Welcome to the first official issue of still building, a newsletter where we cover NFT projects that have been live for several months and haven’t seem to have let their community down as of yet. (This sounds a bit pessimistic, but if you’re in NFTs then you get it.)
We are honored to dedicate our first write up to a project called Wassies by Wassies.
We will first cover the community basics, price, background behind the character/art, and go over how the project has been developing and the type of collector that might appreciate collecting one.
We understand that not everyone reading our first issue is going to be familiar with terminology so for this introductory edition we’ll be providing some guidance for NFT specific terms.
Why We Chose Wassies
Wassie profiles have been lurking around crypto twitter for a while. They made a lot of noise when they launched and the team has continued to build since then. There are a few high profile influencers with the profile picture such as @zachxbt and @Galois_Capital.
Basic Numbers
Floor Price (Cost of the cheapest NFT available for purchase): 0.57 ETH/~$750 at time of writing
Discord Members: ~6.5K
Twitter Followers: ~20.8K
Original Mint Proceeds (Funds raised from launch): ~6450 ETH (Estimate)
Secondary Royalties: ~498 ETH
An Intro To Wassies
Wassies is a project created in September of 2021 by popular Crypto Twitter personality loomdart.
The original art concept was created by japanese artist @tukinowagamo (NSFW warning) and then popularized into a meme by @wasserpest and further promoted by @inversebrah. Based on the art you can see that the base character is a platypus-like cartoon. Our impressions is that it is a character designed to be a meme mascot of Crypto-Twitter.
Character lore as quoted from their discord:
A wassie is the result of a terrible radioactive incident. It's a foul, disgusting pest that keep multiplying and leave an unimaginable stench when gone. Its short lifespan reaches expiration date after 14 days (longer if kept in a fridge), after which it respawns with the knowledge of its ancestors.
Nevertheless, wassies have famously small brains and intelligence is very much not their strong suit, therefore we protect those little rats by killing them to show how scary the world can be if left unprotected. Obviously, they were unhappy with their species dying to... unnatural causes. To combat this some wassies have decided to don weapons and in typical wassie nature... these weapons are wielded by the sharp edges... Yep, not so smart creatures.
The original launch of the NFT was based on an IRL (in real life) physical object called loomlock which has later rebranded into it’s own entity.
Team
The team is very active. Events are consistently planned and held (at the time of this writing there are 6 events planned for this week), and the team constantly provides previews of project development.
The projects central founder, loomdart, is well established in the Web 3 ecosystem.
As an influencer loomdart has built a notable Twitter following and has gained the respect of the crypto twitter community.
As a cryptocurrency trader turned venture investor he has a sizeable portfolio of several notable investments that has translated into benefits for the Wassies community such as whitelists and raffles. There is natural implication that a founder of this caliber is able to sustain the brand through a mix of experience in execution as well as leveraging existing relationships.
High Level Community Features
Community Grants
Anyone who is interested in expanding the Wassies universe can apply for a grant to execute their idea, and can be allocated art and development resources while getting paid a certain rate for project management. Grant funds are generated from royalties gained from secondary market sales (80% of royalties). While the grants process is continously being refined, to date there have been 12 projects funded by a total of ~$420K in grants.
Bounties
There are existing bounties for community members that range from $200 for banner art for the community coffee shop to $10,000 for forming a Wassie Shark Tank team.
Discord/Twitter
The discord is your typical NFT project discord during the bear market (meaning that it is not as active as it used to be). There are holder gated channels, discussions, events, contests with real money giveaways, community games and more.
The team, including loomdart, is still active though much of the community has gone into bear market hibernation.
Coffee Shop
The community or team behind the project is launching a coffee shop in Singapore called Emporium by Wassies launching this month.
Future Plans
Loomdart’s latest update to the community has mentioned a few things the team is working on, the above mentioned Emporium being one of them. There are mentions of adding a variety of physical spaces around the world, 3D models that can be ported into games, merch releases, as well as the development of the physical lock.
Why One Might Buy
At around $750, the price tag may seem heavy. But, there are some solid reasons why the purchase would be worth it for some people. Everyone buys for different reasons, but at the moment we would view this as a lucrative membership for someone who is interested in any of the following points:
The project is led by an influencer who is actively communicating with his community and the team is still active despite a collapsed market and hibernated community.
The grants program is designed pretty well with an overall goal of growing the brand and can be self sustaining if executed properly.
The team has experimented creatively before and seems willing to continue to do so.
You have $750 to blow and are looking for a solid starter NFT community with low risk of rug. There were initial funds raised for the project and the probability of poor execution is slightly lower than in a project with anonymous or inexperienced founders.
Unrefined Opinions from the Authors
Bry:
For starter’s consider my ability to provide quality analysis or opinion the equivalent of a caveman’s. This is a project that aligns with the light hearted shit posting vibe of crypto twitter. While the price tag is hefty in current market conditions, the project seems to be steadily building and the team is involved. The project founder does have a lot of clout and it goes a long way in terms of delivering on past partnerships and potential partnerships for the future that can benefit holders.
It is not a gem or bargain at these prices and if you are buying it you are gambling on the community returning from hibernation once we are out of deep bear. The team has abandoned a quarterly roadmap which makes sense but a series of strong announcements can bring the community back.
I like the art.
n00ble:
This is a project that really speaks to the ‘crypto native’ crowd on twitter. It has twinges of trolling culture, and to be completely honest, I don’t think the art is all that good. Luckily for the Wassies, you don’t have to like the art in order to like an NFT project.
I really respect that loomdart and team are continually building without overinflated Twitter followers and Discord members. This project perfectly embodies what we value - a community that is committed, active, and continuously leaning on thier entrepreneurial spirit. Watching the execution of initiatives like the coffee shop might not bring holders immediate value, but it proves that the team can and will execute on things.
Last note: they would greatly benefit from some good old fashioned marketing. I love to see people creating, but the externally facing image of a business/community/whatever weighs heavily on its future success. Maybe this will need to come from directly from community members (via the grant or bounty programs) or somewhere else, but there is massive potential if the team or community can pull all the pieces together.
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