RŌHKI sold over 100 ETH in Music NFTs in the Bear Market

July 31st, 2023

We Unpack The Stats To Find Out How & Why

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a disruptive model allowing artists to tokenize their work on blockchains. This enables musicians to directly engage with fans and collectors by selling limited edition digital art and music. RŌHKI is one project leveraging NFTs to build a community-owned ecosystem.

RŌHKI was founded in early 2022 by the artists behind the monikers IO and HACHI. Little is known about their identities, though rumors suggest they are grammy-winning musicians. RŌHKI combines cinematic music videos and fantasy storytelling to create an immersive world for fans to explore. Their goal is to use NFTs and decentralized community ownership to gain independence from traditional music labels.

RŌHKI

Twitter (2k): https://twitter.com/ROHKI
Youtube (600): https://www.youtube.com/rohki
Discord (1.4k): https://discord.gg/rohki
Audius (137): https://audius.co/rohki
Sound.xyz (1.6k): https://www.sound.xyz/rohki
Telegram (70): https://guild.xyz/rohki
Team: @tnorris, @Cooopahtroopa, @jasonmeinzer + 0xSplits
Treasury: 0x00189c51bC75c52Db15B95d77a0bBaA258d707E5

Rohki is a web3 native music NFT project.

IO and HACHI, the two artists that comprise the moniker, introduced themselves on mirror.xyz in February 2022 with a cryptic post offering a season pass for 0.1ETH. These genesis keys offered holders a free mint to all 6 Episodes in Season 1. The project combined mysterious teaser videos, cinematic music and fantasy storytelling to set the stage for a quick sellout including collectors like Diplo. A community treasury fed by secondary sales of episodes would thereby put the community in the driver’s seat.

They sold out of all 100, raising 10ETH.

S1, E1 — Desperado

Season 1, Episode 1 was Desperado: released May 16th 2022 as a sequence of 500 NFTs for 0.1ETH which sold out in two hours raising 50ETH. These took the format of audiovisual Vials that were accessible to Genesis Key holders first, then via public sale. The vials were then set to reveal randomly on May 23rd 2022 according to three tiers of rarity:

300 Static — Audio Only + Image
150 Dynamic — Premier Video Highlights
50 Immersive — Full Featured Audio-Visual Experience

A key element of RŌHKI’s model is a community treasury funded by secondary sales. Fans can vote on proposals for how to use these funds via snapshot votes. Early votes financed purchases of more NFTs to support the project and signal ongoing investment. This community-driven model is a core part of RŌHKI’s decentralized ethos.

The first snapshot proposal to the community passed [1st June 2022], voting to spend 5ETH of the treasury to collect a genesis key, ten statics, five dynamics and one immersive. The arguments made were to signal to the market ongoing investment in the project as well as offering exposure to the ecosystem being built.

The second snapshot proposal to the community passed [3rd July 2022], voting to adapt to an emergent bear market and change key parameters of the next mint. This included reducing the number of NFT’s minted to 250, offering a free mint to genesis key holders, increasing the maximum mints per wallet, discounts for holders of the first episode etc.

The third snapshot proposal to the community passed [12th July 2022], voting to mint 22 VROOM episodes alongside the two free ones they got for holding a genesis key & desperado set. These were minted by the Treasury earmarked for contributors, giveaways and future sales signalling strong belief in VROOM, and rewarding those who contributed to the project.

S1, E2 — Vroom

Season 1, Episode 2 was Vroom: released on July 15th and is an introduction to the HACHI character. Rumour has it that the musicians behind the project are high level (potentially grammy winning) and the structure of the mint was as follows:

Free Mint: 24 hours at 0.00 ETH
Discounted Mint: 24 hours at 0.05 ETH
Public Sale: 48 hours at 0.1 ETH

The project thus far utilised opensea as its main focal point for interaction with the project, hosting the collection on ethereum with 7.5% royalties set for secondary sales. There is also a custom built marketplace which connects to the collection smart contract. It looks like despite high production values and quality music this one did not do particularly well compared to the other mints so far given market conditions. Many of the NFTs were minted to the treasury wallet.

The fourth snapshot proposal to the community passed [31st July 2022], voting to spend 16.1ETH emptying the treasury to be able to produce the rest of season 1 and mint 100 episodes each for free to genesis key holders in reaction to a deepening bear market. Every member of the RŌHKI team agreed to work on the remainder of Season 1 with no expectation of payment, outside of secondary sales. Upon the completion of Season 1, RŌHKI will explore external funding options that allow the team to be staffed and compensated independently from the success of NFT sales. This financed things like motion capture equipment, site maintenance & gas costs.

The fifth snapshot proposal to the community passed [8th August 2022] revealing that the free mints model was largely inspired by Angelbaby and the Hume Collective, along with a growing number on platforms like Zora. The structure would be as follows:

Price: Free
Supply: 100 NFTs
Rarity: Static (90), Immersive (10)

Mint Phases:

Phase One: Genesis Key Holders
Phase Two: Set Holders (Snapshot)
Phase Three: Episode Holders
Phase Four: Public Mint

S1, E3 — KA

The sixth snapshot proposal passed [24th October], voting to airdrop 10 editions of episode 3: KA to the ROHKI team & KA contributors in the absence of any primary sales fees, and including one edition for the ROHKI Treasury. It also revealed that the third episode would be featured on sound.xyz for the first time as a free mint with different phases for Key Holders and Set Holders

Season 1, Episode 3 was KA: released on 25th October and sold out in the first minute of going live, trading soon thereafter for 0.3ETH, despite the video not being ready yet. This was released later, in keeping with the cinematic archetype that had by now been cultivated. The video synchronises closely with the music in parts, whilst simultaneously seeming to incorporate much of the AI tooling that has proliferated to enable animated generated art.

