Talking about NFT from an IP perspective

BAYC and its parent company Yuga Labs have been the focus of industry traffic, on March 12, when I saw Yuga Labs acquired Crypto Punks and Meebits series from Larva Labs, I tweeted about Yuga Labs' pattern, in this acquisition story, Larva Labs is more like a top IP incubation factory, but Yuga Labs is not only owning but also acquiring empowering The former is like PIXAR and the latter is DISNEY.

Yuga Labs has further demonstrated its vision as NFT's number one IP platform, including a new deck that describes its vision as "bridging the gap between culture and web3" and describes its commitment to breaking the boundaries of the "They even released a video clip of their NFT family metaverse "the Otherside".

Some other media have described Yuga Labs as the "DISNEY of the web3 era", so is it too much of a stretch to use a company that sells small images to benchmark the century-old entertainment giant DISNEY?

I don't think so at all.

My starting point is not the fully unleashed market cap of over $10 billion in APE tokens, nor the $4 billion valuation it just completed, the $450 million financing led by a16z with participation from Adidas Ventures, Animoca Brands, Samsung, Google Ventures and others, but the century-old IP incubation operation and copyright The changes and laws of commercialization.

A few years ago, I heard this sentence, I think deeply. IP companies are always thinking about the core issue is "low cost, high traffic", how to get higher traffic at a lower cost, content, channels, marketing tools are depending on this core formulation and change.

One hundred years ago, the widescreen sound film is the new media, in 1928, Disney launched the first ever audio animation "Steamboat Willie", film and television is a new content carrier in that era, the Mickey family is the first IP in this channel, but also become the heart of the global viewers of the ancestor IP.

For nearly 100 years, DISNEY has also encountered several growth bottlenecks, and has been constantly pushing out new IP and expanding new distribution channels to maintain its leadership position, including the development of entertainment production, theme parks, toys, books, games, media networks and other businesses, acquisitions of PIXAR, Marvel, 21ST CENTURY FOX, and vigorously developing streaming business during the epidemic Disney+, and even recently announced that it will enter the Metaverse.

But what I'd rather talk about is Sanrio, which was founded in 1974 and is the most popular example of all IP people. No one is unaware of its most famous IP: HelloKitty. The amazing thing is that HelloKitty does not have any film or TV production, or even any advertising campaign, but Sanrio has established the first full IP licensing and management chain. Except for special categories such as tobacco and alcohol, Sanrio licensed copyrights to almost all fields, including clothing, accessories, daily necessities, automobiles, offline stores, and so on.

In the second half of the 20th century, with the rapid development of the commodity market and international trade, I'm sure you could hardly escape buying one or two things with the HelloKitty family on them. When you drink from a HelloKitty water bottle and write with a HelloKitty pencil, you are consuming and becoming a node for the spread of this IP.

Another interesting example is Line Friends. LINE is a social application developed by NHN Japan, a Japanese subsidiary of the South Korean Internet group NHN, and as LINE's own emoji pack, the popularity of Brown Bear, Honey Bunny and Sally has become a big hit along with the popularity of this instant messaging software. The business contains games, animation, theme parks, coffee shops, etc., and the revenue in 2019 alone exceeded 1.2 billion yuan.

I would like to say that from the three examples of film and television works, daily necessities, to emoji packs, we can see that with the change of communication media, the cycle of cultivating IP is shortening, the chain of commercialization is also shortening, the mode of communication is lighter, and the efficiency of reaching is geometrically increasing. At the same time, the design style and presentation of IPs are also iterating.

This is like the evolutionary process of paper media, Internet media, and social media. The way and medium to get information and attention is changing, and there is a chance and unrepeatability of what person or thing is hot in each era, but it is really the right choice of the times.

The Unlimited Potential of BAYC and Yuga Labs

So when I saw NFT, I knew it was going to be a real, new change.

As an IP, NFT is truly "rocketing" in terms of the speed at which it spreads awareness. In August 2021, NBA star Stephen Curry bought a BAYC and replaced it with a Twitter avatar, which not only made headlines in the Crypto industry, but was also the number one trend on Twitter that day. A friend of mine (who had no idea what blockchain was) looked at my avatar and said, "Is that the same as Stephen Curry's Monkey?

