Flamingo DAO has made headlines over the past weeks thanks to its +500 ETH (+$1M) shopping spree. I wouldn’t say I like institutions, groups, or funds controlling the digital art narrative. However, understanding and celebrating Flamingo DAO efforts is valuable for artists, ordinary collectors, and the movement in general.
For artists, being part of their collection can bring tremendous visibility, converting in sales, recognition and skyrocketing in value. For collectors, having an eagle eye on their holdings can help them discover new artists and guide some of their collecting decisions.
In this issue, we will go through:
What is Flamingo DAO?
Who are the founders and known members, and how does one join Flamingo DAO?
Their art-collecting philosophy and process.
How can Flamingo DAO sell NFTs?
A rundown of their recent collecting activity.
Overview of their whole collection.
1. What is Flamingo DAO?
Flamingo is a fund that operates as a DAO and focuses on collecting NFT assets.
Flamingo is an NFT-focused DAO that aims to explore emerging investment opportunities for ownable, blockchain-based assets. NFTs are not just cat pictures. They encompass digital art, collectibles, and in-game assets and other tangible assets. These new forms of digital property are poised to play an increasing role in helping to create, monetize, and incentivize online digital content. 1
Meridian #370 by Matt DesLauriers, was recently collected by Flamingo DAO for 11.9 ETH.
2. Who are the founders and known members, and how does one join Flamingo DAO?
Aaron Wright and Priyanka Desai launched Flamingo DAO and raised around 6,000 ETH (close to $6M at the time) in 2020 -way back before the NFT frenzy2.
It is hard to track down Flamingo’s members as most aren’t publicly vocal about their participation for different reasons (privacy and not wanting to be public figures come to mind). Some known members include Kevin Rose, Erick Calderon ‘snowfro’, and Derek Edwards.
Gazers #548 by Matt Kane was recently collected by Flamingo for 12.8 ETH.
This is one of the most exclusive DAOs to exist, as to join, you must purchase 100,000 (1%) to 900,000 (9%) units of Flamingo. 100,000 units were priced at 60 ETH at the time of Flamingo’s incubation, but it is hard to find exact values today (probably much higher). You must go through a KYC process and be registered as an investor to be accepted. Additionally, it is highly possible that there aren’t spots available as it is capped at 100 members.
3. Their art-collecting philosophy and process.
Flamingo is entirely member-directed and managed by the Members through democratic voting. As a Member, you should have some experience in evaluating or purchasing digital assets.
Not everyone can be a member, even if you have big pockets. You should bring relevant knowledge or experience, which transfers to their collecting decisions.
They use a standard DAO system for logistics. As a DAO member, you can propose what to collect privately, and members can vote to pass or reject such a proposal. These proposals are managed via a private dApp, so only members can access them.
In terms of collecting, the current directive is they collect only on Ethereum. Members can propose to change this rule at any time.
Elevated Deconstructions #96 by luxpris, recently collected by Flamingo for 15.5 ETH.
The Members have complete agency in making such determination. To preserve privacy, Members likely will create pools of funds that can be used to make purchasing, collecting, or other acquisition decisions. Flamingo's Members then can vote on whatever NFT they would like to purchase, and if the vote passes, the service provider or a Member can purchase on behalf of Flamingo.
In addition to members, they also have a long list of curators, including familiar podcast guests, such as Artnome, Jordan Lyall, and Kevin McCoy (other members, and also future podcast guests, include Derek Edwards and Kayvon Tehranian, whose episodes were recorded recently and will be shared soon).3
4. How can members make money?
Whenever Flamingo DAO earns returns from selling NFTs or obtaining a gain from owning it in other ways, the earnings will be distributed among all members according to the number of shares they own.
Regarding leaving Flamingo DAO, members can do so at any time, and they call this ‘rage quitting.’
A member can rage quit Flamingo at any time, including after any NFT purchase. The only restriction is that any proposal that the particular member voted "YES" for is processed by Flamingo's smart contract initially.
If this happens, they will get a return according to the value of their shares.
5. A rundown of their recent collecting activity.
Over the past two weeks, Flamingo has been hot, investing over 500 ETH (+$1M) on NFTs, specifically generative, AI art, and a few pfp projects. All the art showcased in this issue were purchased over the past two weeks.
remnants by Claire Silver, recently collected by Flamingo DAO for 7.9 ETH.
You can access the whole collecting history here.
Make sure to use the sales filter. Otherwise, you might see transfers from random wallets sending their NFTs to Flamingo’s wallet to mislead collectors into thinking they were genuinely collected.
6. Overview of their whole collection
There isn’t a clear place to visit and appreciate Flamingo’s collection. Nevertheless, recently, a curated gallery showcasing all their Art Blocks Curated Sets featuring 408 pieces from 67 artists was created. Although these are only a tiny portion of their whole portfolio, these full sets are remarkable. Nonetheless, they represent a small portion of their entire portfolio.
Human Unreadable #376 by Operator, recently collected by Flamingo DAO for 2 ETH.
I spotted the following two wallets:
0xb9eB79E3E735Ee636255dD8D65872a1287744e33: signing transactions (collecting)
0xB88F61E6FbdA83fbfffAbE364112137480398018 (vault).
There might be more wallets, but these aren’t publicly listed.
entretiempos #903 by Marcelo Soria-Rodriguez, recently collected by Flamingo DAO for 0.4 ETH. I wrote my thoughts when collecting entretiempos here.
Coming back to my introduction, I sometimes worry that funds, institutions, and groups like Flamingo could have a complete grip on the market. This worry amplifies if such groups cooperate and coordinate efforts, outlasting independent collectors and the public.
Nevertheless, besides these fears, their impressive curatorial, financial, and resilient efforts (almost ignoring market conditions) should be celebrated. Let’s not forget some of the members are the pillars that helped to grow the space into what it is today.
Until next time,
- Kaloh
