#330: The Evolution of Social Engagement Through NFTs

Let’s travel back in time to late 2021, the peak of the NFT hype cycle.

If you only bought and didn’t sell, you probably look back on that year like that chihuahua having flashbacks. NFT collections were reaching ridiculous valuations, communities were ogling over rare traits, with a hot new project launching every day. Almost all of these projects leaned heavily on the notion of scarcity with a capped supply — 5,000, 10,000, or more. Good times.

As the industry moved on from the NFT hype (which is still alive and well in different forms), we saw additional variations of NFT-related token standards and minting methodologies pop up:

• 1155: The equivalent of editions of the same NFT. The Doodles: Certified Viral collection, is an example of this with each NFT having tens of thousands of editions.

• Soulbound tokens: NFTs that are tied to a wallet address and are non-transferrable

• Uncapped mints based on a time limit: This method was popularized by digital artists and led to additional unique burn and mint and other gamified mechanics.

• ERC-6551: Token bound accounts, allowing NFTs to hold NFTs within them

• ERC-404: Allowed standard non-fungible to be converted into a certain amount of fungible tokens and vice versa. A notable recent example of this is

Although the price of many of the scarcer collections has dropped considerably or gone all the way to 0, I’m observing two themes:

1. The layers of functionality for NFTs continue to grow

2. NFTs are continuing to proliferate…everywhere

Both are more or less obvious, but I want to hone in on the second theme. To represent this visually, this is what’s happening:

Note that this doesn’t mean there won’t be valuable projects with limited supply in the future, or that current projects are worthless.

Over the past month or so, there have been 3 apps/platforms that I’ve been using and observing that have really made the ‘uncapped mints based on a time limit’ theme stick out like a sore thumb.

Base recently shared that their Onchain Summer campaign had 2M+ unique wallets minting 24M+ onchain assets, resulting in $5M+ in onchain revenue for builders, creators, and projects.

Naturally, the Onchain Summer highlight reel video from the post was a NFT as well, and over 54k of these have been minted so far.

This ~3 month old app is developed by the Foundation team and reminds me of Instagram during simpler times.

TLDR on how it works:

• Users can post their art, photos, or whatever they want

• Followers can mint the posts for a 24-hour window at a fixed price of 0.0001 ETH, or ~25 cents

• The feed is populated based on the accounts you follow or the posts that they mint. In the latter situation, the account you follow becomes an ‘influencer’. In the screenshot above, coopahtroopa is the influencer.

• Mint proceeds are split 50/50 between Rodeo and the creator

• If the mint is attributed to an influencer, the mint proceeds are split 25/25/50 between the influencer, Rodeo, and the creator.

• Rodeo is showing slow and steady signs of growth as they continue to add features. What’s nice to observe is their public Dune dashboard is looking at retention and engagement in the form of minting.

The minting platform has recently shifted into a discovery and social platform, positioning itself beyond crypto-native audiences, with new features and mechanics:

• A simplified secondary market experience baked into app in partnership with Uniswap

• Sparks (✧), a new unit of Ethereum within Zora’s ecosystem. 1 ✧ = 1 millionth of an ETH.

• A flat mint price of 0.000111 ETH or 111 ✧ for all content, which is about ~25 cents. Previously, mints were priced by the creator. There are some exceptions though, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.

• Mints will remain open until there are 200 mints on the post. Once the 200 mint threshold is met, a 24-hour timer starts. When the timer concludes, the Uniswap-powered secondary market opens with pricing based on supply and demand.

• Zora’s mobile app launched last week with a simpler minting experience since users buy sparks via in-app purchases. This results in a mobile experience that doesn’t require switching, no pop-ups, bridging, or gas.

When you look at Rodeo and what Zora is evolving into, they’re emergent social media platforms that address pain points existing in the most dominant social media channels.

Likes have been reduced to a version of an emoji tapback on iOS text message threads. They’re a way to acknowledge that someone saw your post or message. Nothing wrong with that, but in the grand scheme of engagement that’s the lowest value signal of engagement besides a view. At least you know who saw and acknowledged your post.

