Managing a metaverse architecture guild on Juicebox

Lexicon Devils is a metaverse guild running on Juicebox. To learn more about how Lexicon Devils is building the metaverse and getting paid to do it, check out this deep dive on the JB blog and listen to episode 8 of the Juicecast with Wackozacco and Peacenode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Juicebox Learning Center in Voxels

In this article, we’ll cover how Lexicon Devils is managing their treasury on Juicebox by receiving payments for services rendered and then distributing funds to contributors for their work.

DeFIFA bar & lounge at the Juicebox Transit Centre, home for the upcoming self-governed game scheduled to take place during the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Case Study: Lexicon Devils x Juicebox 🧃​

Lexicon Devils has created buildings, concerts, and other metaverse experiences for a number of projects including a custom HQ for Dreams Never Die, a web3 music DAO, and a browser-based metaverse experience for NFT project Slothtopia. They also have an ongoing payout from JuiceboxDAO to design and build metaverse experiences for its parcel on Pluto Island in Voxels.

In the Activity panel of their Juicebox project, we can filter by Paid to see recent payments made to the project which consist of recurring payouts from the JuiceboxDAO v1 project:

Recent payments made to the Lexicon Devils Juicebox project

Understanding Lexicon Devils' project configuration 🔎​

Jumping into the project’s config, we can see that the following choices were made:

• With Duration set to 14 days funds can be distributed every 14 days. This is a common approach for project creators that run a business or service and want to pay their contributors every two weeks.
• Discount Rate is set to 0% which means that token issuance will stay the same over time. In other words, there is no added incentive for early contributors.
• Redemption Rate is set to 100% which means that project tokens can be redeemed against the overflow of the treasury for the same amount at any time. In other words, there is no added incentive for redeeming later vs. earlier.
• Contributor Rate is set to 650,000 tokens/ETH and Reserved Tokens is set to 35%, meaning that contributors who pay 1 ETH to the project will receive 650,000 tokens and addresses on the Reserved Tokens list will receive 350,000 tokens.
• Token minting is disabled, meaning that the project owners cannot mint tokens at any time. Only project contributions will mint new tokens.
• No reconfiguration strategy was set, meaning that the project can be reconfigured at any time without notifying contributors. This is a very flexible approach for project creators but carries risk for project contributors.

Funding cycle configuration for the Lexicon Devils Juicebox project

Looking at the history of Distributed Funds in the Activity panel, we can see funds being distributed to the builders of Lexicon Devils. Building in the open and managing their project on Juicebox allows anyone to see which address(es) are being paid for how much each time funds are distributed.

Two past examples of funds being distributed to Lexicon Devils builders

Reserved token allocation 🪙​

We can also take a look at how Lexicon Devils’ Reserved Tokens are split:

• ~ 11% to eight current contributors building Lexicon Devils
• ~ 11% to the Lexicon Devils multisig

Using Reserved Tokens to reward active contributors helps create incentive alignment by giving builders more tokens and therefore more power to shape the future of the project through governance. Their success is the project’s success: builders contribute to the project, accumulate project tokens over time, and are invested in seeing it succeed long-term.

Reserved token allocation for Lexicon Devils on Juicebox

In addition to managing their own project as metaverse architects on Juicebox, Lexicon Devils is also working on FORMING, a hyperverse concert series that pays web3 musicians to perform at the Juicebox parcel. Stay tuned for another overview and configuration article that will dive into the FORMING project on Juicebox.

