Conceptual Unlock on this Model

[jacob]

Hi hello. Instead of writing private notes to myself I figured I’d try using this forum.

Since Prop 190 in Nouns went onchain, I’ve been playing around with this question over the holidays:

Is it possible for a DAO to make more ETH from NFT releases in a month than it is from Auctions?

As of writing, the Nouns Edition has made a little over 30 ETH in sales, which currently is a day of auction sales. The DAO has grown its treasury without needing to sell a Noun, it’s capitalizing on the strength of the meme.

Nouns already a strong catalog of art and media (both funded and community created) that it should probably bring onchain, and any future proposals should require that it’s minted by the DAO. Let’s imagine that over the next 30 days there were new releases of NFTs every day for everything the DAO has commissioned, and for the sake of the thought experiment they perform the same as this first one. What starts to happen to auction prices?

If the DAO is proving that it can accrue capital consistently from releases, I think we should see auction prices actually increase at a rate that’s higher than the rate of capital being accrued from releases.

Let’s say that Nike happened to be in this form, if you saw 1000 ETH in Sneaker sales over a month, Nike auctions should probably be bringing in more than that? Similarly if Universal Studios made 1000 ETH from Films over a month, you’d imagine the studio would be valued higher over the same period.

I think there is an extremely powerful positive feedback loop here if DAOs focus on meme proliferation onchain. Funding and releasing increasingly substantial pieces of art and media onchain. The loop is as follows:

What starts as short explainer videos should end up trending towards feature length films, TV shows, documentaries (already happening btw) AND build the technology that makes doing all of the above onchain in new and novel ways possible.

I’m starting to fall asleep so I’ll wrap up here, but something I’m segueing into is Industrial Light and Magic (watch this documentary). The special effects and production company that George Lucas had to create to make Star Wars, and now happens to be the backbone of most of Hollywood today.

ILM is probably the single best historical reference for the Nouns DAO & Public Assembly.

Like I said I’ll write more later, but what does this all mean?

I think the job to be done over the next 3-6 months is to start commissioning and selling the most incredible art & media possible. Artist x Public Assembly is the new Michael Jordan x Nike. Everything should be minted from the DAO but have the collaborators feature in their own way.

All the while building the tools to bring it onchain as a means to an end, but not the end itself.

gn

[valcoholics]

In alignment with these ideas, watching the documentary currently!

[jaesmail]

@jacob

Let’s imagine that over the next 30 days there were new releases of NFTs every day for everything the DAO has commissioned, and for the sake of the thought experiment they perform the same as this first one.

Generally aligned with these ideas, but keep going back and forth on the weight of this assumption.

Part of the success of the Nouns Edition (arguably also part of the success of Nouns DAO) is novelty: it was the first to prove out an interesting mechanism for DAOs.

What happens in a world where Nouns mints all of their art and media? The cultural significance of any one piece of media minted by the DAO probably falls dramatically, and thus, so does the demand.

On the other hand, what if the DAO launched one edition per day in the same way they auction off one NFT per day. Does that onchain limitation counteract the problem outlined above?

Interesting space to explore. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts publicly.

[jacob]

I actually think it’s the opposite, bringing new work onchain is expansive to value creation and not zero sum. The more prolific the better.

If this were the case then I’m not sure any consumer brand would work, they would be trying to do as little as possible instead of expanding their catalog over time. Likewise for something like Disney, they do more than one film.

In reality the core thing to maintain is that everything that is minted is as high quality as possible. That’s it.

I agree that there is likely a genesis premium for the first edition, but I would wager in a few years it will not be the most valuable thing that the DAO has minted.

On the other hand, what if the DAO launched one edition per day in the same way they auction off one NFT per day. Does that onchain limitation counteract the problem outlined above?

If it means there’s a high bar for what’s minted then maybe, but the mechanism in and of itself is of marginal use in this context. Again the primary thing that will determine the long term success is that the things that are minted by the DAO are world class.

[0xTranqui]

throwing in this link to a great thread related to this topic for posterity

[jacob]

Blog post on this idea:

Nounish Media DAOs - Brian ⌐◨-◨ pbrianandj.eth