LIP-0004: Create NFT Series to Support LunarDAO Operations [DRAFT]
Title: LIP-0004
LIP Category & Type: Investment/NFT Series
Contact: yvesedwards
Date: 2023-05-13
Status: Proposal
Vote Date: To be updated
Summary
This proposal suggests the creation of an NFT series as a means to support LunarDAO operations, provide education and research, and potentially serve as a 1 of 1 NFT or a generative profile picture (PFP) project.
Problem
LunarDAO requires additional financial resources to support its ongoing operations and various initiatives. Traditional fundraising methods may not be sufficient or aligned with the ethos of the LunarDAO community. Therefore, alternative approaches need to be explored to generate sustainable funding.
Solution
By creating an NFT series, LunarDAO can tap into the thriving art market and enthusiastic NFT community, while showcasing the creativity and talent within its ecosystem to attract art collectors, crypto enthusiasts, and NFT connoisseurs. Serving as a bridge between LunarDAO and the broader art market, the NFTs can establish connections and collaborations with established artists and platforms, bringing attention to LunarDAO’s mission, values, and initiatives. This initiative acts as a catalyst for community engagement, fostering discussions, collaborations, and partnerships with like-minded individuals. The NFT series serves as a means to support LunarDAO operations, fund education and research initiatives, and can take the form of unique 1 of 1 NFTs or a generative PFP project with algorithmically generated NFTs.
Implementation
To implement this proposal, the following resources and actions are needed:
Collaborate with artists and designers to create the NFT series.
Define the theme, style, and artistic direction for the NFTs.
Establish a smart contract to mint and manage the NFTs.
Determine the distribution mechanism, such as direct sales, auctions, or a combination of both.
Allocate a portion of the proceeds from NFT sales to support LunarDAO operations, education, and research.
Promote the NFT series through various channels to attract collectors and investors.
Regularly engage with the community and provide updates on the progress and impact of the NFT series.
I understand the wish for raising money, but what attracts me to this dao is that it precisely isn’t another NFT project with 3 tokens…
I don’t understand why we can’t just raise through the raises, invest in revenue generating assets like Firn ( and help put them on the map) and let it play out.
Am I a boomer (crypto and otherwise) to have a different time horizon?
Now we spend more money to make NFTs - which are de facto charitable donations because 99% of NFTs cost and then crash. Even the ones which are in principle interesting and have utility or revenue (See theidols.io for example). they end up beeing illiquid and not nearly as collectible or artistic outside the community they are born in…
Can we not just invest in good anonymity / privacy projects and then wait for the next raise?
I agree with you on not diluting the DAO focus with unnecessary tokens nor projects that don’t serve our cause. After years of being a multi-chain creature I’ve become a BTC maxi… The first time I’ve touched ETH since a longer while was only to participate in LunarDAO. (which might gave more “spice” to anyone reading my comments and thoughts below on why and how to move forward with this proposal)
IMO there is an urgent need to find sustainable models to appreciate LunarDAO founders / stewards who have been investing full-time effort for over 6months into making this idea reality.
It’s also about keeping everyone motivated to develop the organisation further together.
At the heart of it (for me) it’s about creating and fostering a cultural baseline for the squad, that can become our DNA and an example for other lunar-punk initiatives, shaping our collective future where everyone’s time, effort and expertise is by default will be appreciated.
With this said, I hear and appreciate your input - so we’ve had a longer discussion with @Yvesedwards on LIP-004 / NFT series. Based on this I’m writing up an iterated version titled LIP-004-2.
LIP-0004-2 : Create NFT Series to Support Lunarpunk movement building
Title: LIP-0004-2
LIP Category & Type: Investment/NFT Series
Contact: yvesedwards, huxian
Date: 2023-05-22
Status: Proposal for discussion
Vote Date: TBC
Summary
This proposal suggests the creation of an NFT series as a means to invest into Lunarpunk movement building which would also compensate core LunarDAO contributors, supporting education and research, and further movement building initiatives.
