June 24, 2022 - 15 min read
NFTs have never been more popular, and Lazy Lions is currently one of the most popular NFT collections on the market today. As of mid-2022, Lazy Lions was listed as the 78th highest-priced NFT collection by floor cap, at over $6,300 ETH, or more than $10 million. For reference, a floor cap takes the floor price of an NFT collection and multiplies it by all NFTs in the collection to create an aggregate project price, much like the market cap of a cryptocurrency or stock.
Lazy Lions was inspired by the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and, like the BAYC, it mainly runs on the Ethereum blockchain and is most prominently available on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Due to their sustained popularity, some consider Lazy Lions NFTs to be “blue-chip” NFTs; in essence, NFTs with a brand so large and engaged that they will be able to sustain high floor prices even through market downturns.
In this article, we’ll review everything you need to know about the Lazy Lions NFT collection, including what it is, how it started, where to purchase one, and what the future of the collection holds.
The Lazy Lion NFT collection is a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs. Like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the Lazy Lions are generative NFTs, meaning that they are generated by a computer algorithm programmed with a series of potential visual traits. In the case of Lazy Lions, 160 independent traits exist, including facial expressions, manes, clothing types, hats, cigarettes or pipes, skin colors, glasses, jewelry, and more.
Specifically, the project has:
Each Lazy Lion NFT is available as a high resolution, 10,000px by 10,000px JPEGs. This permits owners to display their NFTs on large screens or print large, high-definition copies of their NFTs.
It should be noted that, in addition to Ethereum, Lazy Lion NFTs are available on chains including Polygon and Klatyn. For reference, Polygon is a popular Ethereum Layer-2, which provides scalability via lower gas prices and higher transaction speeds, while Klaytn is an open-source, Ethereum equivalent, Layer-1 public blockchain focused on scaling metaverse applications.
Lazy Lions was started in mid-2021 by a group of Australian artists and developers, led by the artist Ashur, as well as his partners Alion, Nin, and Nine. The lions themselves, however, were mainly designed by another team member, artist Alberto Rizzo (also known as rizzio.eth). The lions were initially inspired by the Assyrian background of the project’s members, as the lion is an iconic symbol in Assyrian culture. In addition, the project was inspired by lions’ worldwide reputation of being “kings” and “queens” of the jungle.
The creators also reportedly wanted to create a powerful image of hope during some of the darkest days of the nationwide lockdowns in Australia, which were among the most severe of any developed country. Since people had to remain at a far distance in the real world, Ashur wanted to create a sense of closeness in the metaverse.
Inspired by the blockbuster NFT projects Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptopunks, Ashur wanted to create something similar, yet different, with more atypical traits. Like BAYC and Cryptopunk NFTs, Lazy Lions were designed to also be used as PFPs (profile pictures) for owners particularly enthusiastic about the project.
From the very beginning, Ashur wanted to create a community, and his hopes have succeeded wildly. Since its inception, the project has quickly grown a massive presence on nearly all major social media platforms, with its main focus being on Twitter and Discord. The project has emphasized community ownership, which means that each NFT owner fully owns the IP of their individual NFT.
The project has also emphasized long-term growth over quick pumps, with founder Ashur saying that “roars > floors,” indicating that community participation and engagement are more important to them than rapid price increases. In addition, over time, Ashur and his team have handed over more power to the community, which can now vote on the future of the project.
Unlike some NFT projects, which take time to blow up, Lazy Lions started incredibly strong. Out of the initial 10,000 lions, between 3,000 and 4,000 NFTs were sold in the first five hours alone, earning the project a total of around $1.5 million.
Lazy Lions experienced its first true floor price jump to 1 ETH after influencer Jake Paul purchased ten lions and publicly expressed his interest in the project. By September 16th, 2021, the price floor had risen to more than $2,000, with the priciest Lazy Lion NFT up to that point having been traded for around $50,000. The most precious Lazy Lion NFT of all time sold for 99 ETH ($350,000 at the time of sale) on October 11th, 2021.
In addition to Jake Paul, several brands have also jumped on the Lazy Lions bandwagon, including the parent brand behind AriZona Ice Tea, which purchased a Lazy Lion NFT in September 2021. In addition to influencers and brands, NBA players including Tyrese Haliburton and Seth Curry have also purchased Lazy Lions, which has only increased the interest in the project among celebrities, influencers, and entrepreneurs.
As of the writing of this article, Lazy Lions had more than 148,000 Discord members, 5133 Lazy Lion NFT holders, and over $95 million of volume traded.
In September 2021, the Lazy Lions team executed their first major airdrop– giving all current Lazy Lions NFT holders a “Lazy Bungalow,” which they could use as background images for social media platforms like Twitter. 9,600 Bungalows were created using 100 characteristics.
The team also launched a Bungalow dApp so that holders could link their original Lazy Lions inside the frame of their Lazy Bungalow. The Lazy Bungalows, however, were just one of several airdrops that the team would eventually provide for NFT owners; later airdrops included special Halloween tokens and potions that could be used to generate Lazy Lion Cubs– which we’ll delve into more in the next section.
Glitch is the main antagonist of the Lazy Lions storyline.