Juicebox Transit Centre and Learning Centre in Voxels

Relevant links​

🎙️ Listen to Wackozacco and Peacenode share the story of Lexicon Devils on episode 8 of the Juicecast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

✍️ Learn more about Lexicon Devils in this deep dive article on the JB blog

🏗 Follow Lexicon Devils on Twitter: @devils_lexicon

🧃 Visit the Juicebox parcel in Voxels

🏢 Visit the Lexicon Devils HQ in Voxels

🐦 Follow Juicebox on Twitter: @JuiceboxETH

🚀 Trending projects on Juicebox

📚 Project Creator Docs

📹 YouTube Tutorials

Building a network of projects on Juicebox

StudioDAO is a decentralized movie studio running on Juicebox. To learn more about how StudioDAO is disrupting the traditional film financing model, check out this deep dive on the JB blog as well as episode 9 of the Juicecast with founder Kenny on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In this article, we’ll cover how StudioDAO has created a network to fund multiple film projects with a 10% fee going back to an umbrella project, StudioDAO Backlot. Unlike traditional businesses where money moves with little oversight, when you purchase an NFT to support one of StudioDAO’s projects on Juicebox you can see exactly where funds are being distributed.

Please note that all projects mentioned in this article are currently running on Rinkeby testnet before going live on mainnet and therefore configuration settings are not final.

StudioDAO projects live on Rinkeby 🎥​

• StudioDAO Backlot: registered LLC that provides film production services to StudioDAO and takes a 10% transaction fee on all StudioDAO project NFTs sold through Juicebox
• Unlikely Love Stories: StudioDAO’s first project, a dark comedy anthology by Rosa Tran and Derek Smith
• Colossi Research Academy: test project with art by Michael French
• Dickson Greeting: test project, experimental historical short film

StudioDAO sub-project map

Case Study: Unlikely Love Stories ❣️​

StudioDAO’s first film fundraise is Unlikely Love Stories, a dark comedy anthology by Rosa Tran and Derek Smith that explores finding unexpected love in the most unexpected places. In the screenshot below, you can see that ~ 13 ETH has gone into the treasury, and 10% of those funds will be distributed to “Project 4630” also known as StudioDAO Backlot, the Juicebox project that supports all StudioDAO films through production-related services. The other 90% is distributed to the filmmakers (unlikelylovestories.eth) along with the Backlot tokens minted from the 10% payout.

Funding distribution for Unlikely Love Stories on Rinkeby

Understanding the project’s configuration settings 🔎​

Digging further into the project’s config, we can see that the following choices were made:

• With automated funding cycles disabled, funds can be withdrawn at any time. For the project creator this is a very flexible approach but it also presents risks for project contributors.
• Similarly, an infinite distribution limit was set meaning that the project can distribute freely from its treasury, as much or as little as it likes. Again, this is a very flexible strategy but also means that the entire treasury can be distributed without any limits.
• Discount Rate is set to 0% which means that token issuance will stay the same over time. In other words, there is no added incentive for early contributors.
• Redemption Rate is set to 100% which means that they can be redeemed against the overflow of the treasury at any time. In other words, there is no added value for redeeming earlier vs. later.
• Mint Rate is 840,000 tokens per 1 ETH, with half for project contributors (420,000) and half for addresses on the reserved token list (420,000) 🚬
• Owner token minting is disabled, so the project owners cannot mint tokens at any time. Only project contributions will mint new tokens.
• No reconfiguration strategy was set, meaning that a project can be reconfigured at any time without notifying contributors. Again, this is a very flexible approach for project creators but carries risk for project contributors.

Funding cycle configuration for Unlikely Love Stories on Rinkeby

Reserved token allocation 🪙​

We can also take a look at how the Reserved Tokens are split:

• 50% to filmmakers of the project
• 40% to StudioDAO Community wallet
• 10% to StudioDAO Backlot

This cross-pollination of tokens allows each member of the StudioDAO ecosystem to have a stake in one another, creating incentive alignment and building community in the process.

Reserved token allocation for Unlikely Love Stories on Rinkeby

As mentioned earlier, all projects discussed in this article are still on Rinkeby testnet and their configuration settings are not final. Once StudioDAO and NFT Rewards are live on mainnet, we’ll update this article with the final configuration details. Stay tuned!

Coming soon to a mainnet near you.

