[Dive #162] 'Tis the Season for Art with a Twist
PLUS: 🗞 Web3 with TPan updates
It’s 2023 and we’re back! I spent the past couple of weeks binging movies and shows (highly recommend White Lotus and Glass Onion), hanging out with family, and stuffing my face with good food.
Fun fact: I’ve been journaling since grade school, and it was hilarious reading entries from decades ago. Here’s an example of an entry where I complained about my Spanish teacher. My voice and tone haven’t changed much 😅. Wherever you are Señora Vizcarra, I didn’t mean it!
Hope everyone had a great holiday season as well, let’s get it 💪
Web3 with TPan Updates
Moving forward, I’ll be reducing my publishing cadence from 5x/week to 2, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
What?! I specifically subscribed so I can read something from TPan every day!
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Jk, it actually it was. When I started to publicly write last year, I had a large backlog of thoughts and opinions. The well hasn’t run dry, but the opportunity cost of publishing every day has risen.
Publishing 5x/week beyond headlines take a toll, and I want to protect that energy by reducing my output while maintaining my bar for quality.
What will I do with the extra time?
Exploring additional opportunities within web3 (cue I’m Not Leaving Wolf of Wall Street meme) specific to Growth, Marketing, and Content.
Repurposing my library of content to something bigger. Still in the exploration phase, will share more updates as I make progress here.
Focusing on sustainability. Reducing my publishing cadence enables that.
I’ve surprised myself at how natural it was for me to write consistently (not a surprise in hindsight considering my journaling habits as seen above), and the realization that I had to pull back was natural as well.
Onto our regularly scheduled programming, you’re here for the good stuff.
Art with a Twist
Art has been one of the foundations of NFTs, and it feels like it’s been kicked up a notch.
As creators and artists have become more comfortable with the concept of art on the blockchain, there have been more layers of game theory added on top of the base layer of minting and owning art.
On Ethereum, Manifold is a free creator platform that enables easy minting, customization, utility implementation, and holder insights.
Here’s a few examples that caught my eye:
Drunk Santa
On Christmas, cryptopainter released a free claim piece, Drunk Santa. Each wallet was eligible to claim 3 mints.
What caught the eyes of many in the space was “You may be able to burn drunk Santa later for....”
When you combine the ingredients of a free claim, open edition, hints of a burning mechanic, and of course great art, you have a recipe for something that could become big.
25,627+ editions of this piece were minted in ~16 hours. That’s a lot, especially on a holiday when everyone is spending time with loved ones.
In the following days, cryptopainter revealed more details about claiming additional art and burning mechanics.
As the Drunk Santa universe expanded, a collector created a spreadsheet that laid out all the various snapshots and claims. As an example, here’s how the second snapshot for claim and burn mechanics is set up:
Why is this interesting? Cryptopainter is co-creating with his Drunk Santa collector base while adding layers of game theory with burn mechanics and scarcity:
Drunk Santa holders are able to claim 1 of 3 presents in the second snapshot: PFP, Pin Drop, or Two Words
Some of these pieces require holders to purchase off the secondary market to redeem. For example, if you want to mint Key, holders have to collect 250 Pin Drops and burn them for 1 of 25 Keys.
To mint Monkey King, Punk, Cool Cat, etc, holders have to burn 2 PFP pieces
If holders have the new art piece in the same wallet as their Bored Ape, Cryptopunk, Cool Cat, etc, cryptopainter will include them in his future artwork moving forward
So…what does this all mean?!
Conversations with creators are evolving: Unconventional and powerful. Instead of asking cryptopainter ‘Hey, can you feature my Cryptopunk in your next piece?’, fans can show that they’re serious by participating in the Drunk Santa ecosystem and holding the Punk art piece for future consideration.
This lets holders know that they are seen and heard and helps cryptopainter identify who his real fans are and reward them accordingly in his future artwork.
Prioritizing conversations: As creators like cryptopainter rise in popularity, they can identify who they should prioritize in their work.
As an example: Key (burn 250 Pin Drops) > Punk (burn 2PFPs) > Twitter follower.
Finding inspiration: Cryptopainter doesn’t seem to have problems on this front, but sometimes creators fall into creative ruts. With Drunk Santa’s first snapshot and burn mechanic, holders could burn pieces and submit stories and words from which he will create new pieces with.
I imagine the pieces he creates will be airdropped to holders of those respective holders and co-creators.
Cryptopainter could even combine inspiration from the words and the PFPs and co-create with the co-creations themselves 🤯
Eg: Co-create a piece based on the Success Story featuring Cool Cats from the PFP collection.
I’m curious to see how cryptopainter continues the storytelling. I imagine there is more to come in this Drunk Santa ecosystem.
The Final Chapter by Hiroji Kotegawa
Fortunately, this example is easier to understand 😂
Kotegawa held an Open Edition mint at 0.05 ETH (~$60) for The Final Chapter, with 190 minted at the end of the claim period.
Kotegawa will then release ‘The New Beginning’, with 3 versions of the piece. Holders would have to burn 2 ‘The Final Chapter’ tokens in order to mint.
But wait, there’s a twist! Each of the versions will have a 24 hour mint window and will not be shown simultaneously. This adds a level of gamification, especially if you only minted 2 Final Chapter pieces.
Which version of The New Beginning do you mint? 1, 2, or 3?
Do you want to focus on the version you like the most, or the version that is minted the least for scarcity purposes?
Do you want to keep any of the original Final Chapter pieces?
The safest bet for Kotegawa fans would be to mint 7 Final Chapter tokens (6 for each version of the New Beginning and 1 for the original Final Chapter piece), but that doesn’t seem to be the path taken by holders.
Decisions, decisions…
Burn Adventures by Logik
On New Year’s Day, Logik launched Burn Adventures, an interactive art series. Burna Phone: Act I was minted 4,565 times.
However, that’s where the fun starts:
4,565 versions of the same art piece may seem like a lot. However, if the story evolves to have 100 different pieces (for example), scarcity and game theory come into play. When the story splits into multiple paths, things get even more interesting.
The evolution of creation as a storytelling medium
None of these concepts are novel by themselves. Airdrops, burning, and game theory have been around for a long time, whether in the digital or the physical.
However, web3 and platforms like Manifold allow for creators and holders participate at scale.
We’ve only scratched the surface, and I expect this to proliferate across all mediums of content creation.
What does this mean for businesses and brands?
How can gamification to create meaningful conversation with users and clients?
How can storytelling involve co-creation? There’s a reason why Nike’s .SWOOSH platform is leaning heavily into co-creation.
How can brands partner with artists in creative ways with this new form of storytelling and collecting? Eg: What if Adidas partnered with LOGIK for one of the burning paths to create a branded piece, resulting in holders of that co-branded piece being airdropped something in the future?
This reminds me of how brands have stealthily advertised in movies and music videos over the past several years. I think this is a better and more novel approach. It’s an experience, not just an ad.
Creating will be more fun than ever.
See you Thursday!