Since then, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Top 100 DJ Steve Aoki, The Chainsmokers, Marshmello, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, singer Post Malone, rap star Snoop Dogg, soccer star Neymar, celebrity Paris Hilton, and Justin Bieber, Eminem, and Eminem. and Justin Bieber and Eminem (probably only one tenth of the current celebrity holders) have purchased the BAYC collection and changed their avatars.

Twitter has 200 million daily activities, Instagram has 500 million daily activities, the aforementioned celebrity V is often sitting on millions of followers, and these channels are not only not bought, but these channels are not only not bought, but also the act of KOLs spontaneously throwing thousands of dollars and participating in building communities, if NFT is not the strongest IP carrier in this era, what is?

Some people may raise the issue that these influences cannot be liquidated to the pockets of Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, or that the decentralized open copyright of NFT is a hidden problem, but I can only say: friend, your knowledge is too shallow and you know nothing about the world of Web 3.0.

As of January 2021, Hello Kitty's revenue in its 47 years of existence is $84.5 billion, and it is the second best-selling IP in global history (topped by Pokémon, born in 1996, generating $100 billion in revenue).

BAYC has been around for less than a year and already has a total turnover of over $1.5 billion, MAYC has a turnover of over $1 billion in 7 months, the Crypto Punk series has a total turnover of $2.7 billion, APE coin is currently priced near $12, and the token has a market cap of $12 billion. And these numbers don't even begin to cover the commercial value.

But what is more important is not the numbers, but what does BAYC bring to the holders.

Copyright system in the Web3 era

Stephen Curry purchased a BAYC for 55 ETH in August 2021 and a BAKC for 5.7 ETH, which translated to about $198,000 at the ETH price at the time.

Since then, Stephen Curry has been on the global social media hotlist and hailed as a leader by the Web3 world. On September 8, he became a global ambassador and shareholder of the mainstream crypto trading platform FTX; on December 22, he and FTX.US released Stephen Curry's "2974" series of NFTs, with issue sales of $1.46 million, all of which went to charity; and on December 24, he and FTX.US released Stephen Curry's "2974" series of NFTs, with issue sales of $1.46 million. On Dec. 24, he released five "Genesis Curry Flow" sneaker series NFTs on the Polygon network, with total sales of more than $3 million that day.

In the six months Stephen Curry has held the monkey, he has not only earned nearly 3 times the return on his investment, but also leaped from a sports star to a KOL in a new field, the meta-universe era is still far away, but we already feel how to achieve real-world fame and fortune through virtual digital IP, is there anything more "futuristic" than this?

What is even more remarkable is the "decentralized copyright" that overturns the traditional licensing model.

YugaLabs initially drew up a very clear statement of terms, affirming that you "own the NFT" and "own the underlying work BoredApe" and can commercialize the NFT you own.

This is one of the most hotly debated points after Yuga Labs Crypto's acquisition of Punks and Meebits, as they plan to grant commercial rights to all CryptoPunks and Meebits series to their respective owners, knowing that Larva Labs was previously criticized for not being Web3 enough and not opening up the rights.

This is one of the most talked about aspects of Yuga Labs Crypto's acquisition of Punks and Meebits, as they plan to grant all commercial rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits series to their respective owners, knowing that Larva Labs has been criticized for not being Web3 enough and not being openly copyrighted.

So what are the consequences of allowing NFT owners to commercialize such powerful IP? let me give you a few random examples:

1, last December, Adidas co-branded Bored Ape Yacht Club released adidas Originals Into The Metaverse NFT, with sales of 5,924 ETH (about $23 million) and nearly $100 million in volume to date.

2, Universal Music Group purchased Bored Ape Yacht Club #5537 this month to form the Kingship virtual band with its previously purchased NFT, with three members of Kingship from Bored Ape Yacht Club and one from Mutant Ape Yacht Club.