Relevant links​

🎙️ Listen to Kenny tell the story of StudioDAO on episode 9 of the Juicecast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

🟢 Follow StudioDAO on Twitter: @studioDao

💬 Join StudioDAO’s Discord: https://discord.com/invite/YxPGn9pcdr

🐦 Follow Juicebox on Twitter: @JuiceboxETH

🚀 Trending projects on Juicebox

📚 Project Creator Docs

📹 YouTube Tutorials

How StudioDAO is building the first million person green-light committee on Juicebox.

🥱 Prequels, sequels, reboots​

If you’ve streamed movies recently, you might have noticed that everything is starting to become homogenized. Superhero mix and match, cinderella with the latest celebrity, maybe an apocalypse or two. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we are no longer paving new roads but rather returning to the same old well-trodden paths. The traditional studio model behind film production is, at least, partly to blame for this. And StudioDAO is trying to fix it.

These constant reboots are often favoured over new ideas that seem like too much of a risk to investors. And to make matters worse, the filmmakers don’t reap nearly as much profits as the financiers. Here is how films are funded in the traditional studio model:

• Filmmakers create a budget and pitch their film to financiers
• Financiers provide funding, get repaid once the film is made, and get an extra 20-30% of the films profit
• Financiers then receive ~ 50% of all revenue going forward and the filmmakers the other 50%

Other than the exorbitant take rates (50%? hmmm…), the problem is that financiers are assuming the risk of the success of the film. In other words, they are not incentivized to invest in new films without a proven track record and are much more amenable to franchises with successful past releases. This has lead to the franchise overload that we are currently experiencing where every movie in theaters or on streaming platforms seems to be a prequel, sequel, or reboot.

🟢 Enter StudioDAO, stage left​

Rather than relying on a centralized financier, StudioDAO is a decentralized movie studio working to become the first million person committee of fans green-lighting movies. By combining the power of collective action with NFT sales to fund films, anyone can participate regardless if they have 0.01, 0.1, or 1 ETH to contribute. For the first time ever the audience will have the opportunity to decide which films they want to fund and watch, all while building community and gaining behind-the-scenes access in the process.

Our goal is to have a million people come together to fund a movie for the price of a movie ticket

— Kenny

💸 StudioDAO’s hybrid funding model​

While the idea behind StudioDAO is simple—fans coming together to fund films—their innovative funding model is complex, so let’s break it down. StudioDAO has three methods for funding films:

1) Retail NFTs

Using Juicebox’s new NFT rewards feature (coming soon to a mainnet near you), anyone can support projects at three different price points: 0.01, 0.1, and 1 ETH. These NFTs help fund the film’s production budget and are also collectibles that grant governance rights to the StudioDAO community wallet.

2) Community wallet

The StudioDAO treasury receives 30% of profits from projects. This community wallet is controlled by members of the DAO and can help fill in the gaps for films in the StudioDAO network that are raising funds for production. This process democratizes the experience of movie production by allowing DAO members to vote on which films should receive treasury funds.

3) Film financing fund

Last but not least, this method opens the door to the traditional financing world outside of NFTs and the crypto community. This fund requires investors to KYC and work together with the StudioDAO community to reach an agreement.

🎬 How does this work for filmmakers?​

• Filmmakers receive 70% of all profits made from their films;
• Retain ownership of their film;
• Control the distribution of their film

A DAO member will act as a filmmaker’s representative, make a pitch to the DAO on their behalf, and seek approval via governance. All DAO members are able to create and vote on proposals, allowing the community to curate content and vote on which films they want to see come to life. Once the vote gets approved, the DAO opens a new Juicebox project with three funding tiers and fundraising begins.

❤️ StudioDAO’s first project: Unlikely Love Stories​

Unlikely Love Stories is a dark comedy animated anthology that explores the highest highs and lowest lows of unexpected love in the most unexpected places. The anthology is inspired by the real life love story of Oscar-nominated producer Rosa Tran (Anomalisa, Robot Chicken) and Emmy-winning VFX artist Derek Smith who met at the 2010 Emmy awards and fell in love 7 dates later. Part 1: Tender Vittles tells a hilarious, slightly fucked up story about love when a sweet mouse falls in love with a dangerous yet delicious gingerbread cookie.

