Going public and going cold? Migu NFT’s overseas debut falls flat, with 2000 blind boxes unsold after 5 days.

Going Public' but Going Cold Migu NFT's International Launch Fails to Impress, with 2000 Blind Boxes Left Unsold After 5 Days.

Author: Mu Mu

Editor: Wen Dao

The NFT market is currently in a deep bear phase, but China Mobile’s Migu is not afraid of the cold and has released its first NFT.

On October 12th, the “Meelier Milo” NFT series was officially launched in the overseas market, with 2000 NFT blind boxes listed on Opensea, OKX, and other NFT trading platforms. However, the listing didn’t go too well.

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According to OpenSea data, the Meelier Milo public sale price is 0.05 ETH (approximately $57), which is considered quite cheap in the NFT market where prices can be freely discovered through trading. However, so far, the floor price of this NFT series remains the same as the public sale price, and only 223 blockchain addresses hold it.

Many companies are exploring the NFT field during the crypto market’s winter season.

Last year, Starbucks launched the Osed plan, but none of the NFTs issued made a breakthrough. Baidu’s overseas company launched the NFT series DuDu Bear, which surpassed many blue-chip tokens and topped the OpenSea’s 24-hour sales chart. In addition, Bilibili also released NFTs overseas, and the floor price increased nearly eight times within a month.

Other companies’ overseas NFT debuts have been successful, so what is lacking for Migu, backed by China Mobile?

1. Floor Price Drops 32% in 6 Days

The design of the Meelier Milo NFTs features a cool muscle dog. It is reported that this character comes from Migu’s popular mobile game “Panda Coffee Shop.” The issuing party stated that through NFT and other digital branding, Migu will create digital marketing solutions for enterprises and brands, reaching new consumer scenarios and opening up new monetization channels in the Web3 era.

As this NFT series is being released in the overseas market, users can not only purchase but also trade the NFTs. Migu has also added many benefits to these NFTs, including Migu Sports and Migu Video memberships, exclusive gift packages for the “Panda Coffee Shop” game, and more.

Meelier Milo NFTs on sale on OpenSea

Migu, backed by China Mobile, is now venturing into the Web3 market with its enterprise and brand, but the strategy of offering App memberships and game packages alongside NFT purchases is more Web2-oriented. Granting video platform memberships to NFTs released and traded overseas seems like an attempt to attract international users to Migu Video.

How appealing is this approach to Web3 players?

Looking at the trading situation of Meelier Milo on Opensea, the public sale price of this NFT is 0.05 ETH (approximately $57). After 5 days of issuance, the current floor price is still 0.05 ETH, with no increase or decrease. This means that Meelier Milo has not had sufficient trading activity on the secondary market and lacks liquidity. On October 18th, the floor price of this NFT series finally moved, dropping to 0.034 ETH, a decrease of 32% compared to the initial sale price.

Meelier Milo’s sales on Opensea total approximately 18 ETH (about $27,000), and the 2000 NFTs released this time have not been sold out yet, with 241 addresses holding them.

Meelier Milo's NFT series has poor market sales.

Migu is not the only physical company selling NFTs. Starbucks also released its 12th NFT series, “Green Apron”, priced at $100 each, with a total of 5000 pieces. After the release, they quickly sold out and entered the secondary market, with the cheapest one reaching $123.

Compared to that, Migu’s NFT debut can only be described with one word: “cold.”

Migu was founded with high expectations from China Mobile, carrying the dream of transitioning to the mobile internet. But after more than seven years, Migu’s IPO dream has not been realized. Despite being backed by China Mobile, Migu’s five major businesses have been lukewarm in the industry. Data shows that Migu Music ranks among the top five in the industry, but its daily active user numbers are significantly lower than the others. Migu Video hasn’t even made it into the top five.

Migu, always lagging behind its competitors, loves to experiment. In 2021, with the rise of the metaverse concept, Migu entered the metaverse field, not only publishing a roadmap for its development but also establishing a metaverse headquarters in Xiamen and other initiatives. Now, Migu has ventured into the Web3 track, making a high-profile release of its first NFT project.

The experimentation continues, with constant actions. Whether it’s the metaverse or Web3, the key lies in how to implement them, and the crucial part is understanding the users’ preferences.

For native Web3 players, the purpose of purchasing and trading NFTs is straightforward – it’s an investment. They either buy a low-priced NFT during its initial release, betting on its potential to generate quick profits as the market goes up, or they participate in the gameplay and ecosystem applications of NFT projects to accumulate assets and cash out.

For example, the “nested doll” gameplay of creating NFTs from NFTs is akin to investing in selling again and again in one’s lifetime. Another example is in games where players complete tasks using NFTs as characters and obtain game tokens that can be cashed out in the secondary market. These examples are also driven by investment and cashing out.

“Potential stocks” in the current market are already difficult to find. These are stories where market benefits attract traffic and create new IPs, with “Bored Ape” being a typical representative. More NFT IPs that still have users during the market winter have used some means to maintain their activity, either through games or partnerships with physical products or brands, creating business opportunities through IP derivatives.

