NFT, typical and atypical in Pond's New Paradise

This article comes from Wall Ash AsHOnthEWaLL, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.

After Ash drop2, Pak encountered the biggest crisis of his career.

Due to the problem of smart contracts, Ash drop2, which was originally a major benefit, suffered a tragic gas disaster, coupled with a large number of robots rushing to run, resulting in a very bad casting experience in the NFT field this year. Although compensation measures were launched soon, many participants and old collectors did not buy it. Facts have proved that this bad experience is just a fuse.

Soon, there was an unprecedented split within the Pak community, and many long-standing emotions broke out. Many community KOLs began to criticize Pak violently, and some were even kicked out of the community and their identities were withdrawn. The whale smashed the plate, the KOL tweeted dis, and the conflict became public.

At the same time, the price of Ash plummeted by 80%+, falling into the "prehistoric" price range.

On the other hand, the transaction volume of merge exceeded 100 million US dollars, and the market demand for Pak's works still seems to be strong.

As a pioneer of NFT application boundaries and a leader in artistic NFT, Pak and the ecology and brand he created are undergoing a major reshuffle.

And can Pak and his ash ecosystem survive this "death spiral" catastrophe? Pak holders, do you really understand Pak?

At the same time, although Bayc, the industry "benchmark" that has attracted much attention, started late, it has made progress steadily.

For long-distance treks, starting at the same point, a slight difference in angle will cause a difference of thousands of kilometers in the end point, and the same is true for the marathon of the NFT project.

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1. NFT: Pond's New Paradise

First of all, almost all NFT projects have a "Ponzi" structure.

"Pond's" here is not a derogatory term. Since the first issuance of bills by the Dutch East India Company, "Ponzi" has been an indispensable stimulant for human "innovation" activities.

As a new medium with the potential to penetrate billions of people, NFT quickly became a Ponzi system. After all, the imagination space here is bigger than that of the currency circle. Social networking, art, entertainment, virtual people, e-commerce, advertising, fashion, any activity that exhausts human imagination can tell stories here.

And the biggest story will be the "Metaverse." Metaverse, meaning beyond-verse, is the universe beyond the real universe. That is simply "a vast world, a lot to do". Any cowhide, as long as you can think of, can be blown here. The founder of Coinbase said that NFT is likely to surpass the currency circle, which is very reasonable. The story of the currency circle will need to talk about technology and logic to some extent, and the story of the metaverse will have nothing else, just let it go completely.

But it's one thing to tell a story, it's a whole other thing to tell a story that makes people pay for it.

Master Li's famous saying, "The consensus of leeks is also a consensus", has also been tried and tested in NFT. But don't underestimate leeks, leeks are not equal to fools. On the contrary, the leeks of NFT are people with active brains, the courage to try new things, and a certain ability to think independently. The real idiot who echoes others has not yet had access to NFT's cx.

Therefore, "Leek" can understand the "Ponzi" structure of NFT.

That being the case, why buy NFT?

The unified answer, "utility".

Specifically, there are two types of “utility”, Xiao Huihui is called “short-term utility” and “long-term utility” for the time being.

"Short-term utility", in simple terms, is to buy this NFT, you can get another NFT airdrop/whitelist, then get a new token airdrop, then get another NFT airdrop/whitelist, and then more tokens Airdrop... Every project at every level needs more people and money to come in. There is no more "Ponzi" structure than this, right?

However, "Thunderbolt" is the inevitable ending of most "Ponds", with only a few exceptions.

These few exceptions are "Ponzi till you make it", and finally can really achieve "long-term utility" projects.

"Long-term utility", the common saying now is that I want to develop a game and create my own universe, and then all the previously issued NFTs and tokens can be used in it, then it will be considered as the "primary stage of the metaverse" ".

Projects that Leeks believe have the ability to reach the "primary stage of the Metaverse", is the blue chip, which is the next Bitcoin Ethereum. Remember, "the consensus of leeks is also a consensus." BAYC's long-term maintenance of 100+ ETH floor shows that the market consensus is very firm.

All those who hold NFT now, Xiao Huihui thinks that they have seen the future. But as mentioned many times in the previous article, seeing the future does not mean seeing the future clearly, let alone being able to lie down and win.

If your project "short-term utility" is done well, you can laugh until now, and if the "long-term utility" is done well, you can laugh at the end.

There are three risks here.

The first is to choose risk.

Of the tens of thousands of projects, 99% will never reach the "long-term utility". Projects that have the potential to achieve either have a first-mover advantage (the car has already started and you are probably not in the car), or the new project is equipped with an all-star team + top-level Resources (consensus has been formed, tickets are robbed or already priced-in).