The first goal for Unlikely Love Stories is to raise $305,000 USD for the pilot episode Tender Vittles. To continue the anthology, the project will be aiming to raise $2,000,000 USD to produce a half season and $5,000,000 USD to fund the entire season. 90% of proceeds go towards funding the project and 10% goes to the StudioDAO community fund governed by DAO members.

🧃 A transparent way forward​

The idea of crowdfunding films isn’t new: Kickstarter has helped raise $500M USD for films over the last ten years, including 5.7 million for Veronica Mars in 2019. Fast forward to 2022, crowdfunding on Ethereum has opened up new ways for fans around the world to support films, like filmmaker Miguel Faus who crowdfunded his film Calladita with tiered NFTs. Going one step further than a one-time fundraise, StudioDAO is building a regenerative model in which project creators get to make their dream projects while fans get unprecedented access to the green-lighting process. And all of this magic happens transparently and out in the open on Juicebox.

There is a two trillion dollar entertainment market and there is a clear scenario for a decentralized studio to do one billion dollars of production 3-4 years from now.

— Kenny

Relevant links​

🎙️ Listen to Kenny tell the story of StudioDAO on episode 9 of the Juicecast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

🟢 Follow StudioDAO on Twitter: @studioDao

💬 Join StudioDAO’s Discord: https://discord.com/invite/YxPGn9pcdr

🐦 Follow Juicebox on Twitter: @JuiceboxETH

🚀 Trending projects on Juicebox

📚 Project Creator Docs

📹 YouTube Tutorials

Governance can be fun​

And funny. As Sean McCaffery, Co-Founder of JokeDAO and seanmc.eth#0163 will tell you, governance doesn’t have to be a somber affair. Along with their co-founders they’ve built JokeDAO, a DAO tooling option that can run everything from on-chain governance to shitpost popularity contests with ease.

JokeDAO 🃏 An open-source, collaborative decision-making platform.

Enter JokeDAO​

The schema is simple: create a contest, and deploy it. Users on the platform can then vote on your contest with tokens that deploy for just that contest (if you wish). The platform can handle anything from “What color birthday cake should we choose?” to “Tell me the best joke about hamsters” to “Which workspace tooling should our DAO be using day-to-day?” It does so on-chain and transparently, so you and your community can track progress, previous votes, and run a decision-making platform that’s open and honest.

https://twitter.com/jokedao_/status/1549053077046472705?s=20&t=F1--BE4uL7TiocEVd1EluA

Disposable tokens and their utility​

Central to JokeDAO’s platform is the unique way that tokens are used. That is, they are quite literally used. In many cases they are disposable and unique to a specific contest. This has some strong benefits, and is a facet that many other DAOs could learn from.

Token-voting mechanisms suffer a lot from the question of why. Why should some people have some much more voting power than others. Reasons abound. Maybe it’s because somebody was an early contributor. Maybe it’s because somebody contributed a boatload of funds to a project. Or maybe— bear with me here— a person has a really nuanced understanding of the topic at hand.

But that last case is a bit less common. After all, it would be nice to say, “You know what, we’re voting on solidity devs, so let’s give all the solidity devs a bit more voting weight for this proposal,” but current mechanisms make this difficult and cumbersome, and certainly not scalable.

JokeDAO, by employing tokens which expire with a single contest or vote, can easily address this issue. And this is just one of many use cases where it’s a potential game-changer.

https://twitter.com/jokedao_/status/1562100521334341633?s=20&t=BvRz0K1QwJE8AK5695G2AA

The future of JokeDAO​

Where JokeDAO will go is anybody’s guess, but current sentiments seem to point moonward. The platform has shown new ways to approach governance for DAOs, and offers tooling that is unique and easy to employ. What more could an anon ask for?

To follow JokeDAO, check them out on twitter. To learn more about co-founder Sean, find their twitter here.