One of the newer innovations of the Lazy Lions NFT collection is the ability for current NFT holders to mint new NFTs in the form of Lazy Lion Cubs. Lazy Lion Cubs are created from special NFT potions, including Lazy Drinks (Milk or Juice) that have been airdropped into the wallets of current Lazy Lion NFT owners.
If a Lazy Lion drinks juice and creates a Lazy Cub, it will bring out a cub with the most attitude, but also the most common trait. In contrast, Lazy Cubs minted with milk bottles are younger, cuter, and rarer.
Lazy Lions can generate up to two cubs, but holders should be careful when attempting to mint the new NFTs, as the project will not provide new cubs to holders whose blockchain transactions fail due to network congestion or other errors.
The collection’s founders have set a maximum supply of 22,000 Lazy Cubs; 10,000 will be allocated for current Lazy Lions NFT owners and 12,000 will be available to the general public.
The founders have also created a fun backstory for the creation of the Lazy Cubs. According to the founders:
In the near future, more of the Lazy Lions and Glitch backstory will be revealed via an exclusive digital comic issued only to Lazy Lions & Bungalows holders.
As with all NFTs, prices vary from day to day and week to week. However, to give a sample of the prices of Lazy Lions, we’ll provide some price and volume data from NFT Stats from early June 2022. You can check on NFT Stats or similar sites to get updated data for any particular day or week.
In a bid to expand their growing presence in the metaverse, the Lazy Lions team has used their funds from NFT sales to create a private island inside The Sandbox, the world’s most popular land metaverse. Lazy Lions owners have exclusive access to the island and its virtual world– which is intended to be a jumping-off point for other Lazy Lion ventures in the metaverse. The Island, which is located in a secret location in The Sandbox, even has its own website. Community members have also released an unofficial native token, the LionIsland Inu (LIONISLAND), but it’s unclear when and if the token will be actively traded.
Lazy Lions NFTs are currently available on a wide variety of NFT marketplaces and sales platforms, including:
As we just mentioned, OpenSea is, by far, the most popular NFT marketplace, and is perhaps the easiest exchange to buy Lazy Lions. Here are a few steps you’ll need to take in order to buy a Lazy Lions NFT on OpenSea.
In addition to the traditional Lazy Lions NFTs and the new Lazy Cubs, the creators of the Lazy Lions project have introduced collectibles. Some collectibles are available to current owners, while others have been airdropped to non-owners for community participation. We’ll mention a bit more about these in the Roadmap section of this article.
The Lazy Lions Cabana Bar inside VR Chat.
Lazy Lions has partnered with a variety of other players in blockchain and Web3, including:
One of the biggest reasons for the success of Lazy Lions is its highly-engaged and growing community. As we mentioned earlier, Lazy Lions has a discord community of nearly 150,000 and around 80,000 Twitter followers, giving it one of the larger social media presences of relatively new NFT projects.
One way the Lazy Lions team has continued to keep the community engaged is through a community rewards program called ROARwards, which rewards owners for participation in the community.
For example, by uploading their Lazy Lion NFT as their Twitter profile, owers can become eligible for additional rewards, including new airdrops, access to new events, free merchandise, new art, and entrance to new areas in the metaverse that will be developed in the future.
It should be noted that owners adding their NFT as their Twitter profile has only increased the visibility of the project, leading to more followers and attention. Additional rewards can be achieved for visiting the Lazy Lions private island in the Sandbox for the first time.
In the near future, the Lazy Lions team will also introduce a native token, the $ROAR token, potentially modeled after the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s explosively popularly cryptocurrency, ApeCoin, which currently has a market cap of over $1 billion and temporarily spiked to a market cap of $8 billion within its first week of trading.
In general, the Lazy Lions team is attempting to transfer more and more control over the direction of the project to owners by implementing a formalized voting system on Discord, as well as continuing to hold AMAs with the Lazy Lions development team where owners can ask questions, make suggestions, and voice potential concerns.
The Lazy Lions team has created an official roadmap for the project, which is currently in the final stages of completion. Only the official game has not yet been released.
Promo for one of the Lazy Lions Collectible Packs.
In addition to the launch of the Lazy Lions game, other upcoming events in the Lazy Lion community include the launch of Lioness NFTs, as well as metaverse concerts and charity partnerships.
While not approaching the size and scope of major NFT collections like Cryptopunks or Bored Ape Yacht Club, Lazy Lions is still undoubtedly one of the most popular NFT collections on the market today. Their strong and active social media community, combined with consistent product launches, such as Lazy Bungalows, Lazy Lion Cubs, ROARwards, the Lazy Lion private island, and their holiday NFT airdrops have made the project a great success.
In general, this has helped keep the community engaged through the ups and downs of the NFT market. However, the Lazy Lion project still has one major hurdle to cross; the creation of an effective and engaging Lazy Lions game, which much of the future progress of the project may hinge on.
It should be noted that NFT investing is risky, and you should only invest money you can afford to lose. However, if you are looking to purchase a reputable NFT with a significantly lower cost than a Bored Ape, buying a Lazy Lions NFT could be the perfect option. With the NFT market in constant turmoil, however, only time will tell whether the collection has true staying power, or if it will fade into history as simply another series of JPEGs.
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