Fortunately, there will always be a next project, but the premise is that you have enough liquidity, and spread your bets with the method of VC when web2 was rising. The result of this strategy is that the more money you have, the higher the hit probability, and the less money you have and the liquidity is exhausted, you basically rely on burning incense and worshiping Buddha.

In short, "the rich get richer". For ordinary leeks, before "digging" the first pot of gold, they can only rely on digging the first pot of gold.

The second is execution risk.

Even if you are lucky or rich, it is still difficult to "win" in a "blue chip" car.

Because of a brand new field like the "metaverse", the "execution risk" is too great. What is the metaverse? No one has seen it, only in dreams. BAYC's valuation of 4 billion dollars is exaggerated, but with a volume as huge as Meta, tens of billions of dollars have been spent over the years, and there is no sound of a metaverse. If you buy all of Meta's stocks now, will you be able to win the train of Metaverse? What's more, some NFT projects that have only been established for a few months have received limited tests.

Of course, projects like BAYC, Azuki, and Decentraland are in a very good position, and the market has given corresponding pricing, but this pricing is just a vote, not a "guaranteed vote". Are BAYC games highly playable? How many people can play? Can it become "ape universe"? It's too hard to say.

The third is time risk.

Xiao Huihui thinks this is the biggest risk. Even if the project party is very strong and can really do what they promised, this is usually 2 years, 3 years or even 5 years or 10 years later. Decentraland's land and mana Xiaohuihui bought it in 2017. How many "returns to zero" and how miserable it has gone through, even if it is acquired now, it can't be said how explosive it is.

Can more projects, whether they are project parties or holders, survive several bulls and bears and still persist?The previous white paper and the current roadmap are all behind the long wait.

"Believe not because you see, but see because you believe" is a very idealistic saying, which is very suitable for young people who are brainwashed and have no life experience. But in real life, how many people have you met so romantic and poetic?

The difference between Holders and flippers, alpha and rug pull is just a thought.

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2. Atypical Ponzi 1: The Sudden Loss of the Pak Universe

Pak universe, before ash drop2 was a near perfect "ponzi". The main reason is that the holder's imagination of the "Pak Universe" utility is very sufficient.

Looking at the picture above, pak's Ponzi spire is 60 1/1 NFTs in 2020, with sales totaling several thousand dollars. Not much, but this is the beginning of the pak art universe.

The second drop X, 300 NFTs, earned hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The number of registered collectors increased by 5 times, and the income increased by hundreds of times. Most of these core collectors will become the main propagandists of Pak NFT in the future.

The third drop Fungibles, found Sotheby’s cooperation, more than 6,000 NFTs, sold for 17 million US dollars. With another dozens of times of collectors and income growth, pak began to enter the mainstream art circle.

The fourth drop pages/poets, more than 65,000 NFTs, with an income of 70 million US dollars. Pak universe, officially launched!

With the fifth drop merge, 310,000 nft, and an income of 92 million US dollars, pak surpassed beeple in one fell swoop and became the third highest-selling artist in the world.

So far, the Ponzi structure of the pak universe is almost perfect, advancing layer by layer, reflecting extremely strong explosive power. In one year, pak has changed from an unknown designer to an artist who can have a place in the history of modern art.

Pak's NFT works can be said to be the representative of art NFT, and have appeared in various mainstream media and exhibitions. His discord channel, the conditions to join depend on fate, it is full of compulsions, and it is hard to get a ticket. In the entire NFT field, there is almost no criticism of pak.

The reason behind it is that everyone has very rich imagination and high expectations for Pak's "utility", and Pak has eaten up the bonus of the first-mover advantage.

Pak completed the release of ash as early as May 2021(Stimulates the imagination of "long-term utility"), and groundbreakingly established the curate mechanism of NFT exclusive token such as ash(The action of "short-term utility" is ahead of most project parties).

This kind of expectation makes the price of Pak's works and the price of ash keep rising.

But in retrospect, at this time, the utility of the Pak universe may exist more in the imagination of the holders themselves.

Due to the mysterious persona created by Pak, he has always remained anonymous, and his twitter and discord statements are always "vague".Therefore, he has always been vague about the "short-term utility" of its NFT and the "long-term utility" of the token ash.

On the other hand, the needs of holders are very clear.

What do the holders of Pak NFT want?

They want "short-term utility"!

I want Cubes, poets and other NFTs to be able to receive airdrops in the future drop, or at least have the right to whitelist/preemptive mint, want discounts for subsequent art purchases, or at least have the right to enter the discord channel.

What do Ash holders want?

They want "long term utility"!

I want the incentive of pledge, I want the premium of the NFT economic system of the first art in the future, and I want the commission-free and gas-free purchase experience and the right of first refusal for the works of top artists in the future.

However, Pak never promised any "short-term utility".