In this video, I'll show you how to:

• Create a list of addresses that hold your project's tokens using Juicebox.money
• Create a list of addresses that have voted in your project's Snapshot
• Create a JokeDAO contest
• Airdrop voting tokens using Coinvise

The Snapshot GraphQL query used in the video:

query {
  votes (
    first: 1000,
    skip: 0,
    where: {
      space_in: ["jbdao.eth"],
    },
    orderDirection: desc
  ) {
    voter
  }
}

For support, visit discord.gg/juicebox.

You ever wonder what people do with those collectible rare comic books that they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for? Not a whole lot, apparently.

“Because of the way the grading works, unsealing the comic almost by definition damages it. So you have these people who spend hundreds, thousands, or even millions on comics that they never look at. It’s like buying a Picasso and leaving it in a dark locked closet forever,” Adam (discord: Defaulteduser#2001), founder of ComicsDAO, explained recently on a call.

If that sounds underwhelming, well, that’s because it is. The real tragedy is that there are scores of comic fans around the world who would love to get a glimpse of these rare pieces of history. But now, thanks to Adam and a very cool piece of technology, that’s all going to change.

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology.”​

Central to the cause of ComicsDAO is a wild piece of technology that allows the unthinkable: scanning a closed comic book and getting a high-quality, readable image. It does it by “reading the air pockets at a very specific depth, and then measuring the metal content in the ink,” Adam explained. Whereas newer ink is non-metallic, the ink of olden days used metals, the content of which varied by color. By using both air pockets to calibrate depth, and what’s known about metal content in old ink, a totally closed and sealed comic book can be read page-by-page with striking clarity.

Don’t believe it? Check out this image Adam provided of an original, 1952 Donald Duck comic. The image you see below was extracted from a comic book that was closed and sealed. The scanning machine literally looked through the cover to reconstruct this image.

“We use something called T-Rays (think X-Rays, just a bit different) to read each page without opening up the book at all.” - Adam from ComicsDAO

Exciting, sure, but so what?​

To the chorus of voices who say fine, this is neat but impractical because let’s face it, reprints of all these comics exist and are readily available, Adam has this to say: the newer reprints of original comics are far from exact replicas. These newer versions are in fact redrawn comics, and thus quite different from their original, oftentimes-sealed counterparts.

Adam puts it like this: “It would be like if you had a poster an artist made on your wall of the Mona Lisa. It may look a lot like the Mona Lisa, but the artist who drew it wasn’t da Vinci, it was someone else. Does that mean you’d never want to see the real thing in the Louvre?”

For an example, the image below shows both an original (left) and redraw (right) of the same page of a comic. The first has some fading from the passage of time, but beyond that a quick glance will show you that the style and feel are quite different. That’s the difference between the real thing and a reprint, Adam argues.

The original (left) and the redrawn, re-issued reprint on the right.

ComicsDAO springs onto the scene​

Less than six months after springing up, ComicsDAO has over 300 followers on twitter and a growing community on discord. With Adam at the helm of twitter and talented artist gabobena doing art, the team still has allstar Gogo keeping it all together and working on infrastructure and strategy. A steady flow of good shitposts and memes coupled with in inclusive community designed to attract and marry comic book nerds and web3 enthusiasts seems to be finding much success.

Shitposting memes isn’t the only thing ComicsDAO slays at.

With the advent of the scanning technology, ComicsDAO also hopes to be able to offer glimpses of rare comics to its members. The goal is to source, fund raise and purchase old comics that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive for any single investor. From there, ComicsDAO will scan the comic and have it on loan as an NFT for members who wish to check it out to read it. This allows the whole community to share in the comic and to appreciate the unique artwork that would be otherwise completely unavailable, and it allows ComicsDAO to amass a collection of comics and build out a full library of collectibles.

And we haven’t even mentioned the partnerships.​

Beyond all that, ComicsDAO has also been creating partnerships with other DAOs in unique and fun ways. Two such examples (pictured below) are their cover-series, where they create comic-style covers for noteworthy DAOs. In the case of ComicsDAO, this has led to a partnership with NounsDAO that is poised to culminate in the creation of a paperback comic book to be distributed nationwide.

