Dear Bankless Nation🏴,

We start the year with fireworks. The thunderous bang of OpenDAO's debut has not died down as Decentralized Arts hosts a song by one of its most active contributors, Angyts (also an active contributor at BanklessDAO), and an interview with its most prestigious exponent, 9x9x9.

OpenDAO is the community response to the rumors about a "centralized" coup in the NFT world pertaining to OpenSea and this newsletter welcomes this response with enthusiasm.

We’d also like to thank Perpetual Protocol for once again supporting the commitment of Decentralized Arts in investigating the world of NFTs.

2020 saw just under 100 Million in the valuation of NFTs, whereas 2021 jumped to 23 Billion. The question is, how far will it go in 2022? We aim to find out.

Welcome to Decentralized Arts.

Authors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild  (Grendel, Kouros, Angyts, nonsensetwice)

This is the official newsletter of the BanklessDAO. You are subscribed to this newsletter because you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1, 2021. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.

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📰 Curated NFT News

15 Bored Apes Stolen in 'Arguably the Worst Night Ever' for the Victim

The account owned by toddkramer.eth was hacked last week and BAYC NFTs worth around $2.2 million were stolen from the collector.

Kramer lost his assets when he clicked on a malicious link. As a result, the hackers gained access to his hot wallet.

On December 30th Kramer reported that 15 Bored apes and Mutant apes were stolen. OpenSea froze the stolen NFTs on the marketplace. However, they were already listed in the NFTX liquidity pool so the victim asked the platform to remove it.

As a result, some people were purchasing discounted Bored Apes despite the fact that they had been stolen.

Franklin @ElectionDayMad1

I used @NFTX_ to swap Ape 753 (left) with Ape 9988 (right). Both of those apes are locked on OpenSea as well as all apes in both the NFTX and NFT20 (@NiftyLeague) pools. I paid 6.13 ETH to swap on NFTX. Although 753 is ranked higher, I see the Hip-Hop ape as an upgrade. Thoughts?

December 31st 2021

6 Retweets140 Likes

There have also been complaints about subsequent transactions surrounding these NFTs after OpenSea froze them on its platform. Some users are discouraged about the lack of decentralization in the platform.

On a bright note, the community has also been working hard to get the assets back to the owner, as some Apes were returned to Kramer already. These types of centralized activities highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of centralized control, and arrive, as if on cue, in the wake of The OpenDAO, which we’ll cover in this edition.

The Most Expensive NFTs of 2021

NFT culture is taking the world by storm, let’s review some of the retail highlights of 2021.

#1. Beeple – EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS – $69.3m

#2. Beeple – Human One – $28.9m

#3. CryptoPunk 7523– 2,500 ETH ($11.7m)

#4. CryptoPunk #4156 – 4,200 ETH ($10.3m)

#5. CryptoPunk #7804 – 4,200 ETH ($7.57m)

#6. CryptoPunk #3100 – $7.51m

#7. Xcopy’s Right-click and Save As guy – $7.09 million

#8. Art Block’s Ringers #109 – $6.9 million

Collections with the Most Trading Volume

According to DappRadar, the project with the most all-time volume is Axie Infinity with $3.81 billion. CryptoPunks holds the second-largest volume with $2.32 billion. The take-away from these two chart leaders is that ‘gamified’ NFT use, which is what Axie Infinity deploys, has set the bar for future growth of the NFT market. The second takeaway is that OG NFTs (like CryptoPunks), represent the culture and origins of the market, and are therefore seen as extremely valuable, even if their only utility is simply ‘cultural clout’ and ‘store of value’. As David Hoffman remarked in a recent weekly rollup, ‘CryptoPunks are like the Bitcoin of NFTs’.

The full list is at follows:

🙏 Sponsor: Perpetual Protocol empowers developers, liquidity providers and traders to participate in a financial marketplace that is open and accessible to all.

OPENDAO, $SOS, 9x9x9

By Angyts, Grendel

Dear Bankless Nation,

The NFT community received the most memorable Christmas present ever in 2021. Everyone is hungry for more alpha about the $SOS token airdrop!

The energy in the room is clearly palpable. OpenSea trading volumes have increased by 50% since the airdrop. Twitter Spaces kept talking about $SOS and what it meant. The OpenDAO discord voice channel has been going on for a few days non-stop.

So how did it begin? When OpenSea considered doing an IPO on the stock exchange, community anger simmered beneath the surface. And with the OpenDAO movement, suddenly, this space for conversation was thrown into the open.

The $SOS token was retroactively distributed to OpenSea users by calculating the volume of trade and the number of transactions. Anyone who has ever bought or sold NFTs on opensea.io is eligible for the airdrop and can go and claim the tokens on theopendao.com.

So, who started this movement? One key player is 9x9x9 who was involved from the moment of conception to the launch of the DAO. 9x9x9 is an active contributor at OpenDAO and 721DAO. How did it happen? Well, he gathered a few friends, started planning and executed this plan.

We want $SOS to be the reserve currency of choice of the Metaverse. —9x9x9.eth

DA interviewed 9x9x9 for this special occasion.

bDAO: 9x9x9, thanks for teaming up with us to deliver this interview. First off, what are the reasons that led you to dream up and implement OpenDAO.