Problem
Squad members entered the DAO to invest directly into projects generating financial returns together and not to support auxiliary activities. However the core (investment) function won’t work if we don’t put constant energy and effort into research, education, movement building or as someone called it: lunarpunk marketing.
Solution #Option 1: 1 of 1 NFT collection
reaching out and partnering with one potential curator collective who has significant field experience and network. Someone who also shares our values and future vision (anon collectives like PAK, The pyramid, etc)
collaborating with a number (e.g. 10) of digital artists, creating a limited collection to fund movement building activities.
this option would create a more limited but “higher prestige” collection, targeting NFT collectors who want to take part in supporting the lunarpunk movement
*minted on Ethereum
*longer time-frame (i.e approx 2-3 months)
#Option 2: A generative profile picture (PFP) project (like cryptopunks)
*finding one artist and an NFT contract programmer (one community member already offered help with this!) to enable anyone to support with smaller amounts of money
*minted on Polygon
*outreach to other anon or pseudonym organisation (Darkfi, Dark Sky, Pineapple Proxy, etc) to distribute white-listing tasks.
*leaning on LunarDAO allies network for marketing - but potentially this would require a bit more coordination effort on our end than Option 1.
*shorter time-frame (i.e. approx 1month for execution)
Implementation
I’d urge all squad and the wider community members to share their feedback and opinions on this update, and which of the two options they find more feasible and more in line with our values. Based on this we can proceed in iterating the proposal and continue
In LIP-0002 we listed all the DAO expences till the end of launch. In the end we reduced the proposal to cover 4/7 of the “initial loan” and 1 ETH for DAOhaus devs (where we run the DAO). If we look into the list in LIP lip/lip-0002.md at main · lunardao/lip · GitHub it’s clear that the DAO couldn’t afford to cover the works even by a fragment.
We scaled down from 6-4 as stewards and work in less of a capacity now, but the problem is that there are still many contrbutors like web-admin, graphic, web3 dev, legal help, voice AI researcher/operator etc who would be fair to support since beside the 6 stewards they were the foundation for the birth of the DAO.
The sentiment is that the investors - the Squad members - shall not cover all this from their stake as they “didn’t invest to pay wiki etc” and because it shows a bad signal for the future rounds. I have a hard time to believe that any future development will resolve this as the sum of people contributing will only compound and it will feel less relevant to future investors to pay % for the “old” works.
What I understood from the discussion so far was to have a more clear division in between the compensation avenues. That means to make a distinction between two main fields of the DAO and their funding.
Investment fund/privacy venture - LunarDAO squad: covering some basic management needed for the platform to sustainably run through:
entry fees (one proposal was to make them bigger ie 0.5 or 1%)
small LIPs with a clear definition of to who and for which work the funds go
Research and educational platform - LunarDAO community - anyone who finds the wiki guides, manuals and information useful. Many actually appreciate the research aggregated on the wiki and wish for that to continue but few want to pay it from the treasury for investments. A community brought proposals to support this by:
Launch the NFT Series
Launch tradable token with allocation for this
Look for grants for particular work, even retrospectively. (IDEAS???)
It seems like the token would need a bit more work and it may not be the market for it, however I don’t think it’s unfair to launch ERC-20 token $LUNAR in the future which would transparently be a community token to support the privacy research, and education through % allocation towards those. It’s price would have no impact on the DAO irself and no one would be fooled that it has any other utility
Besides that lunarpunk needs to get out there that takes an edge cutting graphics. NFTs can do both - promote this as well as bring income/people to build stronger aesthetics for the DAO itself (web, announcements etc).
Maybe for the implementation part it would be good to start to talk actual numbers.
Clarify that the artists aren’t paid upfront, and that they will only get some % from the sale.
The auction is to support LunarDAO and lunarpunk mission and them becoming part of this collaboration increases the value of the art as well as their reputation
Draft the numbers and distribution
Initial price offering per NFT
% to the artists, to the DAO, directly to Stewards & contributors etc.