The rules of each drop are announced a few days before the drop, and the discretion is entirely in Pak's hands. Often these "short-term utilities" are very "petty".

Moreover, it is unbelievable that starting from ash drop1, both the Pak NFT holder and the "short-term utility" of the ash holder suddenly disappeared.

And "long-term utility" is "the ideal is very full, but the reality is very skinny".

Ash drop2 was originally a concentrated release of Pak's universe imagination. Gathering 30 top creators in the NFT field, you can only use ash to purchase the first works, and with the subsequent combustion mechanism, it can be said to be the cornerstone of the first market for subsequent art NFTs.

As the most important part of the Pak universe, originally, Pak could be inclined to all NFT holders in ash drop2 to further consolidate the "short-term utility"; at the same time, a clear roadmap was made to explain the grand vision of ash as the first economic system of art NFT , draw the "long-term utility" of the Pak universe, which will greatly increase the long-term demand for ash.

However, for the "small goal" of "widening the base of holders", Pak adopted the mechanism of "everyone is equal", which completely eliminated the long-term holder's imagination of "short-term utility".

Moreover, the empowerment of ash's "long-term utility" is not reflected in ash drop2 at all: for art purchased with ash, the main transaction token in the secondary market is still eth, and ash applications do not have any discounts on handling fees , It is useless to use the scene, and the first purchase of using ash is more like a one-time show.

The "long-term utility" of the holders is also disillusioned.

And very unfortunately, the smart contract of ash drop2 made a low-level error, and a large number of ash holders held fresh ash in their hands and had nowhere to spend, which caused ash to start smashing, and the accumulated emotions finally began to explode.

Judging from the market reaction, Pak's universe seems to have fallen into a 4-step "death spiral":

1) The disillusionment of "short-term utility" and "long-term utility" destroyed the patience of holders (including many giant whales). Giant whales, new players who bought ash but didn't use it, participated in drop2 and had a lot of ash in their hands Artists began to sell.

2) Since most of Pak's nfts are deeply bound to the burning mechanism of ash, the sharp drop in the price of ash also led to a sharp drop in the price of nft, which in turn triggered a further sharp drop in the price of ash.

3) Pak maintains the persona of a great artist, and adopts a dismissive and tough attitude towards price drops and criticism, further polarizing the community and leading to more people's disillusionment.

4) Repeat 1).

From the point of view of Ponzi structure and utility, Pak has indeed ruined a good hand.

But it doesn't mean that the Pak universe is hopeless. Xiao Huihui even believes that there is a great possibility that the Pak universe will eventually be reborn as a phoenix.

First of all, even from a utility point of view, the problems of the Pak universe are obvious mechanism design and implementation problems (tokenomics design flaws and over-issued projects breaking the balance of supply and demand), which can be remedied.

In this regard, Xiao Huihui found a great analysis from the early collector of Pak @ABBBBBB_NFT, (https://twitter.com/ABBBBBB_NFT/status/1511930386515116032), from the perspective of token design and community operation A lot of very valuable solutions are listed.

More importantly, the universe of artistic NFTs is fundamentally different from other universes of NFTs.

Artistic NFTs may not need a utility at all!

When artistic language accumulates to a certain extent, it is possible to form a magic power similar to "religion", which can far exceed the power of "commercial" without following the logic of capital.

Generally speaking, talented artists often do not need the approval of "ordinary people", nor do they need to "play by the rules". Art is higher than capital, and artists are higher than businessmen.

Xiao Huihui feels that, as the operator of the largest art NFT project, Pak is unlikely to suddenly fail to understand the importance of NFT's Ponzi structure and utility. Pak’s constant offense to his primary audience—collectors looking for a quick buck—is more like a “performance art” performance.

His strong interest in innovation and exploring boundaries made Pak feel bored and even repulsed by some regular "routine operations".

He has repeatedly emphasized in discord that he has been in the media field for decades, and some "noises" that appear now have long been used to him and have no effect on him. He is still immersed in his "innovative" work every day.

We can understand his words as "arrogant", "childish", and "unprofessional", and we can also go beyond the perspective of NFT project operations and understand them as "art performances of new media".

Perhaps, this is a bigger and longer chess game?

To some extent, it may not be appropriate to compare Pak Universe with other NFT projects. Because they could be two different species. This may explain why the Pak universe suddenly became an "atypical Ponzi" from the "perfect Ponzi" at the beginning.

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3. Classic Ponzi 2: Rise of the Ape Universe

From the point of view of the Ponzi structure, Bayc is much slower than Pak. So far, it has only completed the two steps of NFT issuance and coin issuance, and it is more than half a year slower than Pak Universe as a whole.

However, Bayc has gone more steadily, and the pie has become more and more rounded, gradually concreting the holders' imagination of utility.