The team learned that there is clear demand for RŌHKI songs even before full videos are ready via one-on-one anonymized collector interviews over chat, phone and video mediums with collectors between 11.9–16.2022 and beyond.

Other learnings included:

Quality: of all content (episodes, origin stories, music, etc.) has been top-notch.
Communications: Big opportunity for improvement… zero external marketing, in addition to even just more basic internal activity across comm channels (Discord, Twitter, etc.). Note — may be receptive to a new Telegram channel.
Guarantee: Strong sentiment from key and/or “set” holders to receive hassle-free airdrops or at least something that guarantees they’ll be able to not miss out on the free/discounted mint (e.g. comms prior with custom support during mint window).

S1, E4 — Voodoo

The seventh snapshot proposal passed [7th December 2022], voting to adjust the episode IV drop structure by keeping 100 edition supply and changing the price per edition and mint phases. Key Holders obtain a free mint (plus gas fees), with holders allowlisted for a discounted mint while adding a priced public phase to fund the treasury.

Season 1, Episode 4 was Voodoo: released on Sound.xyz [7th December 2022] and on Glass Protocol [9th December 2022] with 38 key holders claiming their free mints and the rest selling out in a second on public sale raising 0.76ETH primary on sound and 50 sol on Glass by 5th January to sell the videos out too.

S1, E5 — Stars Won’t Align

Season 1, Episode 5 was Stars Won’t Align, released on 11th January 2023 pushing the limits of AI video generation with motion capture technology and combining it with the generative AI modelling used previously to high calibre effect. The music is catchy, upbeat, and differentiated for added measure with the youtube video added on 28t January.

The song raised 0.56ETH on sound.xyz and 100 sol from glass.xyz

S1, E6 — Reflection

Season 1, Episode 6 was Reflection, released on 15th February 2023 via sound.xyz just as RŌHKI Market — a one-stop shop to collect all Episodes to date — was spun up using Reservoir0x. The team reveal a workflow that used over a dozen tools (Midjourney, UnrealEngine, etc.)

Given its status as the final mint of the season the structure was altered again to a free mint for Genesis Key Holders for 24 hours, followed by a public sale open edition for 3 days at 0.01 ETH. This resulted in 677 mints, raising 6.35ETH. This also raised 100 sol via glass.xyz.

Origins Series

Diving into the lore for the characters, the ORIGINS series offers further context and landscaping for the ROHKi universe. Typically there are 100 editions available — free for RŌHKI Genesis Key Holders — 1 SOL for presale — 2 SOL for public sale on Glass.xyz. They serve to explain the backstory, with regular releases since July 2022 also enabling them to keep up the momentum and expand worldbuilding.

RŌHKI Origins : Chapter I — 27th July 2022
RŌHKI Origins : Chapter II — 23rd August 2022
RŌHKI Origins : Chapter III — 27th November 2022
RŌHKI Origins : Chapter IV — 28th December 2022

Extras

Their last mirror publication was on May 30th 2022 after the release of the first episode, so this piece seems to be the first written piece of content around these drops since then. After the season ended there have been three mints

Horizon is apparently (according to the team) the first to use AI assistance in their music catalogue. IO is a shapeshifter, so his voice is converted into 6 different singers, morphing between them from word to word. 642 collectors minted 4,005 editions for between 0.002 ($3) and 0.003ETH raising approximately 9.5ETH

ULTRAVIOLET minted 100 editions for 0.077ETH ($200) each raising 7.85ETH, the first time in a while that prices had rebounded back to levels last seen a year ago.

DEMON, the most recent single, minted on July 21st with an open edition that elicited 1896 editions for between 0.002 ($3) and 0.003ETH raising approximately 3.83ETH. Key aspects underpinning the marketing included a cover art contest, with two winners selected to receive 2.5% of the drop’s proceeds, via a partnership with 0N1 force also giving away a 1ETH NFT to the random golden egg winner. This song was used as their theme song at comic con.

Results

RŌHKI’s NFT drops have allowed direct fan engagement, community-driven governance, & artistic innovation. By leveraging blockchain technology, independence from traditional labels is possible.

To date, RŌHKI has released 6 episodic tracks, 4 chapters of their Origins backstory, and 3 standalone singles. In total, they have:

Minted over 5,000 NFTs across their various drops
Earned over approximately 100 ETH in primary and secondary sales revenue
Built a community treasury that has distributed ETH to contributors trustlessly
Sold out multiple episodes extraordinarily quickly
Leveraged multiple platforms and chains including Ethereum, Optimism, Solana, Opensea, Rohki Market, Sound.xyz, and Glass Protocol

RŌHKI’s results prove that even in a bear market, there is strong collector demand for high quality music NFTs with real utility and community involvement. As adoption grows, projects like RŌHKI show the potential for musicians to reclaim independence and thrive in web3.

Season Two

As RŌHKI looks ahead to Season 2 and beyond, audiences and collectors will be excited for further innovation aligned with doubling down on the community-owned ethos. Thereby RŌHKI can lead the way for the next generation of fan-driven music economies in web3.

This might include:

Establishing a presence on web3 native social platforms like Lens and Farcaster. This will allow more direct community interaction and reduce reliance on corporate platforms like Twitter (X).
Explore newer NFT platforms and blockchains beyond Ethereum and Solana, such as Base, Linea, Polygon and Arbitrum to tap into emerging communities and technologies.
Offer more utility and perks for genesis and set holders, like metaverse concerts, to maintain an engaged core fanbase even during market swings.
Partner with other leading music NFT projects for cross-promotions and drive mainstream adoption. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Decentralize governance further by transitioning the community treasury into a DAO structure to empower collectors.
Expand the narrative universe through comics, metaverse integrations, and other interactive content that deepens fan loyalty.