GM

Quick question that is totally, completely unrelated to anything we might have in store:

Would you like this newsletter more if it were onchain?

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Make NFTs fun again

I was reminded of a major flaw with NFTs last week.

And for this, O Most Loving Reader, I have to thank a Right Click Saver of all people. 

You see, I had an old friend visiting me over the holidays, and after a nice evening and a few glasses of vintage Grenache, he grew visibly curious about this weird space that I spend most of my time in. 

He’s a skeptic, like most, so I brought him over to watch me mint a piece of onchain art in real-time. 

I thought this was a cool moment. Here I was, buying digital property from someone else and receiving it through decentralized rails without needing any middlemen or third-party permission. 

Then I bowed and whispered Grazie Signore to my little Satoshi bobblehead, as is tradition, and that was that. 

But what he saw couldn’t have been any more different. Just a guy clicking around on a random vanilla-looking website, signing various popup menu requests, and then checking a ledger to ensure that I received some art that he could already enjoy himself, at any time, without paying a dime. 

And herein lies the problem…

The experience of minting NFTs is still boring af

Strip away the speculation, and in most cases, you’re removing the only bit of dopamine that comes from buying and owning an NFT. 

Now this might not matter when dealing with pure utility NFTs, because you’re just buying a tool and any ecommerce shop will do. 

But those aren’t the objects that interest me. I don’t come to this space in search of Better Loyalty Cards and I’m guessing you don’t either. 

I come for unbounded holy relics

Bundles of creative energy packaged as memegoods of the highest order. 

And those do exist, but they’re still being sold at cash registers in digital shopping malls. Minting NFTs in early 2024 carries about as much emotional weight as buying your 75th USB Type C cable on Amazon dot com. 

And these things are not cheap

The mint experience for a $5,000 Fine Art NFT is about the same as for the Free Degen Mint. 

Yet consider the equivalent experience that goes with spending $5,000 on anything else. 

Luxury watches, decadent hotels, uber-rare vintage champagne.

Not only are these tangible, often consumable, items – but they also tend to come with deluxe customer service experiences. 

I’m not saying you need white glove treatment when you buy an overpriced pixelated monkey, but point-and-click minting into a wallet that no one will ever see again is not it.

And everyone knows it’s not it, so people get skeptical when someone mentions that they’re buying something for non-speculative enjoyment. 

Now I appreciate the high-minded philosophical pleasures of buying illiquid jpegs and supporting creators as much as the next enjoyooor. But appealing to this alone will only get you so far. 

That Thing You Buy is only half the fun, you need memorable moments that go with it. 

BTW, gaming figured this out long ago

Maplestory (who is working on their own Web3 game) even has a name for this. They call it the Reward Experience: 

Bottom line

Our Top 10 Mints of 2023 list was filled with experiential drops, many of which were huge successes (Lucy Chapter 5, Bonkler, Opepen and Checks, Dookey Dash). 

It’s only a matter of time until more creators realize this is what people want. 

In a way, this feels super bullish. There’s still so much room to grow on the experiential side that it’s amazing to think about how much has been spent in the current limited environment. 

I’m expecting a lot more soon, and readers should rest assured that they’ll have a front-row seat to whatever these dopamine merchants cook up, including: 

→ IRL mints

→ physical artifacts 

→ livestream events 

→ gamified mints

→ interactive storytelling 

→ multi-sensory mint pages 

→ multiplayer everything 

And we won’t just be passive observers. I’m personally working on at least four things from that list myself. 🫡 

Be the change you want to see, etc, etc. 

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

TRACE // INK by Perrine

Affordable onchain generative art is coming your way with the 56-supply TRACE // INK by pseudonymous artist Perrine.

This hand-curated collection focuses on textures, showcasing broad, bristled brush strokes in various color palettes dancing in place on each canvas.

It’s also another addition to Perrine’s list of multimedia creations, which most recently included a collaboration with Dom Hoffman’s Blitmap.

AI Meets Bitcoin

An Ethereum-to-Bitcoin AI art pilgrimage is happening with the 450-supply AI Meets Bitcoin on the Bounce platform.

It features the distinct styles of 0009.eth, RedruM, and charlesai – artists that fans of emerging AI art should recognize at least partially, given their past releases on major Ethereum art platforms.

Although this is marketed as an Ordinals drop, the website suggests that the pieces are Ethereum-based ERC-721 tokens. Perhaps some post-mint Bitcoin bridging action is on the cards?

Dinosty

Age of Dino is an upcoming mobile & PC 4X strategy game (think Civilization) from one of the market’s favorite publishers at the moment, Xterio, scheduled to launch H1 2024.

Although the game is on opBNB, an L2 for the Binance Smart Chain, they are using Ethereum mainnet for their upcoming 5,000-supply Dinosty PFP.

The PFP will mint via a ranked auction ranging between 0.2 and 0.59 ETH (with ties decided by bidding time) and features future token airdrops and in-game benefits, although details on these are scant.

One for gamers on the riskier side of the spectrum, given the limited gameplay shown so far and the lack of information on the studio’s team (although they did announce a $8M raise last September).