9x9x9: For several reasons. First, the NFT community was very divided and gated. You can always see people talking about [how] BAYC will flip punks or this will flip that. . It is as if each PFP community had 3000-6000 people, isolated from each other. As with the NFT community, there are VEE friends, club721, MVHQ and many others, but mainly with membership cards and NFT or community club projects. None of them have been able to bring the space together. It's not that they don't want to, it's just economically impossible.

The only common thing that connects the whole space is that everyone (collectors, artists or projects) uses OpenSea, but for many reasons the OpenSea team was unable to unify the NFT space (I understand how difficult it is for a business to suddenly get so much volume and team size just can't grow overnight). We know some of the problems: lack of transparency, lack of verification of the collections, and banning some accounts while some hackers acted undisturbed. For the reasons mentioned above, the only thing that connects the whole industry is the disaffection towards the platform from most of the members of the community.

OpenDAO wants to be the community that connects all isolated communities, while also doing what people want: listen to people, provide support and grants to platforms and artists to help them have a fair chance to do things they could not before.

Another reason is that in the web3 era, users should be rewarded and blockchain is always about the decentralization and transparency movement. I think what we are doing is a step towards the end of the game, and yet we are still a long way off. From a data perspective, users should be rewarded when their data is used. But centralized companies collect your data and use it to their advantage, or even resell it.

With the $SOS model, you are rewarded for your data by receiving $SOS tokens. $SOS interrupts the cycle of selling data.

The new model is: a protocol wants users, they will leave their tokens to the holders of $SOS, and this means that the protocol has paid to get these users.

It also means that these users know who is receiving and using the information and are rewarded when acceded.

BIG data / marketing is a huge market and we don't need a medium sized black box: p

It's about being fairer, more transparent, and more rewarding.

bDAO: OpenDAO surprised everyone with the airdrop, what are the reasons that prompted you to choose the criteria selected?

9x9x9: No matter how much people don't like OpenSea, I think we wouldn't have gone that far without it. It has made a great contribution to our culture and in honor of that OpenDAO has chosen OpenSea activity as its criteria.

Furthermore, OpenSea is one of the oldest platforms and accounts for 95% of all trading volume.

Rewarding the trade volume for 70% of all SOS airdrops and rewarding the sharing of the trade amount for 30% of the SOS airdrop was a way to measure and balance user input.

Comparing a single purchase of 1000 ETH NFT with 500 trades of 1ETH NFT, the former is only 1 trade with 2 parties involved and a volume of 1000 ETH. The latter is 500 trades, with potentially 1000 people involved, and while half the volume (500 ETH total) it is more beneficial for the ecosystem.

bDAO: What future do you imagine for OpenDAO and $SOS?

9x9x9: In my view, $SOS will be the core asset in the metaverse / NFT sector, like USD but not a stable token.

Many platforms, protocols and mints will integrate $SOS at different levels, allowing them to use $SOS as a form of payment, as a governance token, to reward $SOS with their native tokens, as well as to buy and to burn $SOS with a percentage of their revenue.

OpenDAO Has Bright Horizons.

DA is grateful to get 9x9x9’s input on this new flash-DAO. What we’ve found is that the problem OpenDAO identifies is that each metaverse and NFT land project will eventually have its own token sold via ICO/ IDO, benefiting those who are already wealthy, and resulting in a low transfer of value to the community.

As a solution to this, projects can now use $SOS as a reserve currency, linking them to the OpenDAO ecosystem and creating value for all who already hold $SOS.

We united all the most active people in the metaverse. — 9x9x9

There are currently 200,000 wallets holding $SOS and counting. And many of them are the most active people on the metaverse.

The roadmap of OpenDAO was published on theopendao.com website:

• 50% of tokens will be airdropped till Jun2022, and tokens not redeemed will be returned to the OpenDAO treasury.

• 10% of tokens will be used for LP incentives, this has already been transferred to the Sushiswap DAO treasury.

• 20% staking incentives is planned to reward holders of $SOS, and is planned to happen in January 2022.

• 20% will go to the OpenDAO treasury to pursue the following objectives:

  • Compensate Victims

  • Support emerging artists

  • Support NFT communities

  • Support art preservation

  • Developer Grant

Some points have not yet been clarified, but speaking with the most active contributors, it is clear that we are only at the beginning of the journey.

What’s next?

The multisig signatories have recently been voted in and excitement at OpenDAO is palpable. Participants in the discussions are numerous, and there is a clear desire from many sides to participate in order to create partnerships with this new DAO.

The incentives for an open NFT DAO, without central control, open to community stimuli are all there. Decentralized Arts wishes the OpenDAO community a bright future.

Decentralized Arts & The New Year

2022 is off to the races with exciting new developments. The market is hot, and we look forward to watching it grow. Projects like BAYC, CryptoPunks, continue to gain mainstream adoption. Even Jimmy Fallon bought a Bored Ape. OpenDAO may be changing the composition of NFT world. DA continues to cover the non-fungible universe for your reading pleasure.

🙏 Thanks to our sponsor

Perpetual Protocol empowers developers, liquidity providers and traders to participate in a financial marketplace that is open and accessible to all.

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