From the beginning, as a pure pfp project, Bayc has no "artistic baggage". There is no need to be mysterious, and there is no need to have an artistic personality, because there is only one way for all pfp projects that do not want to run away, and that is to create utility imagination, create utility imagination, and create more utility imagination. (Although the essence of art projects is the same, the method of "creating dreams" is much more complicated than pure pfp projects)

In retrospect, Bayc's style of play is very clear:

1) Become the leader of the pfp project,

2) Issue coins,

3) Ape universe.

The idea is not difficult, but the rare thing is that every step is very solid.

In stage 1), yuga labs is very focused, with one and only one operational goal, maintaining their first NFT product Bayc. All Bayc holders are super VIP users of yuga labs. By airdropping Mayc and Bakc to holders,Continue to maintain and consolidate the "short-term utility" expectations of Bayc holders.

It is worth noting that, very different from Pak’s continuous issuance of parallel NFTs, yuga labs always regards Bayc as the core IP, and the additional Back and Mayc issued later are only subsidiary IPs, which cannot be compared with Bayc.

In doing so, the effect is very obvious.

The first is to give back to early users, retaining a large number of users by satisfying the "short-term utility"; the second is to "recruit new users", to recruit new users into the community by expanding the total number of NFTs.

Let’s compare it. Pak’s NFT has never had a clear distinction between the core and the fringe. The operation blindly pursues “recruitment” and ignores or even damages the interests of early users, making long-term holders feel “betrayed”.

From airdropping NFT to constantly looking for celebrity endorsements, Yuga Labs has always centered on an IP such as Bayc, so that the interests of holders and project parties are always synergistic.

To put it crudely, if you hold Pak, you need to serve Pak, and if you hold Bayc, you only need to enjoy the service.Which is the real spirit of web3? unimportant. Because the market says: the price is important.

In the 2) phase, after several months of warm-up, bayc met the expectation of airdropping apecoin. From Xiao Huihui's point of view, this is an operation in which bayc completely differentiates itself from other pfp projects.

The team did not blindly believe in the so-called "fair-launch" dogmatism of web3, but was very proficient in the operation of web2 products. From the preheating of public opinion, to the game trial, to the shocking airdrop, bayc is very patient and planning, and it took several months to completely implement the "favorite fan" route.

In terms of airdropping tokens, yuga labs is not as petty as most project parties, directly airdropping more than 100,000 US dollars to each bayc holder!

This kind of operation that exceeds expectations and satisfies the "short-term utility" surprises the holders, and also brings a huge demonstration effect of wealth. demand for apecoin. Bayc and apecoin quickly rose after experiencing a short-term crash, avoiding the "death spiral".

In the 3) stage, yuga labs finalized the huge financing and "leaked" the detailed planning blueprint,Continue to satisfy holders' fantasies about "forward utility"。

Judging from the future planning of "Ape Universe", the content is nothing more than real estate, new NFT, games, etc., and there is nothing brilliant about it. But "all relying on peers", yuga labs' operational capabilities are really much higher than those of the current web3 competitors, and it has turned all the mediocre cards into king bombs.

After three steps, Bayc is already far ahead.The future has come? maybe.

The huge wealth effect and business opportunities reflected by Bayc, with the advent of the web2 crisis, more and more web2 "marketing" teams and even micro-business teams are entering web3, and the "competition" of web3 operations will inevitably become more and more fierce. This pool of water will become more and more muddy.

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Subsequent

"Fake it till you make it" is a very bloody saying, which means that even if you can't do it now, you have to pretend to be able to do it until you really do it. In this sense, NFT is truly "crossing the river by feeling the stones": Even if the bottom of your feet is empty, you have to float on the water, smile and confident, pretend to be down-to-earth, and silently say: "Ponzi it till you make it ".

There is nothing new under the sun, no matter wearing the cloak of 1CO, 1EO, STO or NFT, DAO, Web3, all participants are swimming in the Ponzi structure dominated by the latest American narrative, and gradually explore a set of relevant Adapt to the "operating" rules.

In the pool, there are idealists, opportunists, leeks, liars, cowardly fish, arrogant lions, desperate wild dogs, and alligators who get rich overnight.

Everyone gathers with each other because of the "spiritual homeland", and then separates because of the "green dollar"; we sing out-of-key liberal songs, eat randomly seasoned decentralized hot pot, and sit on totems to worship monkeys and bears , rabbits, and foxes, fleeing a rotten order in a hurry, and learning new survival rules on the way to the next wilderness in the west.

Adapting, however, is the beginning and the end of progress.

In this crazy journey like a new roller coaster, the "believers" of web3 will leave Pak or Bayc for a "brave new world"?

Or more air?