When physical brands engage in NFTs, they mainly leverage their own IP attributes and products to attract the Web3 market’s customer base. This requires the brand to have a certain level of IP influence and a set of gameplay that appeals to Web3 users.

Despite being endorsed by China Mobile Migu, the game “Panda Coffee House” that Meelier Milo is based on is a new game that was just approved in June of this year, and it has not yet gained influence among the gaming community. The existing Meelier Milo NFTs have not announced more gameplay options for Web3 users and are only linked to Migu’s Web2 product membership.

For Web3 native market users, this new entrant is obviously not sexy enough.

2. What makes it worse than other domestic NFTs?

Prior to Migu, overseas companies from Baidu and Bilibili have already launched NFTs on OpenSea. Trip.com’s overseas NFT project is also currently underway. They all entered the market during a bear market, but these companies all achieved decent results.

Baidu’s overseas NFT series is called DuDu Bear, which is actually an old IP created in 2012.

On November 15, 2022, DuDu Lab, Baidu’s overseas company, launched DuDu Bear, which was generated on the Ethereum network, for public sale. The initial price for 10,000 NFTs was 0.02 ETH (about 23 USD), and they sold out within a week. The sales volume even surpassed many blue-chip projects, ranking first on the OpenSea 24-hour sales chart, and the official Discord community already has over 80,000 users.

When NFTs are applied to domestic IPs, DuDu Lab first follows the rules of establishing community consensus in the Web3 world. The narrative of DuDu Bear revolves around the story of the little bear and occasional bear diaries are published on Medium, where all NFT holders can participate in co-creating the story. In addition, DuDu Bear provides different benefits for co-builders and individual holders.

DuDu Bear NFT's benefit system

In terms of benefits, DuDu Bear seamlessly connects Web2 and Web3, with benefits such as Web3 ecosystem co-building, Web3 business transformation, and whitelist airdrops, which not only enhance community consensus and sense of ownership but also empower B-side demands such as physical coffee shops and wineries.

In late April 2022, Bilibili launched the Cheers UP series NFTs for overseas users, with a public sale price of 0.12 ETH (about 240 USD) for a total of 10,000 NFTs. This series of NFTs not only granted Web2 perks like Bilibili membership to the holders but also provided Web3 benefits to encourage participation in community building, such as DAO community voting rights and whitelist permissions.

The 10,000 Cheers UP NFTs were not completely sold out, but the project adhered to the rules of the Web3 world. The community users voted to decide the handling of the remaining NFTs and ultimately, based on the voting results, 5,000 NFTs were burned. This action immediately raised the floor price of Cheers UP from 0.16 ETH (about 320 USD) to 0.5 ETH (about 1,000 USD).

Subsequently, the project team took advantage of the momentum and released a roadmap on May 19, revealing the “staking” and “brewing” functions. “Staking” allows users to earn profits by staking their NFTs on the platform, directly solving the liquidity problem of NFTs. The “brewing” function supports holders to exchange ecosystem rights, such as Bilibili’s VIP card.

By comparison, it is not difficult to see that Meelier Milo of Migu has Web2 products support, but lacks Web3 gameplay, including community consensus operation and governance around IP, as well as NFT’s financial gameplay.

Similarly, with the attachment of Web2 benefits, Trekki, a NFT project under Ctrip, has come up with new ways to play. It has designed a worldview about exploration and travel that fits the actual scenarios of users, and allows each NFT to dynamically upgrade as the holder travels. In other words, when each NFT holder books flights or hotels on Ctrip, their NFTs will automatically upgrade and the holder will unlock more benefits.

It is worth mentioning in terms of operation that Trekki did not launch its sale activities during the deep bear market, but started a series of preheating activities, including online SLianGuaice exchange, creation of Discord community, recruitment of members to join Trekki Alliance, etc., and carried out extensive community consensus. After more than two months of community operation, Trekki NFT has attracted over 70,000 fans on its official Twitter account before its sale, and its Discord community has gathered over 10,000 members.

In contrast, Meelier only started tweeting on October 1, with the first tweet announcing the NFT sale date, followed by announcements of cooperation with major trading platforms, whitelists, and sale previews. Additionally, there has been no content specifically aimed at community operation. Currently, the Meelier Discord community has only 7,356 users, and there are only 5,715 followers on Twitter.

Launching NFTs during a bear market is not a good timing, and Migu appears hasty and rough in its strategy for operating the NFT project. It has not provided a specific gameplay guide, nor a long-term ecological roadmap, which somewhat makes it lack sincerity among Web3 native audience.

If the players’ enthusiasm is not stimulated, it will be difficult for Meelier Milo to avoid a lukewarm response upon its launch. Perhaps, this new face in the NFT market still needs time to explore the preferences of Web3 players, but in a market where tens of thousands of NFTs compete side by side, Meelier Milo needs to act quickly.

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