While Digital art is by far the most known form of non-fungibles in common conversation, groups like the ones listed below have managed to use their respective jpegs to create organizations capable of experiential events,
Here are a few to watch for in 2022
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Source: New Yorker
Bored Ape Yacht Club, an NFT project created by Yuga Labs, was created by 4 founders known only by pseudonyms: Gordon Goner, Gargamel, No Sass, and Emperor Tomato Ketchup. They made the 10,000 apes with varying characteristics and listed them for sale in May. However, upon auctioning them through the arthouse Sotheby’s in Q3 of 2021 each ape’s value grew substantially with the cheapest one being worth close to $200,000.
After selling out rapidly, the prices of each ape have skyrocketed into the hundreds of thousands for some apes, and the community has evolved to include different variations of apes, including the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
As of late, BAYC has been in the news for its first experiential event in October, where all of the apes got together for APE Fest NYC (see flier below)
A Bored Ape even appeared on a Rolling Stone digital cover:
Friends With Benefits
Source: FWB
“Friends with benefits” is one of the premier DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) to hit the scene, and has been described by Coinbase as the Soho House of the NFT space. For those unaware of what a DAO is, they are essentially communities of individuals who’ve gathered together around a common interest. The key difference is that unlike traditional organizations, DAOs do not have a single leader. In sophisticated DAOs, like Friends With Benefits, there are committees and sub-committees that focus on executing tasks on behalf of the DAO. But overall, members are equal and able to participate in the vision of the org from day one.
To be a member of the FWB community, you have to fill out an application, and upon acceptance, you must buy 75 $FWB coins to participate. According to CoinBase, that should cost around $8,000 (for now, at least). Moreover, even upon entering the club, you have to buy more tokens to participate – although participation does come with its fair share of monetary rewards.
Dapper Labs
Source: Dapper Labs
Dapper Labs is the company behind Crypto-kitties & NBA Top Shot which generated a lot of buzz in the NFT world for its platform which allows fans to buy and own moments from their favorite players.
According to TechCrunch, recently raised a $250 million round of funding and are currently valued at over $7 billion.
What makes Dapper Labs special is that unlike the first two projects (aside from the major funding), Dapper’s NBA Topshot is built on the flow blockchain (a blockchain they created after the extremely popular Crypto-kitties nfts ran into scaling issues on the Ethereum blockchain).
While I’m not sure what 2022 holds for the NFT space – in all honesty it’s gettin a bit scammy right now) It’s safe to say that Dapper Labs is going to be the company setting the pace on the corporate side.
And those are my picks, guys! There’s a lot going on with NFTs right now and new communities/DAOs are being created daily. The possibilities are endless, so if I left out any out interesting NFT communities drop them in the comments below!