ComicsDAO cover collaboration with StudioDAO and NounsDAO. “This will be an awesome way to take something web3, like ComicsDAO, and put it back into the real world. Imagine being able to buy a NounsDAO comic book at your local bookstore!” -Adam from ComicsDAO

The state of ComicsDAO today​

A quick jump into the ComicsDAO discord will show you a bustling community spreading out in many different directions. Between partnerships, scanning collectible comics, unapologetic shitposting and building a community of active comic readers, the days are long and fruitful at ComicsDAO. Stop by and say hello in their discord if you want to learn more about what they’re up to and where they’re going. They’d love to see you.

Want to get in on the action? Join ComicsDAO on discord or follow them on twitter.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to deploy an NFT to Ethereum with Thirdweb's NFT Edition Drop and forward the mint sale proceeds to a Juicebox Project.

Thirdweb contracts have no fees.

Before you start, you should have:

• At least one piece of artwork for your NFT (image, audio, video).
• A Juicebox project you’d like to fund. This can be your project or someone else’s.

1. Navigate to Project tools​

Go to the project you would like to pay on juicebox.money. Click the Tools button at the top-right of the page.

Project tools on juicebox.money

2. Create payable address​

Click Deploy project payer contract in the project tools.

3. Deploy your Project Payer​

Click Deploy project payer contract. Leave the Advanced features set to their defaults. Verify that the transaction looks good in your wallet, then sign it.

Bonus: If you include text or an ipfs://Qm... link to an image in the memo field, every contribution to the project made via this Project Payer will have that text and/or image in the Juicebox project's activity feed. An image representing your colleciton is a good choice.

4. Copy Project Payer address​

When the transaction succeeds, a pop-up will display the new Project Payer’s address.

Project Payer creation successful pop-up.

A new event called “Created ETH-ERC20 payment address” will also appear in the project’s activity feed with the same information. Copy the Project Payer address to your clipboard.

The new Project Payer in the project's Activity feed.

5. Create your NFT Collection​

Go to thirdweb's drop page and select an NFT drop type, or browse the differences between their drop types in their docs. I’ll be selecting Edition Drop.

First, fill out your NFT Collection’s metadata. Then, paste the Project Payer address we copied earlier into the Funds Recipient input. Click Deploy to create your NFT collection.

I'm going to do an Edition Drop.

Paste the Project Payer address into the Primary Sales and Royalties recipient inputs.

6. Create an NFT​

On the Collection page, click Create to create your first NFT in the collection.

Click Create on the Collection page.

Input your NFT's metadata and click Create Edition Drop

Input your NFT's metadata.

7. Create a Claim Phase​

Return to the Collection page, click Claim Phases, then Add Initial Claim Phase

Create a new Claim Phase.

Set a start date, price, and quantity for your claim phase, then click Save Claim Phases when you are satisfied.

Configure the Claim Phase and Save.

Switch to the Embed tab, then copy-paste the iframe embed code into your own website.

Switch to the Embed tab and click `Copy to clipboard`

You can mint from the preview at the bottom of the page if you would like to test the NFT drop and Juicebox integration.

Mint embed preview.

NFT mint proceeds are forwarded directly to the Juicebox project and show up on the Juicebox Project's Activity feed.

That’s it! Try minting an NFT to see it in action!

For support, visit discord.gg/juicebox.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to deploy an NFT drop to Ethereum with Zora’s creator tools, and forward the mint sale proceeds to a Juicebox Project.

As of 2022-08-01, Zora charges a 5% fee on primary sales. This may change in future.

Before you start, you should have:

• At least one piece of artwork for your NFT (image, audio, video).
• A Juicebox project you’d like to fund. This can be your project or someone else’s.

1. Navigate to Project tools​

Go to the project you would like to pay on juicebox.money. Click the Tools button at the top-right of the page.

