MetaVault: Dec 8th Town Hall Recap

"X Marks the Drop," eight special edition covers, gamified $POW, $PUNKS2, and love for the planet DAO tokens

Dec 9, 2021

This is MetaVault, a weekly-ish newsletter that makes sense of the Pixel Vault universe: PUNKS Comic, MetaHero, United Planets, $PUNKS, $POW, and lots of DAOs.

Huge string of releases and announcements in the past two weeks. Next up? Oh, just Comic #2 featuring a massive collaboration between BAYC + GMoney + Adidas. We’ll get three batches of releases (standard comic, Special Editions, sub-5000 minters). Somewhere in there or slightly after, we’ll get a huge Adidas Merch NFT announcement and release. Then there are more giveaways, Origin Stories, Mint Pass #2, Sidekicks. Crazy momentum right now!

In order to get this out a bit faster I didn’t indicate who asked the question in the Town Hall. I like giving shine to community members who ask great questions. I’ll push to do that in the next and future recaps.

Gamified Staking

After this standard staking period, gamified staking is coming!

GFunk: At the conclusion of this sort of standard staking period, we're going to introduce the gamified staking, which is going to also bring in other tokens in our ecosystem. So I will let you sort of pontificate on what that might be. But, yeah, game theory coming soon. But for now, we need you all to be collecting your $POW tokens for use in that sort of intermediate blockchain-native game. And then that will be a fun way to interact across the ecosystem as we develop the larger triple A game.

Putting gamification in context:

GFunk: Yeah, so anybody familiar with Wolf Game knows that there are certain limitations, depending on the chain, so we're trying to be very creative, while also sort of preventing all of the issues relating to MEV (SpaceWalk here…I think this refers to Miner Extractable Value). And people being able to intercept and not true randomness, etc. So we're putting a great deal of time and effort into releasing something that we feel will be both fun, not overly confusing, and, not prone to attack or people circumventing the true spirit of the game. So, yeah, you will need $POW tokens to participate in that.

On the difference between MetaHero types (Heroes, Villains, Mutants) in a gamified environment:

GFunk: Still too early to commit. It's still too early to commit to anything, because it's also a balance of technology. We have a bunch of ideas in place, but we're working through the actual implementation of it all. So I have learned not to not to leak too much, because then people come back and screenshot things I say, and then hold me to them. So it's still too early to really commit to anything on that front.

Wait is GFunk talking about me?! Ha. Hope not, it’s all love. I transcribe these Town Halls to help bridge the gap for community members who couldn’t make the Space. The last thing the MetaVault platform will do is moan about releases shifting or mechanics changing. Anyway, let’s continue…

Very minor hints as to the Planet Tokens being a factor in the gamification phase:

GFunk: And that was sort of one of the main focuses of the planets, is to give people a lower cost of entry again, so no worries, you will not be left out. So planet holders are part of the family too. And certainly, you're going to be a big part in shaping the future of Pixel Vault and this game verse that we're building together.

CryptoPunks & IP Rights

Pixel Vault sits in the nexus of a very interesting storyline that came up this week between Larva Labs IP rights to CryptoPunks and the fact that 16 Punks sit at the company’s foundation. Here’s GFunk’s take:

GFunk: So CryptoPunks, has sort of been the topic of the hour this week. With a bunch of people promoting CC0 and sort of frowning upon the stance that Larva Labs has taken with the rights for Punks. I think a lot of this is overblown.
But, as you have seen, it is certainly possible to build ecosystems around CryptoPunks in the lore associated with that. Ourselves, SpottyWifi, a whole bunch of personalities on Twitter, the Beanies and GMonies and DCinvestors of the world, right. So I think a lot of this is sort of creating a narrative that fits certain people's opinions and bags, but, you know, crypto and NFTs, the metaverse, Web3, it should not be a one size fits all.
Certainly, at Pixel Vault, we do believe in loosely held IP. We want to go out and be able to build franchises that people love. We're able to partner with companies like Adidas, specifically, because we do retain a small amount of control over that IP. But much of what we have in our ecosystem is completely free to be used in any way.
So it's kind of this delicate balance as we shift from the old guard to the new. And being mindful of existing corporate structures and legal structures, as we push towards what hopefully will be a much more decentralized world in the future. But to say that we're going to teleport to that future in a day I think is somewhat foolish.

$PUNKS Tokens

$PUNKS are in the wild! It’ll be exciting to see how the token evolves after the 30-day cool down period (January 5th will be the first day we can claim the tokens rewarded and trade on the open market).
A mention of $PUNKS2 and/or $APE as it relates to future PUNKS Comic and merch proceeds:

GFunk: And next up either $PUNKS2, or some sort of $APE token. But yeah, ultimately, you'll you'll be able to stake that first $PUNKS token for a secondary token to be determined. But all of the proceeds from the PUNKS comic portion, the partner portion of the sale, will be going back to the community. So we expect that to be a pretty decent chunk of ETH. So very excited for that. And that will likely all be taking place sometime around the end of the year. So certainly, you will be hearing more on this topic.

