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Art Gobblers full mechanism introduction | Created by the makers of "Rick and Morty"! No roadmap, free minting, yet priced at 14ETH

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Art Gobblers full mechanism introduction | Created by the makers of "Rick and Morty"! No roadmap, free minting, yet priced at 14ETH

Art Gobblers

project, a collaborative NFT project launched by Justin Roiland, co-creator of the popular American animated series "Rick and Morty," and the venture capital firm Paradigm, has seen its secondary market price surge to 14ETH since its launch for minting on the 1st. What is even more surprising is that this project offers free minting and has no roadmap, relying entirely on a carefully designed operational mechanism with the goal of creating a self-sustaining artistic community ecosystem.

Art Gobblers Hype

According to data from Dune Analytics, since its release, Art Gobblers has seen a rapid surge in price and active trading. Within just one day of its launch, the trading volume has reached nearly 25,000 ETH, approximately $39 million. The lowest price before the deadline was around 11.39 ETH, about $18,000, and it had once exceeded 14 ETH.

Currently, there are 21 whales holding more than 10 Art Gobblers each, with the craziest collector owning 56 Art Gobblers, all bought at prices between 12-13 ETH, indicating a positive outlook among many whales for this project.

However, what kind of charm could drive a project that offers free minting to be hyped to such high prices? What interesting mechanisms have been tailored for this project by Justin Roiland and the venture capital firm Paradigm? This article will provide you with a detailed introduction.

Experimental PFP Project, Introduction to Art Gobblers Ecosystem

Translated as "Art Greedy Monster" in Chinese, Art Gobblers is a decentralized experimental art factory centered around these greedy monsters, who enhance their artistic value by devouring artworks hand-drawn by artists.

Artists can use the drawing tools provided on the official website to create drawings, mint them as 1/1 NFTs, and then feed them to Art Gobblers. These consumed NFT artworks will be linked to Art Gobblers through on-chain data and can be displayed on their bellies.

In addition to eating, Art Gobblers also produce Goo tokens through their backend pipes, and Goo primarily serves two functions:

  1. Purchasing more Art Gobblers
  2. Purchasing blank pages needed for drawing

As mentioned earlier, artists can use the drawing tools to create artworks, but to mint NFT artworks that can be fed, they need to use Goo to purchase blank pages and combine the sketches with them.

Art Gobblers Ecosystem Operation Mechanism

Explanation of Goo Token Production Mechanism

Aside from its various functions, the issuance of Goo differs from the common fungible tokens currently. The more Goo an Art Gobblers holds, the faster it produces Goo. This not only indicates that the supply of Goo is unlimited, but also that the supply speed increases day by day.

This means that holding Goo without any Art Gobblers is a bad strategy since other Art Gobblers will generate Goo. As the total Goo supply increases, the value of Goo in hand will gradually dilute.

Furthermore, if someone owns many Art Gobblers but continues to sell Goo, the production speed will still lag behind users who have been hoarding Goo for a long time.

The significant difference can be seen in the following figure: assuming a user holds Art Gobblers and 1% of the Goo token supply, the proportion of Goo held will remain at 1% in the long run.

Next, the mathematical formula for the Goo production rate is shown below, where the multiplier represents the basic production rate of Goo. Multiplying this by the amount of Goo held determines the Art Gobblers' Goo production rate.

Goo Production Rate Formula

Therefore, based on this mathematical formula and verification, holding multiple Art Gobblers does not increase the Goo production rate but remains the same when the total Goo amount is fixed and the sum of the multipliers is the same.

This method of combining token production rates with NFTs will incentivize users to hold both for the long term without affecting the fairness of the overall ecosystem due to the presence of large holders.

Note: By using infinite inflation and the impact on production rates to increase the desire to hold Goo to reduce liquidity, it may feel a bit like a Ponzi scheme.

Art Gobblers Issuance Mechanism "VRGDA"

Art Gobblers is expected to issue 10,000, with the first issuance on 11/1, releasing 2,000, of which 300 are held by the issuing team and are minted for free. Those who hold NFT works previously released by Justin Roiland are eligible for whitelist qualification.

The team plans to release the remaining 8,000 Art Gobblers over the next 10 years and sell them through Variable Rate Gradual Dutch Auctions (VRGDA), as detailed in the announcement.

Before understanding VRGDA, it is necessary to grasp the concept of Gradual Dutch Auctions (GDA) as outlined here. GDA aims to address issues encountered in traditional Dutch auctions, where a high initial price is set at the beginning, gradually decreasing over time to stimulate demand until all NFTs are sold.

However, this auction method is not ideal as the market may not have enough buyers to purchase all NFTs. GDA divides the entire auction process into numerous Dutch auctions, for example, initiating an auction every 10 minutes and selling only 1 NFT, giving the market more time to find a reasonable price for the NFT.

VRGDA, a variation of GDA, allows the issuing party to adjust the NFT issuance price based on market demand before each Dutch auction launch, unlike the linear and standardized auction method of GDA. This ensures that the NFT issuance rate aligns with the team's expectations.

For Art Gobblers, the team aims to issue NFTs at a faster rate in the early stages to stimulate growth, at 200 per month, gradually decreasing the issuance rate later on.

If the team finds that there is a higher demand in the market due to initial attention, resulting in an overly rapid issuance rate, they can raise the subsequent Dutch auction prices to suppress demand. Conversely, if the market demand decreases in a few years, they can lower the prices to stimulate demand.

Additionally, the blank pages mentioned earlier are also issued through VRGDA, with an initial auction of 69 blank pages per day, gradually reducing to 10 pages per day.

With the combination of these mechanisms, Art Gobblers holders need to carefully choose the timing to use their Goo. Depleting Goo will not only reduce their daily Goo production rate but also affect the future prices of Art Gobblers and blank pages due to the VRGDA mechanism.

The Most Special, Most Rare Legendary Gobblers

Finally, let's take a look at the most special puzzle piece in the Art Gobblers ecosystem, the legendary Gobblers, of which there are only 10.

Legendary Gobblers will gradually appear over the next 10 years, with each additional issuance of 10% of Art Gobblers resulting in an auction of one legendary Gobblers. These will be sold through traditional Dutch auctions, and the initial auction price for the first legendary Gobblers is set at 69 Art Gobblers.

The price for each subsequent legendary Gobblers sale will be twice that of the previous one, serving as the starting price for the next auction. For example, if the first legendary Gobblers are sold for the price of 50 Art Gobblers, the starting price for the second one will be 100 Art Gobblers.

So, what makes these highly priced legendary Gobblers so special? In addition to being 1/1 and only 10 in existence, to compensate for the significant amount of Art Gobblers required, the Goo production rate of legendary Gobblers will be twice the sum of the production rates of the held Art Gobblers.

No Roadmap, Aims to Become a Self-Sustainable Ecosystem

The mechanisms of the Art Gobblers ecosystem are interconnected and highly experimental. To maintain value over the long term and ensure the mechanisms operate effectively, it relies on the continuous contributions of many artists to accumulate value for the project during its 10-year issuance period.

Additionally, the team stated that Art Gobblers was already in the product stage upon launch, without any roadmap or future plans. Everything depends on these mechanisms to make the project self-sustainable.

"As artists create cool works, the cultural relevance of Art Gobblers will increase. With the increase in cultural relevance, collectors will have higher demand to feed Art Gobblers. When artists see the increased demand for their work, it will inspire them to create even cooler pieces of art." said the Art Gobblers team.

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