Project tools on juicebox.money

2. Create payable address​

Click Deploy project payer contract in the project tools.

3. Deploy your Project Payer​

Click Deploy project payer contract. Leave the Advanced features set to their defaults. Verify that the transaction looks good in your wallet, then sign it.

Bonus: If you include text or an ipfs://Qm... link to an image in the memo field, every contribution to the project made via this Project Payer will have that text and/or image in the Juicebox project's activity feed.

4. Copy Project Payer address​

When the transaction succeeds, a pop-up will display the new Project Payer’s address.

Project Payer creation successful pop-up.

A new event called “Created ETH-ERC20 payment address” will also appear in the project’s activity feed with the same information. Copy the Project Payer address to your clipboard.

The new Project Payer in the Project's Activity feed.

5. Create your NFT​

Go to create.zora.co/create and select an NFT drop type. I’ll be selecting Editions. Fill out your NFT’s data and upload the NFT media. Paste the Project Payer address we copied earlier into the Funds Recipient input.

6. Forward ETH to the Juicebox Project​

As your NFTs sell, ETH accumulates in the NFT contract. To move the funds to the Juicebox project, navigate to create.zora.co/collections, select your NFT collection, then click Withdraw, and sign the transaction. The payment to the Juicebox project will appear in the Activity feed when the transaction succeeds.

That’s it! Try minting an NFT to see it in action! For support, visit discord.gg/juicebox.

One Noun, every day, forever.

A series of Nouns generated in the Playground at nouns.wtf/playground

WTF are Nouns?​

Nouns is an on-chain generative NFT project and experiment in community building through avatars. Nouns are 32x32 pixel characters with heads that represent a noun like “igloo,” “skateboard,” or “peanut.” One Noun is auctioned every twenty-four hours, forever, with all proceeds going to the Nouns treasury. When one auction is settled, the next Noun is generated and a new auction begins. Each Noun is entitled to one vote in Nouns DAO governance which decides how the treasury should be used.

Auction bids for Nouns can easily reach over 100 ETH. As a result, owning a Noun is often limited to those that can afford to win these competitive auctions… unless you’re a member of SharkDAO ⌐◨-◨

SharkDAO, a shiver of Nouns enthusiasts 🦈​

Did you know that a group of sharks is called a shiver? SharkDAO brings together Nouns enthusiasts with the shared goal of acquiring Nouns and contributing to the Nouns ecosystem. Together they pool funds, participate in Nouns DAO governance, and partner with artists, developers, and DAOs to create Nounish experiences. This has taken the form of podcasts, NFT collaborations, and Nouns DAO proposals like e-sports initiatives and CC0 Story Bibles.

They currently hold six Nouns: 2, 5, 15, 33, 47, and 139 which have been named by the Shark community as follows:

🍍 Noun 2: Piña, named after its pineapple head

🪚 Noun 5: Bruce, a reference to actor Bruce Campbell who wields a chainsaw in the movie The Evil Dead

💊 Noun 15: Morpheus, based on Laurence Fishburne’s character from The Matrix

🐸 Noun 33: Froger, named after its frog head

🦈 Noun 47: Swimshady, the cool alter ego of the Shark Noun

🔒 Noun 139: Paddy, named after its padlock-shaped head

Left to right: Nouns 15, 2, 33, 47, 5 and 139

Building the plane while you fly it​

As an experiment in on-chain avatar communities, Nouns DAO’s mission is to spread the Nounish word with the help of Nouns holders who make up the voting body of the DAO.

While projects such as CryptoPunks have attempted to bootstrap digital community and identity, Nouns attempt to bootstrap identity, community, governance, and a treasury that can be used by the community for the creation of long-term value.

— Punk 4156

Holding only 6/300+ votes might not seem like much, but lurking beneath the waters SharkDAO is active in discussions, pushing ideas through the ecosystem, and able to get a lot more done than what their voting power implies. Since Nouns has no roadmap from the Nounders (founders), Nouns is community-owned which gives power to holders to propose initiatives and decide how to use treasury funds. In other words, the task of building community and shaping the future of Nouns belongs to community members who hold Nouns, rather than the founders. SharkDAO, as one of only a handful of sub-DAOs within Nouns DAO, is one of the groups building this roadmap on-the-fly.

