Original author: TPan
Original translation: TechFlow
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 flooding your mind. Valuations for NFT collectibles reached ridiculous levels, communities clamored for rare features, and new hot projects were launched every day. Almost all of these projects relied heavily on the concept of scarcity, with limited supply — 5,000, 10,000, or more, good times.
As the industry moves past the NFT craze (although that craze is still here), we’re seeing various NFT-related token standards and minting methods emerge:
1155 : Version number of the same NFT. The Doodles: Certified Viral collection is an example of this, with tens of thousands of versions of each NFT.
Soulbound Tokens: Tokens that are bound to a wallet address and are non-transferable.
Unlimited casting based on time limits: This approach was popularized by digital artists, introducing unique burning, casting, and other gamification mechanics.
ERC-6551 : Token-bound accounts allow NFTs to hold other NFTs.
ERC-404: Allows standard non-fungible tokens to be converted into a certain amount of fungible tokens.
While prices for many rare collectibles have dropped dramatically, or even to zero, I’ve observed two trends:
NFTs have an ever-increasing level of functionality.
NFTs are becoming everywhere.
These two trends are obvious, but I want to focus on the second one. To visualize this, here is the situation:
Try Excalidraw
Note that this does not mean there won’t be valuable projects with a limited supply in the future, or that current projects have no value.
Base, Rodeo, Zora
Over the past month or so, I’ve used and observed three app platforms that really make the theme of “unlimited casting based on time limits” stand out.
Base
Base recently shared their Onchain Summer event, which saw over 2 million unique wallets mint over 24 million on-chain assets, generating over $5 million in on-chain revenue for builders, creators, and projects.
The Onchain Summer Highlights video in the post is also an NFT, and over 54,000 NFTs have been minted so far.
Rodeo
This app, which was released about 3 months ago and was developed by the Foundation team, reminds me of Instagram from simpler times.
Working principle introduction:
Users can post their artwork, photos or any content
Followers can mint these for a fixed price of 0.0001 ETH (about 25 cents) within 24 hours.
The feed is populated based on the accounts you follow or the content they produce. In this case, the accounts you follow become “influencers.” In the screenshot above, coopahtroopa is that influencer.
Minting revenue is split 50% between Rodeo and creators
If the minting is attributed to an influencer, the minting proceeds are split 25%, 25%, and 50% between the influencer, Rodeo, and creator.
Rodeo is showing signs of slow but steady growth while continually adding features. Notably, their public Dune dashboard is keeping an eye on retention and casting engagement.
Zora
The Foundry platform has recently transformed into a discovery and social platform beyond crypto users, introducing new features and mechanics:
Partnering with Uniswap to integrate a simplified secondary market experience into the app
Sparks (✧), a new unit of Ethereum in the Zora ecosystem. 1 ✧ = 1 millionth of an ETH.
All content will have a uniform minting price of 0.000111 ETH or 111 ✧, which is about 25 cents. Previously, the minting price was set by the creator. There are some exceptions, though, and the details are less clear.
Minting will remain open until there are 200 mints on the post. Once the 200 mint threshold is reached, a 24 hour timer begins. When the timer ends, a Uniswap-powered secondary market will open based on supply and demand.
Zora’s mobile app went live last week, offering a simpler minting experience as users purchase Sparks through in-app purchases. This makes the mobile experience free of switching, pop-ups, bridges or fees.
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Foundry enhances social interaction
Watch the evolution of Rodeo and Zora, emerging social media platforms that aim to solve the pain points of current mainstream social media.
The value of likes is gradually decreasing
Likes have become an emoji response in iOS text message threads, simply confirming that someone has seen your post or message. There's nothing wrong with that, but in the context of overall engagement, it's the lowest value engagement signal besides views. At least you know who saw and approved of your post.
My wife sent me a text reply
Existing social media platforms are aware of this. Twitter values replies 27 times more than likes.
Commenting can be a privilege, not a right
Most social media posts allow anyone to comment or reply, but in some cases, the comment feature is turned off. For example, Solana co-founder Anatoly only allows accounts he follows or users he is mentioned in to reply to his posts.
Response to this matter
Rodeo and Zora address these pain points as core features of their respective apps.
Casting is greater than Like
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The Like button was replaced with a Mint button. If you really liked the content, you could mint it for as little as 25 cents, creating a win-win situation:
Creators receive financial compensation for their work
Collectors receive an NFT in return
The platform gets a portion of the minting revenue and does not have to rely on the traditional advertising model
Comments are open to creators only
Anyone can comment on a piece of content if you cast it.
In the context of these apps, this all makes sense. The goal of platforms like Rodeo isn’t to prevent creators from connecting with users, but to create more meaningful ways to connect through casting and limiting commenting features.
These behaviors exist on traditional social platforms
While I’ve criticized this broken model of engagement quite a bit, the emotions, psychology, and intentions behind this behavior that Rodeo and Zora built from scratch exist in different forms, proving their approach works.
Tinder Super Like
In the world of dating (an area I’m totally unfamiliar with right now), Tinder introduced Super Likes a few years ago. Super Likes increase your chances of matching and automatically put you at the top of the list of matches.
These super favorites aren’t cheap either, costing $9.99 for 3.
Save content
Social platforms also allow you to save content and organize it. Saving content indicates that it is more valuable and worth revisiting at some point.
Future application scenarios
Moments in life
The examples I provided are focused on art so they are easier to understand in terms of incentives for creators and collectors. Collecting art for 25 cents a piece is a win-win. But what about those who are not great photographers or artists, but who post amazing work on Rodeo?
While they are a minority, users like Max Segall of Privy are using Rodeo more like Instagram. These posts don’t have dozens of mints, nor do they need to, or necessarily serve that purpose.
It’s not like they don’t have mints. For example, this post by Max has two mints, one of which was minted by Alex in the photo. That’s the point.
Alex’s mint may be more valuable than 20 likes on other social platforms. Of course, if Max wants to get those likes, he can choose to post the photo cross-platform.
Important moments in life
Engagement, wedding, new job. These types of posts are flooded with likes and congratulatory messages, but they are forgotten after a few minutes due to the endless updates in the feed.
While the happy couple or creator appreciates these little dopamine rushes and notifications lighting up, what if there was another way to congratulate the creator? Minting the post provides a way to do this and allows the minter to show that they put more effort than the standard "Congratulations!!!". And while minting 1 makes you feel a little stingy, why not mint 10 or 100... or mint 1 and send it as a wedding gift, haha.
Non-profit organizations
This is a case that strikes me as very relevant. What if every post published by the Red Cross was mintable, and all minting proceeds (if the platform turns off the fee switch or transfers their share later) went directly to them?
People could still visit the site to make larger donations, but minting became a way to make micro-donations that weren’t possible before, which accumulated over time and became DTC (direct donations to charity).
What if you're an animal shelter? Post cute photos of cats and dogs and watch those micro donations pour in. Who wouldn't want to donate 25 cents and mint a cute photo of a kitten or puppy?
MVF - Minimum Viable Financialization
The concept of financialization is on my mind as I write this. Blockchain is driving financialization in a way that has never been done before. Memes are already worth billions of dollars, we have prediction markets built on what presidential candidates say in their speeches, and people are still speculating on JPEGs worth thousands of dollars.
However, financialization, and more specifically minimum viable financialization, can lend meaning to certain digital interactions that are becoming increasingly meaningless.
Maybe the way forward isn’t friend.tech, but SocialFi with a lowercase f, via platforms like Rodeo and Zora.
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