NFT is everywhere.
Author: TPan
Translation: DeepTechFlow
Let's go back to the end of 2021, the peak of the NFT craze.
If you only bought and didn't sell, you might look back on that year like that Chihuahua, with memories floating in your mind. The valuation of NFT collections reached absurd levels, and the community eagerly pursued rare features, with new hot projects launched every day. Almost all of these projects heavily relied on the concept of scarcity, with limited supplies—5,000, 10,000, or more, good times.
As the industry went through the NFT craze (although it still exists), we saw various NFT-related token standards and minting methods constantly emerging:
1155: Versioning of the same NFT. Doodles: Certified Viral Collection is an example, with thousands of versions of each NFT.
Soulbound tokens: Tokens bound to wallet addresses and non-transferable.
Time-based infinite minting: This method, promoted by digital artists, introduces unique burning, minting, and other gamified mechanisms.
ERC-6551: Tokens bound to accounts, allowing NFTs to hold other NFTs.
ERC-404: Allows standard non-fungible tokens to be converted into a certain quantity of fungible tokens.
Despite the significant price drops of many scarce collections, even down to zero, I observed two trends:
The functional hierarchy of NFTs continues to increase.
NFT is everywhere.
These two trends are obvious, but I want to focus on the second trend. To illustrate this point vividly, the situation is as follows:
Try Excalidraw
Note that this does not mean there won't be valuable projects with limited supply in the future, or that current projects have no value.
Base, Rodeo, Zora
In the past month or so, I have used and observed three application platforms that truly make the theme of "time-based infinite minting" particularly noteworthy.
Base
Base recently shared their Onchain Summer event, with over 2 million unique wallets minting over 24 million on-chain assets, bringing over $5 million in on-chain revenue to builders, creators, and projects.
The post's Onchain Summer highlight video is also an NFT, which has minted over 54,000 NFTs so far.
Rodeo
This application, released about 3 months ago, was developed by the Foundation team and reminds me of the simpler days of Instagram.
Here's how it works:
Users can post their artwork, photos, or any content.
Followers can mint this content within 24 hours at a fixed price of 0.0001 ETH (about 25 cents).
The feed is filled based on the accounts you follow or the content they mint. In this case, the accounts you follow become "influencers." In the screenshot above, coopahtroopa is the influencer.
Minting revenue is split 50/50 between Rodeo and the creator.
If minting is attributed to an influencer, the minting revenue is split 25%, 25%, and 50% between the influencer, Rodeo, and the creator.
Rodeo is showing slow and steady growth while continuously adding features. It's worth noting that their public Dune dashboard is focused on retention and minting participation.
Zora
The minting platform has recently transformed into a discovery and social platform, transcending crypto users, and introducing new features and mechanisms:
Collaborating with Uniswap, simplifying the secondary market experience integrated into the app.
Sparks (✧), a new Ethereum denomination in the Zora ecosystem. 1 ✧ = 1 millionth of an ETH.
The unified minting price for all content is 0.000111 ETH or 111 ✧, approximately 25 cents. Previously, the minting price was set by the creator. However, there are some exceptions, and the specific details are not clear.
Minting will remain open until there are 200 mints on the post. Once the threshold of 200 mints is reached, a 24-hour timer begins. When the timer ends, the Uniswap-driven secondary market will open based on supply and demand.
The Zora mobile app was launched last week, providing a simpler minting experience as users can purchase Sparks within the app. This eliminates the need to switch in the mobile experience, avoiding pop-ups, bridging, or fees.
Enhancing Social Interaction through Minting
Observing the evolution of Rodeo and Zora, they are emerging social media platforms aimed at addressing the pain points of current mainstream social media.
Decreasing Value of Likes
Likes have become a form of emoji response in iOS message threads, merely used to acknowledge that someone has seen your post or message. This is not wrong, but in the overall interaction, it is the lowest value interaction signal apart from viewing. At least you know who has seen and acknowledged your post.
