Collect this post as an NFT.
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Are we at the point where you’re not allowed to say ‘Happy New Year’ anymore? Maybe it’s when you see the last of your neighbors take down those Christmas lights and trees, see you in 11 months!
I am guilty of this
Speaking of the New Year, we’re seeing some communities kick it off with community surveys. The most prominent one has been Yuga Labs with their Q1 2024 Holder Survey that was announced earlier this week.
Some observations regarding the announcement and survey:
This is a quarterly survey, so the community will see more of these in the future
The survey is token-gated and only available for BAYC and MAYC holders. Although the Yuga NFT ecosystem is much more expansive than just those two collections, this survey is focused on the core community. It’s possible (and likely) that there will be more surveys for other sub-communities of the Yuga ecosystem.
Holders who complete the survey will receive a BAYC POAP as a token of appreciation for sharing their thoughts
The survey is built on Blocksurvey, which facilitates the token-gating, among other features
As for the survey itself, it was a whopping 95 questions long, covering topics such as:
Communication from and interaction with the Yuga and BAYC brands (preferred channels, channel usage, etc.)
Preferred types of content from the brand
ApeFest
An IRL physical clubhouse 👀
Merch
Gaming
and more. My personal favorite question.
Jokes aside, I would realistically aim to visit once a year if/when the clubhouse becomes a thing.
A couple days ago another community survey popped up in my notifications, this time from the Mercedes-Benz NXT community.
The purpose of the survey was similar to Yuga’s, but was much shorter with 7 questions and wasn’t token-gated. The MB team used Microsoft Office Forms to collect responses.
Although the answer is clear for the blockchain vets, it’s still worth emphasizing that:
There are tools built for and complement web3 native communities and their needs
Wallets are the onchain email address (and so much more!). This doesn’t mean emails should be discarded from the CRM strategy, but if you’re focused on getting insights from your community that holds NFTs or other assets, you can specifically filter for them.
This is evident by comparing the Yuga survey against the Mercedes-Benz survey. This isn’t a knock on the MB team — I’m sure there were reasons why they did what they did.
By token-gating the survey, Yuga is able to parse the explicit from the implicit. Wallets help ‘walk the talk’. As an example:
IMO, survey results aren’t a one-and-done exercise either. This is a process that takes time to realize and identify patterns, explaining why this will be a quarterly practice for Yuga and its holders. Fortunately for a company and brand like BAYC, they have a few advantages:
Yuga has a large holder base across multiple collections. They can expand and contract the scope of their surveys depending on the area of focus.
BAYC has been around since early 2021, so there is a rich amount of historical onchain data
Token-gating has been incorporated since the early days, even with BAYC’s earlier merch drops
TPan, we can already do this in web2!
Correct! There are plenty of ways established companies and brands can survey their customers and apply segmentation to get the feedback and info they want and need. This isn’t an ‘or’ situation, it’s ‘and’. Web3 native communities need web3 native solutions and features to provide richer feedback loops.
Speaking of other web3 native tools to support surveys, DeForm is another great option for web3 forms and they have a great showcase of how different projects are using their product. Hope it provides some inspiration 💪
Have you taken a survey before? If so, share or subscribe!
Last week I covered GLHF and their programmatic whitelist process, shifting the way teams could consider creating a high-quality community prior to launch.
After the mint was complete, the team revealed that there were 150 NFTs left to be minted that via The Auctioneer.
How does it work?
Auction proceeds will be used to support the GLHF community and ecosystem
Auctions will conducted in batches, with the quickest cadence being 1 auction every 24 hours
The first batch of auctions will be for the first 20 Special Characters, with a daily auction
Funds from this batch of auctions will incorporate entertainment, game theory, and unpredictability for the auction mechanics
Future batches may have different rules, have art from guest artists, or take on a modified format
The Auctioneer seems to take inspiration from two other projects:
Nouns - An auction every day for a Noun, which anyone can bid on
Opepen - Has a batched reveal mechanic that incorporates various themes and different artists
4 days in, what have the auctions looked like so far?
Day 1: Ghoul
Ability: Steals 50% of final price for auctions 2 + 3
Auctioned off for: 3.63 ETH (~$8,000)
Day 2: Devil
Ability 1: Corrupts Auctioneer, causing him to sweep and burn GLHF NFTs that are listed for sale at some point in the next 20 days
Ability 2: Steals 100% of a random auction over the next 5 days
Auctioned off for: 2 ETH (~$4,400)
Day 3: Final Boss
Ability 1, Summoner: Receives another 1/1 Special Character, Valkrie
Ability 2, Chargeback: Receives back 50% of final auction price
Auctioned off for: 1.608 ETH (~$3,500)
Day 4: Ghost Operator
Ability 1, Hot Extract: Receives 3 GLHFers from the treasury
Ability 2, Repo Man: Collects 1 ETH from The Auctioneer
Auctioned off for: In progress (currently at 1.2 ETH, ~$2,600)
And there’ll be 16 more of these. So what we have here is:
NGL, I miss chubby sitcom Chris Pratt
Basically! Imagine an eBay seller doing something like this lol:
Why is The Auctioneer notable?
The Auctioneer is a mini-game in the GLHF ecosystem
These are auctions at their core, but incorporate so much more thanks to the Special Character abilities. 4 days in we have a good sample of what types of mechanics are possible:
Diverting auction funds (all characters)
Interacting with the broader GLHFers collection (Devil, Final Boss, Ghost Operator)
Randomization (Devil)
The Auctioneer is a Smart Contract
These ‘special abilities’ are possible thanks to The Auctioneer using a smart contract to facilitate them. Auctions in their simplest forms are contracts as well: Interested parties bid on an item, showing their willingness to pay. If the bidder wins, they pay the bid amount.
GLHF Special Character auctions are the same thing, while including additional features that allow for interactivity (eg: the winner of one auction receives the proceeds from a future auction).
The Auctioneer doubles down on the focus of the collection and community: Gaming
Whether it’s the characters, special abilities, giving the special abilities names (this started on day 3), or incorporating game theory, GLHF continues to pay homage to gaming, which is the focus of the collection and community.
Thanks to smart contracts, GLHF has effectively showcased what ‘Smart Auctions’ could look like. They may not be the first, but they likely are one of the most creative implementations of them so far.
See you next week!
