βThe Problem
Few expected NFTs to take off the way they did in 2021.
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) popularized the 10,000 supply collection that year.
CryptoPunksβwho were the first to do it in 2017βwere also rediscovered and became the gold standard.
Soon, many 10,000-supply NFT collections spawned with their own unique traits β Cool Cats, Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, Doodles, and so many more.
All of these iterations were built and deployed using the ERC721 token standard. This meant that every NFT was a unique and differentiable coin.
At the time, this made sense. But there were many downsides. Most obviously, NFTs couldn't be cost-effectively sent or traded in bulk. Collections also had to be limited in size. 10,000-supply collections therefore became the norm. But this made them too exclusive and expensive to a fault, sidelining the vast majority of people.
With the ERC721 standard, a high-supply NFT collection on Ethereum was simply not feasible. This placed a hard cap on community growth because there could only ever be ~10,000 or so unique owners.
As a result, many pfp collections now look stale. And people have gotten bored of their lack of customization. Unsurprisingly, NFTs have completely collapsed in price and interest in 2023.
The old NFT model is...
β exclusive (~often only 10,000 supply)
β expensive
β illiquid
β limited in variety
An actually scalable NFT should be...
β mass-supply
β ultra-affordable & cheap to send in bulk
β liquid in all crypto markets
β infinitely customizable but also easily recognizable
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