute disaster.
Indeed, after unhealthy levels of hype spurred by the project’s “creator”, and a mint that netted about $70 million, expectations for the Pixelmon reveal were unspeakably high. Needless to say, the NFT artwork for Pixelmon was worse than any collector or spectator could have imagined.
We’ve been here before in the NFT space, with NFT reveals that disappointed and got memed to death. For example, there was the HAPEBEAST reveal just recently. Before that, the MekaVerse reveal also inspired ridicule from many in the NFT space.
The difference with those projects is the fact that the art for those NFTs wasn’t offensively bad. Yes, many people didn’t love the art for those NFTs but those projects were really victims of their own tremendous hype, more than anything else. This certainly isn’t the case with Pixelmon. Art may be subjective, but given the fact that the project founder himself stated how disappointed he was with the art, it’s fair to say that Pixelmon was a total dud.
Enter Kevin.
This tweet from Threadguy.eth pretty well sums up what’s going on with Kevin. Credit: @DiscoverXNFT via Twitter
Proof that above all else, the NFT space loves a good meme
Despite the majority of Pixelmon NFTs cratering in price after the reveal, the Kevin Pixelmon character actually started to see an increase in sales volume starting around Feb. 28. Without a doubt, it was Kevin’s high level of memeability that took him high above the crowd of Pixelmon NFTs.
Contrary to what you’d expect, the name “Kevin” is not a random one. In fact, it is actually the name of the NFT’s “species” trait, which is quite amusing in and of itself.
At the time of writing the floor price of the 107 Kevin NFTs is 4.89 ETH. In other words, more than 10x the floor price of the whole collection. What’s more, the only Pixelmon trait with a higher floor is the ultra-rare “Tatsumaki”. For reference, there are only 14 of those out of 10,000 NFTs.
Feelings on Kevin are mixed, to say the least. Some view Kevin as a truly historic NFT whose value isn’t simply speculative. Others see Kevin as nothing more than a meme coin whose high floor price is an affront to the countless artists and teams working hard and building in NFTs. The fact that Pixelmon as a whole may or may not be a scam powered by stolen artwork also complicates the matter.
It might be fair to say that most people simply find this whole thing hilarious. And to be honest, that’s where this reporter lands.
All hail Kevin. Enjoy some Kevin commentary and memes below.
This savvy Twitter user predicted what has ended up happening with Kevin. Credit: @ToobNFT on Twitter
ROI be damned – people clearly like the Kevin. Credit: @BoredApe1000 on Twitter
Invisible Friends was simply no match for the power of Kevin. Credit: @raphaelda1 on Twitter
Credit: @0x_Doug on Twitter