My wife texted me a response
Existing social media platforms are aware of this. Twitter values replies 27 times more than likes.
Comments Can Become a Privilege, Not a Right
Most social platforms allow anyone to comment or reply to a post, but in some cases, the comment feature may be disabled. For example, Solana's co-founder Anatoly only allows accounts he follows or mentioned users to reply to his posts.
Response to the matter
Rodeo and Zora address these pain points and make them core features of their respective apps.
Minting > Liking
The like button is replaced by the mint button. If you truly appreciate the content, you can mint it at a low price of approximately 25 cents, creating a win-win situation:
The creator receives economic compensation for their work.
The collector receives an NFT as a reward.
The platform receives a portion of the minting revenue, without relying on traditional advertising models.
Comments Only Open to Minters
Anyone can comment on a piece of content if they have minted it.
In the context of these apps, this all makes sense. Platforms like Rodeo aim not to hinder the connection between creators and users, but to create more meaningful connections through minting and restricted comment functionality.
These Behaviors Exist in Traditional Social Platforms
While I have criticized this fragmented engagement model, the emotions, psychology, and intent behind these behaviors that Rodeo and Zora have built from scratch exist in different forms, proving the effectiveness of their approach.
Tinder Super Likes
In the dating world (a field I am completely unfamiliar with now), Tinder introduced Super Likes a few years ago. Super Likes increase your chances of a match and automatically put you at the top of the match list.
These Super Likes are not cheap either, with a price of $9.99 for 3.
Saving Content
Social platforms also allow you to save content and organize it. Saved content indicates higher value, worthy of revisiting at some point.
Future Use Cases
Everyday Moments in Life
The examples I provided are mainly focused on art, making these examples easier to understand in terms of incentives for creators and collectors. Collecting art for a low price of 25 cents per piece is a win-win choice. But for those who are not outstanding photographers or artists, and post great content on Rodeo, what about them?
While they are a minority, users like Max Segall of Privy are more like using Rodeo as Instagram. These posts do not have dozens of mints, and they don't need to, or necessarily for that purpose.
They also do have mints. For example, Max's post has two mints, one of which is minted by Alex in the photo. That's the key.
Alex's mint may be more valuable than 20 likes on other social platforms. Of course, if Max wants those likes, he can choose to cross-post the photo across platforms.
Important Moments in Life
Engagements, weddings, new jobs. These types of posts are filled with a lot of likes and congratulatory messages, but they are quickly forgotten minutes later due to the endless stream of updates.
While the happy couple or poster appreciates the small dopamine boost and the notifications lighting up, what if there was another way to congratulate the creator? Minting this post provides a way to do so, allowing minters to show a more thoughtful effort than the standard "congrats!!!" And minting 1 might feel a bit stingy, why not mint 10 or 100… or mint 1 and send a wedding gift directly, haha.
Non-Profit Organizations
This is a case that I find very meaningful. What if every post made by the Red Cross could be minted, and all minting revenue (platform turning off the fee switch or transferring their cut later) goes directly to them?
People can still visit the website for larger donations, but minting becomes a micro-donation method that was previously not possible, gradually accumulating and forming DTC (Direct to Charity) donations.
What if you were an animal shelter? Posting cute cat and dog photos and seeing these micro-donations pour in. Who wouldn't want to donate 25 cents and mint a cute little cat or dog photo?
MVF - Minimum Viable Financialization
As I write this article, the concept of financialization comes to mind. Blockchain has propelled financialization in an unprecedented way. The value of memes has reached billions of dollars, we have established prediction markets based on what presidential candidates say in their speeches, and people are still speculating on JPEGs worth thousands of dollars.
However, financialization, specifically minimum viable financialization, can give meaning to certain digital interactions that are becoming increasingly meaningless.
Perhaps the way forward is not friend.tech, but SocialFi presented in a lowercase f manner through platforms like Rodeo and Zora.
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