And incumbent social media platforms recognize this. Twitter values replies 27x more than a like.

Most posts on social platforms allow anyone to comment or reply, but in certain instances, we see them turned off. For example, Solana co-founder Anatoly only allows accounts he follows or mentions the ability to reply to his posts.

Rodeo and Zora addressed these pain points and made them core features of their respective apps.

Mints > Likes

The like button has been replaced with the mint button. If you actually like the post or content, you’d mint it for a low price of ~25 cents, creating a win-win-win scenario:

• Creator receives financial compensation for their work

• Collector gets a NFT in return

• Platform receives a cut of the mint revenue and doesn’t have to rely on a traditional advertising model

Comments are only available to minters

Anyone can comment on a piece of content…if you mint 😉

In the context of these apps it makes sense. The goal of platforms like Rodeo isn’t to prevent creators and users from connecting. It’s to create more meaningful ways to connect via minting and gated comments.

Have you liked something before without really actually liking the content? If so, share or subscribe! It’s more meaningful than a like 😉

As much as I’ve ragged on the broken engagement model, the emotions, psychology, and intent behind this type of behavior that Rodeo and Zora are building from the ground up exist in different ways, validating their approach.

Tinder Super Likes

In the world of dating (a world I’m completely unfamiliar with these days), Tinder introduced Super Likes several years ago. Super Likes increase your chances of matching and automatically put you to the top of the match list.

These Super Likes don’t come cheap either, with 3 of them priced at a cool $9.99.

Saving Posts

Social platforms also allow you to save posts and organize them. Saved content suggests that it’s of higher value and worth revisiting at some point.

The examples I’ve provided are mainly focused on art, so these examples are much clearer when it comes to creator-collector incentives. It’s not a hard argument to make that collecting art at a low price of 25 cents a pop can be a win-win. But what about those of us who aren’t brilliant photographers or artists posting killer work on Rodeo?

Although they are a minority, there are users like Max Segall from Privy who are treating Rodeo more like Instagram. There aren’t dozens of mints from these posts, and they don’t have to nor are they necessarily meant to.

They don’t get 0 mints either. For example, this post from Max had two mints, one of them minted by Alex, who’s in the photo. And that’s the point.

The mint from Alex, probably means much more than 20 likes would on a different social platform. Max could of course cross-post this photo if he wanted to get those likes if he’s missing them heh.

Engagements, weddings, new jobs. These types of posts are filled with a ton of likes and congratulatory messages, only to be forgotten minutes later thanks to the endless feed.

As much as the happy couple or poster appreciates the mini dopamine hits and notifications light up, what if there’s another option to congratulate the creator? Minting the post is an alternative that provides that avenue and allows the minter to show that they’re making more of an effort versus the standard ‘CONGRATS!!! 🥳’. And minting 1 makes you feel petty, hell mint 10 or 100…or mint 1 and give a wedding gift directly lol.

This is a use case that makes a ton of sense to me. What if every post the Red Cross makes could be mintable and all mint proceeds (platform turns off their fee switch or transfer their cut at a later point) go directly to them?

People can still go to the website to make larger donations, but minting becomes a micro-donation stream that wasn’t possible before, adds up, and becomes DTC: Direct to Charity.

And if you’re an animal shelter? Post cute pictures of cats and dogs and watch those micro-donations roll in. Who wouldn’t want to donate 25 cents and mint a cute kitten or puppy picture? 🥺

As I was writing this piece, the idea around financialization popped up in my head. Blockchain has enabled financialization in ways that haven’t been done before. Memes are worth billions of dollars, we have prediction markets based on the words a presidential candidate will say during a speech, and people are still speculating on jpegs worth thousands of dollars.

Yet financialization, more specifically minimum viable financialization, can create meaning to certain digital interactions that have become increasingly meaningless.

Maybe the way forward with SocialFi isn’t friend.tech, but rather Socialfi with a little f by the way of platforms like Rodeo and Zora.

See you Thursday!