It's Super Birbish: The Return of Moonbirds

Before June 2025, "Moonbirds" meant a handful of things: pixelated owls, nesting, fanny pack, and a forgotten collection. From 38.5 ETH down to 0.22 ETH, a 99 percent drop, few believed the birb would ever fly again, let alone dominate Twitter mindshare.

That changed when Spencer acquired Moonbirds. From triumph to freefall to rebirth, it has traced one of the wildest arcs in digital collectibles, with Spencer at the center turning a forgotten project into one of Web3’s most talked-about revivals.

Moonbirds' Explosive Debut

On April 16, 2022, Moonbirds, created by Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, launched with a mint price of 2.5 ETH and sold out 7,875 NFTs through public whitelists within 48 hours. Holders believed they weren't just buying pixelated owls, but the core asset of the PROOF ecosystem, a private collective of 1,000 handpicked NFT collectors and artists.

Mint day, however, was marred by controversy. COO Ryan Carson was found to have purchased rare Moonbirds worth $580,000, a move widely condemned as insider trading. The backlash in Discord was immediate, and Carson announced his resignation about nine days later to launch his NFT fund, 121G.

Instead of collapsing, Moonbirds went vertical. The floor shot from 3 ETH to 6 ETH to 13 ETH, before peaking at 38.5 ETH. In less than a week, early minters were staring at a 15x return, one of the fastest wealth-creation events NFTs had ever seen.

Fun Fact: Nesting is Moonbirds' version of soft-staking, where holders lock their NFT in their own wallet to earn rewards. It stays in your wallet but can’t be traded, turning flipping into holding and boosting community loyalty.

The Fracture of Trust

The turning point came on August 4, when Rose unilaterally declared Moonbirds would adopt a CC0 license. By stripping holders of exclusive commercial rights and opening the artwork for anyone to use, it was seen as a breach of trust. It was the first fracture between leadership and community, one that would shadow the project long after.

While CC0 was gaining traction in the art world, where open licensing fueled exposure through T-shirts, memes, and creative remixes, PFPs operated differently. These tokens were tied directly to intellectual property, and many wondered, "Why would anyone build a brand around their bird if anyone can now use the same IP?"

The backlash was fierce.

Twitter influencer @waleswoosh later noted, the fear may have been overstated since very few holders ever managed to license their IP successfully. Nevertheless, at the time, it was seen as a major controversy. The move highlighted Rose's missteps in both decision-making and communication, and it marked the beginning of Moonbirds' decline.

From August 2022 through the end of 2023, Moonbirds' floor collapsed from 19 ETH to below 2 ETH, marking the project's fall from billion-dollar promise to a cautionary tale.

Fun Fact: Back in the 2021–2022 NFT summer, every project was dropping merch. Moonbirds joined in too, serving up a one-of-a-kind drop for nested holders. The author owns it herself, and let's just say she fully agrees with the comment below.

The Yuga Era of Silence

In February 2024, Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquired Proof and its NFT projects, including Moonbirds. Commenting on the news, OpenSea CMO Adam Hollander called it "an absolute mess," adding: "Moonbirds has been one of the worst run projects in the history of NFTs. They made close to $100m and didn’t follow through on their promises."

Holders were told Moonbirds would be integrated into the Otherside metaverse. The announcement briefly lifted the floor price from 1.5 ETH to 2.1 ETH, but the bump lasted only two weeks.

Yuga also introduced a licensing shift, granting holders exclusive commercial rights instead of the previous CC0 model, and and unveiled a new direction with 3D avatars built for animation and integration into Otherside. However, the community wasn’t convinced. The floor slid to 0.22 ETH by August, before recovering to 0.8 ETH by year's end.

Fun Fact: Kevin Rose once admitted he turned to ketamine to deal with the pressure of running Moonbirds. When PROOF was later acquired by Yuga Labs, the comments section didn't disappoint.

Who is this Spencer guy and what is happening to Moonbirds?

If you're wondering the same, you're at the right place.

On May 30, 2025, the news dropped: Moonbirds had been acquired by Orange Cap Games, with founder Spencer stepping into the spotlight.

Unlike past leadership, he skipped the flashy roadmaps and metaverse promises, as he said, "We're not fulfilling the old vision for Moonbirds, we're building our own. Some people won't like that, and that's okay."

After bouncing between companies and enduring the CC0 fallout that shattered trust, the community needed stability, and more importantly, trust had to be rebuilt. Spencer did it brick by brick, through constant communication, relentless birb-posting, and becoming the backbone holders could rally around.

It worked.

In his 51-day update on July 21, Spencer unveiled milestones that had seemed unthinkable just months earlier: OpenSea adopted a Moonbird as its official avatar, the collection topped Ethereum NFTs trading charts five days straight, the Telegram grew past 25,000 active members, and $1.4 million was poured into the raffle to fund stickers.

Birb Army, Assemble!

From its 0.3 ETH low when Spencer stepped in to 3.9 ETH last week, the floor rallied more than 1,000 percent. What once felt finished in early 2025 was suddenly soaring again.

Back in 2023, Spencer had already proven he could spot life in projects others had written off as over. He bought 144 Pudgy Penguins from the Three Arrows Capital bankruptcy auction for a mid six-figure sum and publicly stated he didn't plan to sell. What looked reckless then ended up netting him over $10 million, proving his instinct wasn't about flipping JPEGs but backing IP with long-term conviction.

Through Orange Cap Games, Spencer turned the Pudgy Penguins IP into a trading card game, Vibes TCG, that generated over $1.5 million in revenue and logged 350,000 online plays. It was proof NFTs could break free from speculation and cross into mainstream consumer markets.

Therefore, when Spencer stepped in at Moonbirds, the community believed the birb might follow the same path as Pudgy Penguins, which had bounced back from its own dark days. The mindset quickly shifted from "when to sell" to "why to hold."

Moonbirds were no longer chips for speculation, but brand assets under active construction. And on Twitter, that means mindshare. By rallying the "birb army," Moonbirds clawed its way back into the same conversation as other bluechips NFT collections.

For Moonbirds, it wasn't just a price rebound, it was a belief rebound driven by restored trust.

Spencer's approach proved the obvious thing most forget: the best strategy isn't pushing people to buy, it's making them believe they're building something valuable together. Nail that, and value shows up on its own.

Or, to put it simply: "It's just a bet on people. The market really likes Spencer."

It's Super Birbish

Spencer showed that in web3, leadership isn't measured by roadmaps or hype, but by amplifying community value and growing alongside holders.

For Moonbirds, the story is only beginning.

In a recent interview, Spencer outlined his phased approach: step 0 is reactivating the community, step 1 is growing Moonbirds as an IP platform, and step 2 is delivering products and partnerships.

"In five years, I want Moonbirds to be a ubiquitous IP, something you recognize in every household, with physical products on shelves and a digital presence that brings new people into the space."

Momentum is already visible. On August 18, 2025, Moonbirds became the first NFT project to appear on Kaito's leaderboard, signaling reach beyond its core community. Speculation around a possible token and, Spencer's close ties to Pudgy Penguins' Luca Netz fuel expectations.

The birb army is back, and this time they look ready to stay.