3, Tomorrowland, the world's premier electro music festival, has announced that NFT artist Ape Rave Club will headline this year's festival by premiering on the main stage on July 24. Ape Rave Club is a digital artist from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series, the plan is to release original encrypted native music through the NFT platform.

When I interviewed POPMART's founding team a few years ago, someone once asked them if they would make content based on Molly, and they immediately answered no, and told me that Molly could be anyone, any profession, any personality, and that they would not make content that was laborious and limited her as a platform IP. as time continued to evolve, I immediately thought it made perfect sense at the time.

And I see a new ceiling in the universe of NFT, where the world's top clothing brands, entertainment giants, and big celebrities are sparing no effort to use their decades of accumulated resources to spread the word for BAYC, giving it top-notch content and matching the best channels from their own perspectives.

This is the power of openness, the copyright system of the Web3 world in my eyes - the holding community determines the height of IP, where the community can be people, enterprises or Dao organizations.

Consumer goods, artwork, luxury goods

Finally, I'd like to talk about some subjective experience.

NFT was born in a very interesting time. Besides the grand narrative of disrupting the business world of IP and copyright, when someone asks me what it is, I will say: it is an artwork and not only an artwork, it is a consumer product and not only a consumer product, it is a luxury product and not only a luxury product (here I am referring to Avatar-like NFT in a narrow sense).

In fact, the concept of the definition of the above concept itself is blurring the boundary.

The analogy between Andy Worhal and Pop Art that many practitioners use to explain why a crude little image of NFT that doesn't look like it has much artistic skill is worth a lot of money is indeed apt.

Pop Art is art that draws its style and subject matter from popular culture: television, Coca-Cola, comics, cans, dollars, printed wallpaper, and initially, many traditionalists were uncomfortable with such art because they rejected commercial culture and the commercialization of art as a threat to the survival of modernism and "high culture". They thought it would threaten the survival of modernism and "high culture. The trend of rebellion, dismantling authority, and confronting the commercial society was irreversible and real.

The NFT is the more extreme widespread, marketable, and commercialization of modern art, which you can dislike and despise, but you cannot stop it from happening.

A more interesting example is the trend that has been going on for several years, the streetization and trending of luxury goods. Luxury designs going down the drain, slogans being printed on clothes, oversize without logic, subcultures losing their origin, co-branding with street trendy brands, using social media netizens as brand ambassadors ......

Behind such phenomenon is the increase in the number of middle class worldwide - luxury is no longer the so-called symbol of wealth and blue-blooded status, but more of a choice for life attitude and expressing individuality, and more and more people have enough purchasing power. If luxury goods want to continue to take the leading position in the fashion market, they must follow the development of the times and open up a more popular and younger market.

When some "new rich people" ask me why I buy NFT, I more often say that it is Web3's RICHARD MILLE than I tell them that BAYC is Web3's Mickey.

When someone says that luxury must be a century-old classic brand that lasts forever, RICHARD MILLE is the best example of this. It is a super late wave that has emerged in the world of watchmaking, having launched its first model in 2001, and likes to challenge the application of new technologies and materials in watches. The basic model costs more than a million dollars or even millions of dollars, but still the rich people are attracted to it, especially the celebrities and netizens.

Isn't this example highly similar to BAYC? It can be said that in today's luxury goods, "community attribute" (who is carrying the goods) has gradually replaced "pedigree attribute", and when you wear Richard Mille, you still have to "inadvertently" roll up your sleeves to show people. We are not like Federer who can always wave his arms in the spotlight of the court, it is much easier and more fluid to change the BAYC avatar.

So, back to why brands are sending NFTs and everyone is buying them: the giants are afraid of falling behind and being defeated by the new; the new rich who are profiting from Web3 need to show their social identity; and the old rich of Web1 and Web2 need a portal to talk to the new generation.

Of course, the minimum price of BAYC is now unattainable for the majority of people, after all, there are only 10,000 BAYCs. But there are still more new and interesting series being created, and the holders themselves determine the ceiling of this IP, a new story is just beginning, and more narrators are needed.

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