Nouns: How One NFT Every Day Forever Built a $34M Brand

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Dear subscribers,

Let’s talk about Nouns DAO, one of the most interesting NFT projects out there:

1. One Noun NFT is sold every day, forever

2. Nouns have been selling for 80 eth ($100K) (in a bear market!)

3. These sales have generated 26K eth ($34M) for the Nouns treasury

So WTF is Nouns DAO? We did our research and spoke to Vapeape, a founding member of the DAO. Let’s dive into:

1. How Nouns DAO works

2. The wacky world of Nouns projects

3. Is Nouns DAO actually sustainable?

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How does Nouns DAO work?

Most NFT projects launch with a limited number of NFTs (e.g., 10,000). Nouns DAO is different - every 24 hours, a new Noun NFT is auctioned to the public:

Check out nouns.wtf for the auction

So far, over 300 NFTs have been auctioned. Barring a few instances, the winning bid has consistently stayed above 80 eth ($100K). 

100% of the sale goes to the DAO treasury which is now at 26K eth ($34M). The founding team (10 “Nounders”) don’t get a cut of sales. Instead, they get every 10th Noun for free for the first 5 years. 

“The founding team started talking after this tweet from Punk4156. Our initial spec was essentially this tweet thread from June 2021.” - Vapeape

4156 ⌐◨-◨ @punk4156

After pronouns, there were Nouns.👇

The founding team is made up of 10 individuals that include both top NFT collectors (e.g., Punk4156) and founders (e.g., dom, co-founder of Vine). They continue to maintain the infra (website, discord) and help the DAO execute proposals.

So why are people paying $150K for a Nouns NFT? 

Joining a community of top collectors and founders certainly plays a role. But the other aspect is CC0.

CC0 means “no rights reserved.” That means that anyone can use your Noun NFT to make stuff and spread the word about the project.

This brings us to…