And a bit more on the thought process for $PUNKS2:

GFUNK: Obviously staking for that secondary token will have a positive effect on the first token, but remember, you know, it is the fractionalized, 16 CryptoPunks that are the genesis, the inspiration for everything we've built. There's considerable value there in and of itself.
We still are weighing our options, whether we want it to be more CryptoPunks and sticking to a true “Punks” ecosystem. Or if we want to diversify into Apes, or, you know, whatever it might be. Gonna watch and see how Issue #2 goes, watch the markets. You know, from just kind of a “value perspective,” if you believe in both of those ecosystems, I would say that CryptoPunks are trading at a relative value compared to Bored Apes. But if you think that the flippening is imminent then it doesn't really matter — and you just buy Apes here at the higher relative price. But certainly, it's the closest the gap has ever been.
So how do we weigh that? Because I like both IP. Certainly, the Apes community has supported us very strongly. Diversification of our holdings is also a good idea. But yeah, trying to make a smart economic decision when making these purchases as well. So regardless of the choice, certainly will take feedback from the community, but it should be quite significant, regardless of which path we take.

On $PUNKS distribution to PVFD holders:

GFunk: So Beanie had talked about trying to put forth a vote to distribute the $PUNKS tokens amongst the PVFD holders. That's something that the DAO could vote on. Or the DAO can vote to continue to hold it collectively as a DAO and then the stake its tokens — which would be the more clean and simple solution, continuing to value the DAO as a DAO.
But certainly the DAO can decide to distribute those tokens and everyone can stake individually. Or you could just stake that 25%. together, and all those rewards would flow back to the DAO. So those are kind of the two options there.

Comic #2

Maybe I’m thick, but “X Marks the Drop” decoding to “December 10th Marks the Drop” should’ve been plainly obvious! No specific time was announced. But maybe it also decodes to 10AM? Most of the PV drops are pegged to EST… hmmmm.

After the Special Editions are distributed, a claim window will open for the sub-5000 minters of Comic #1
Physical claims for Comic #2? Yes! Here’s GFunk on physical claims moving forward:

GFunk: There will be physicals for all of our primary release comics. Issue #2 I see as being a very important collector's item. And we really love this idea of the matching physicals. So the first comic is coming with a bit of a more elaborate [case]. Moving forward, the cases won't be as elaborate. But certainly they will be well taken care of in shipping, and all of our sort of major release comics, you know, the 24 pages and up, we'll have physicals. Our Origin Stories will primarily be web-based.

Early access and the roll-out:

GFunk: There will be a one hour window first for the PVFD, followed by a one hour window for all of the PV ecosystem. And at that point, things will be opened up. Probably Adidas, other partners may tweet about it. I don't expect there to be an issue for our community getting access to the comic. This comic was mostly focused on sort of the collectability aspect, the collaboration between communities, the IP licensing sort of firsts. So I think it's going to be very popular, but I don't expect it to necessarily sell out in the first two hours. We'll see how crazy all of you are. But yeah, I think you'll all be okay.

Comic #2 Elite Apes

8 Special Edition covers featuring each Elite Ape. 750 editions, individually numbered, for each SE cover.
All released at the same time
Limit of 10 per transaction
Some hints at utility if you hold all 8

Adidas Merch NFT

No official release date or price announcement yet. GFunk touched on this a bit:

GFunk: There will be ways for the community to participate in the drop prior to the public. We have not officially finalized the sale price. So, you know, I can't speak to it too much, but [the ETH contribution] will be quite significant. And you can expect more information on this in the next couple weeks. We're trying to price things low. Right. So you know, we want we want the community to benefit alongside of us. It's not about getting as much out as we can. That's just bad for the ecosystem in general. So trying to do as cool of things as we can, as cheaply as we can.

Misc

Comic #2 Utility? Collectability now, but GFunk said, “You can expect everything PV is burnable…Nothing announced as of yet, but certainly we try to gamify everything we do. Make it fun.
Comic #1 Physical Claim? Soon.
Wen PVDAO? GFunk said, “I'm hoping we can have it all done before the end of the year.”
Core Set value moving forward? A: Yes, nothing confirmed yet.
Planet Set bonus? A: Yes, nothing confirmed yet.
GFunk on buying when the market is quiet on a certain PV collectible:

If you believe in where we're going long-term with this project, buy things that are not the focus of the day, right? I couldn't have said more times that staking was coming. And yet, as soon as staking drops, like hundreds of people buy. So trust me, the planets are not forgotten, they will play a huge part in the development of this ecosystem. So if something's not getting love, specifically, it seems like the DAO tokens, you can expect that there will be future use cases for those.

Sidekick gamification: GFunk said, “Collecting will be highly gamified. And they will be incorporated into sort of that secondary staking pool. But the actual process of redeeming for your actual sidekick, so the mint pass for the sidekick will also be sort of a gamified. Fun, interactive experience. So there will be multiple layers of interaction for collectors. With Sidekicks, it's going to be awesome.”

Some Disclaimers: None of this is financial advice. DYOR. And yes, I’m obviously a PV collector and long-term hodlr.