GM

Welcome to the 141 people who joined last night. That’s fairly high for a Monday night.

This is me right now:

In today’s edition:

• Polygon just got its own mascot PFP

• Our latest NFT rankings

• Newly found drops

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

Polygon just got a new mascot PFP

Context

Paulygon is a dynamic NFT collection with ties to the polygon team.

One of the more unique aspects is its customizable trait system, with some traits being locked behind “quests” located throughout the Polygon ecosystem.

A limited-time open edition with a 0.02 eth mint price. Minting “soon”.

Our Take

It’s hard to make art that’s so bad it’s good. Most of the time you end up with something that’s just unironically ugly.

And often, when you attempt to fix it, you fall into the biggest trap of them all: looking like you tried too hard.

If you want to make a good meme, never try too hard. Next thing you know you’ll start tiptoeing into the realm of Brand Building, which is just a few steps away from Consumer Surveys and Market Research.

Think of the Mount Rushmore of fictional memes. Pepe, Wojak, Rage Comics, Peanut Butter Jelly Time. All effortlessly shitty.

This is the spirit behind Paulygon. It’s a sort of cross-over between Apu (a Pepe derivative) and Majin Buu from Dragon Ball Z. He’s fun to look at, and there’s a weird joy in seeing increasingly more scuffed versions of the character. Maybe it’s just me.

A good meme is also versatile. Think about how many Pepe derivatives there are on the internet. You need memes that can upscale, downscale, impersonate IRL celebs or other fictional characters, etc.

This is where Paulygon’s trait system comes in. There are three ways you can increase the rarity of your Pauly. In their own words:

1. Basic Accessories: plain old accessories for the working man; unlocked for all

2. Commission Accessories: sexy hand-crafted accessories for the elite only; unlocked by paying $MATIC

3. Quest Accessories: limited edition protocol-themed accessories for on-chain aficionados; unlocked by completing so-called “Quests”

This makes Pauly a dynamic NFT. We’re seeing this more often nowadays – instead of giving you a fixed look and feel from day 1, these projects let you add your own flair over time, either through purchases or actions you take within some ecosystem.

One of the most obvious examples is Reddit Avatars. Each avatar comes in a “series” where every NFT looks the same, but you’re then able to mix and match traits with other avatars and create a completely unique design. We’re guessing this was an inspiration given that Reddit has been on Polygon since the beginning.

Questing for traits is also interesting. Anyone with a Pauly avatar can unlock rarer traits just by playing around with different protocols and apps, first in the Polygon ecosystem and then expanding to other chains. It’s a sort of “play-to-earn” system that we might see brands do more often as a way to gamify user behavior.

(Plus you never know, some of these protocols could eventually give airdrops to early users.)

This angle also explains the connection to Polygon. The founder of Paulygon happens to be a senior manager at Polygon. And from time to time you’ll see them actually tweet about Paulygon, which is as close to an unofficial partnership as you can get.

But this connection is a double-edged sword. It’s kind of hard to meme a VC-backed sidechain. Feels a little corporate to us, and we can’t think of any good memes that have aligned so closely to a serious, non-memey business.

But people in crypto are often fans of a whole bunch of otherwise boring protocols and chains. So who knows, maybe the Matic crew rolls deep into this one.

✨ Added to Watch List ✨

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

XCOPY x Axstone

XCOPY’s latest round of collabs have been selling like hotcakes over the past week.

For his next one, the iconic glitch artist is teaming up with digital illustrator Axstone for a collaborative drop happening today on manifold.

It will be interesting to see how the two artists’ styles work together here.

Twelve Days of CryptoArt SZN2

An UltraDAO art initiative with a cool mechanic. Twelve Days of CryptoArt features one art drop per day over 12 days, accessible by burning a mint pass.

Artist names are hidden for these drops, so you make your picks solely based on the art. You can swap for a new NFT (read: burning) during the twelve-day drop period. The only catch? You can’t swap for a piece that already came out.

The allowlist mint phase for the passes starts this Thursday for 0.12 ETH. At least 780 of the total 1,200 will be available during this phase. Check out the premint raffle for more information.

Circling by Jay Toups

The 7th Escher Exclusive is landing soon, this time showcasing adventure photographer Jubbish Jay.

Circling is an edition that gets us in our feels. It features a nostalgic mountain view out of the side-view mirror of an airplane and will mint for 0.05 ETH at 150 supply.

THE MINT LIST

1. Nike Our Force 1. Digital shoe drop from the global consumer brand.

2. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X.

3. FewoWorld. New PFP by Fewocious, a rising star in the art world.

4. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT.

5. Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following.

6. 10KFT PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple.

7. ZOGZ by Matt Furie. Open Editions from the creator of Pepe.

8. 0xDEAFBEEF. Gen art from OxDEAFBEEF x Cactoid Labs x LACMA.

9. Adidas Golden Ticket. Free access pass for Adidas Hype Products.

10. Garbage Friends. New PFP from the creator of Invisible Friends.