[Thoughts #125] Bicycle x BAYC, Reddit as Web3's Trojan Horse
PLUS: ✔ Nike Speculation
Wowee, lots of things hot off the press.
Bicycle x BAYC
Bicycle (playing card brand) purchased a Bored Ape and will be partnering with the BAYC community to create a custom deck of cards.
Bored Ape this, Bored Ape that, I’m getting Bored of all this Bored Ape crap TPan.
Sorry, not sorry. BAYC could supply Harvard Business School with a year’s worth of case studies 🤓
As I wrote about in an early piece, BAYC provides its holders commercial rights. Clothing, beverages, wine, weed, you name it, BAYC holders are doing it.
This is only a marketing machine strategy that every Web2 + Web3 Marketing team should take note of, but it creates a sandbox everyone can play and experiment in. Other companies like eToro and Jarritos have taken own approach with BAYC and other NFT collections as well.
The Decrypt article in the tweet provides a great overview the approach, and my trusty friend Wikipedia provides more context behind Bicycle:
Bicycle Playing Cards is a brand under the US Playing Card Company (USPCC), founded in 1885
In 2019, USPCC was acquired by the Belgian company Cartamundi (Latin for ‘cards of the world’)
Cartamundi was founded in 1970 as a joint venture between 3 Belgian printing/publishing companies
Cartamundi produced early editions of Magic the Gathering, as well as the Star Trek and Star Wars card games. They know the card business well.
The company has been on an acquisition spree the past couple of decades to become the largest playing card manufacturer in the world
Sheesh. Back to why this move is interesting:
Picking the right NFT
Bicycle purchased a BAYC with the ‘Vietnam Era Helmet’ trait, which features a playing card on helmet. Makes sense considering this is playing card brand. Note that this purchase was facilitated by Moonpay. They’ve done the same for other brands and celebrities like Jimmy Fallon and Post Malone.
Speed to execute deals
Because BAYC holders have commercial rights, Bicycle doesn’t need to negotiate a deal with the Yuga Labs (parent company of BAYC). They will create licensing deals with individual holders to feature their Bored Apes.
Theoretically this should be a faster process and also can create unique angles for customizability, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Experience in collaborations
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I searched ‘bicycle cards collaborations’, and I was not disappointed.
If you’re into streetwear, media/entertainment, or anime, the list of collaborators runs deep. Like…really deep.
Even Drake’s OVO brand has a custom set of playing cards lol 🦉
The fanbase of BAYC is smaller than most of the brands listed above, but the audience is just as die-hard and likely has higher purchasing power.
Deck customizability
The thumbnail of the Decrypt article gets my creative juices flowing:
#1227 is the token ID of Bicycle’s BAYC. The QR code is functional and leads to the BAYC Opensea collection.
What if…🤔
Bicycle customized the case for each BAYC
Created custom (for holders) and generic BAYC decks with custom QR codes depending on the BAYC featured on the case?
For holders that have a lot of Apes: What if they could customize every single card. Franklin immediately comes to mind. Every now and then, he creates slideshows of his BAYC collection. Imagine a slideshow as a deck of cards 😂
This is already on the cards 😏
If these decks are hyper-customized, they’d be more expensive (~$100+? No idea what the production costs are). Like I said, many in the BAYC have deep pockets and this would become another marketing tool for their brand.
Expanding beyond BAYC
Assuming this Bicycle x BAYC effort is successful logistically and financially, I can see this effort expanding in multiple stages.
Expanding to the MAYC (second gen of BAYC) collection and their respective holders
Expanding to other prominent NFT collections that provide commercial rights to their holders, or CC0 projects like Moonbirds and Nouns.
Last but not least, this isn’t Cartamundi’s only move with NFTs.
I don’t know what’s up with Cartamundi’s website loading the content, let’s just say it adds to the intrigue 😉
Reddit as the great Web3 onboarder
When catching up on tech news yesterday I came across a Techcrunch article about Reddit.
Techcrunch isn’t normally where I get my Web3 news, but this instance makes sense as the news was shared during a panel at the Techcrunch Disrupt event.
Over 3 million crypto wallets have been created through Reddit.
@ABBBBBB_NFT wrote a great Twitter thread which popped up on my feed this morning. This was helpful for me since I’m not a frequent Reddit user.
TLDR + interesting points from the thread:
Reddit introduced (non-NFT) avatars back in 2020
Premium avatar features (like special skins in video games) were added as an additional perk for the Reddit Premium subscription
July 2021: Reddit sold their first NFTs, 4 1/1’s
July 2022: Reddit announced their NFT avatar series. These collections recently sold out.
NFT avatars are distinguished by a hexagonal shape, similar to Twitter NFT profile pics. What’s nice is the avatars ‘peek out’ of the borders, giving them a nice visual effect, similar to what some billboard ads do today.
NFTs Avatars are on Polygon, which allow for low transaction fees. It seems that Reddit is currently fronting those costs during the primary sale.
Avatars are tradeable on marketplaces like Opensea
Now that millions of Reddit users have wallets, is the stage is set Phase 2 of their Web3 rollout?
I wrote about Community Points a couple months ago, so let’s see what happens.
It’s funny these things work. We (myself included) have been shouting from the rooftops about music, gaming, loyalty, and ticketing NFTs being the great onboarder. This may still be the case in the near and long-term future.
For now, it’s a little cute alien from Reddit that is paving the path for Web3 adoption.
TPan’s conspiracy theory corner
No, I’m not talking about aliens being real, sorry to disappoint. However, similar to conspiracy theories, this one’s a stretch, so feel free to roll your eyes.
Yesterday was the NBA tip-off! 🏀 As I watched my Golden State Warriors dominate the Los Angeles Lakers, one commercial stuck out.
Fun Nike commercial! What’s going on here?
Lebron is in a battle against ‘Father Time’ on the court and…off the court?
Classic video game showdown montage, further emphasized by the pixelated font.
Pixelated Nike logo? I’ve only seen that in one other place.
The Dot Swoosh changes over time, but during the initial LEARNING phase, the .✔️ logo was made of pixelated blocks.
Remember Lebron getting his own 1/1 RTFKT Clone?
As I’m typing this, I realize I’m jumping to big conclusions here. 99% chance I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just the announcement of Lebron’s next sneaker release. Maybe it’s the announcement of a new line of Lebron x Nike apparel.
However, if I were to continue pulling this thread, there may be a gradual transition of Lebron James, one of the athletes on Nike’s Mount Rushmore, into a broader digital identity beyond NBA 2K video games.
We’ll find tomorrow (10/20), so this will be the shortest lived conspiracy theory of all time.
See you tomorrow!