“In short, sub-DAOs participation in a DAO is shaping and contributing a voice to that community so that the best ideas get surfaced, voted on, and make an impact in the world.”

— Dropnerd

SharkDAO and NounsDAO visualization from sharks.wtf

SharkDAO, the meme that jumped from Rinkeby to mainnet​

It all started with a small group of frens helping Nouns DAO test out their auction mechanism before it went live. Goldy, 4156, Dropnerd, Lithium, Kenbot, Del Piero and Defi Jesus were a few of these early swimmers. The Shark Noun was one of the first Nouns that was acquired on testnet by the group and they decided to build around that Shark identity. They launched a Discord, started bringing in contributors, and began planning how they were going to crowdfund to buy Nouns.

4156 announcing that the Rinkeby shark was acquired (tweet)

SharkDAO is a meme that jumped from Rinkeby to mainnet.”

— Kenbot in a Twitter Space hosted by nnnnicholas

When it came to figuring out how to fundraise in order to bid on the first Noun, Kenny dives into the Discord and suggests a cool project he heard of called Juicebox. Building a treasury on Juicebox would allow the group to trustlessly raise funds and manage their treasury, without the risks of YOLO’ing ETH into a multi-sig.

SharkDAO project page on Juicebox

From there, SharkDAO set up a Juicebox project on Rinkeby. Dropnerd was doing the testing and was still new to signing transactions. “I was very excited to see everything come together so easily without needing to interact with a bunch of smart contracts directly,” he explained. “The UI showed me exactly what was going on which made it a lot easier for the DAO. Looking back I can’t think of another platform where we could have raised 200+ ETH in the first few days without the help of Juicebox.

SharkDAO catching the Shark Noun 🎣​

Noun 47, the Shark Noun

Although new Nouns may seem random and impossible to predict, their traits are actually determined by the previous blockhash. And if you’re particularly clever, you can use the crystal ball to predict and even choose the next Noun that will be generated 🔮

Before the Shark Noun was generated, founding member Goldy was eyeing the Noun Crystal Ball every day for weeks. This magical tool shows you what the next Noun will look like if the auction is settled on the current block by calling the settleCurentAndCreateNewAuction() function in the NounsAuctionHouse contract.

Usually the winning bidder will settle the auction, but anyone can call settleCurentAndCreateNewAuction() at a particular block and help decide what the next Noun will look like. In a glimpse of a moment, Goldy saw the Shark Noun in the Crystal Ball and submitted the transaction before the next block to secure it.

The Noun Crystal Ball 🔮

SharkDAO had to act fast if they wanted the Shark Noun. The DAO established an auction committee, re-opened their Juicebox project, and expanded their multi-sig to include 5 members. Within the first few days of re-opening for contributions, they received over Ξ150 from community members.

Where there’s a will, there’s a wave 🌊​

The team suspected that someone was watching within the DAO and took their calls offline to discuss the details of their strategy in real time, including their final bid number. It wasn’t an easy auction to win though: the Shark Noun was desired by many and led to a jawesome bidding war. Over the next 24 hours the bidding quickly went past Ξ100 and then Ξ200 soon after. It became clear that the price of Noun 47 was going to swim past most Nouns auctions, apart from the very first Noun that sold for Ξ600. After their penultimate bid of Ξ244.82, SharkDAO was getting pretty close to exhausting the amount that they set aside for the auction. Though winning Noun #47 was non-negotiable, they also needed to conserve enough treasury funds to ensure that the DAO could continue to build into the future.

Timeline of some of the final bids on the auction for Noun 47.

If a bid is placed in the last five minutes of an auction, the timer is extended by another five minutes. Due to the cumbersome nature of bidding via a Gnosis Safe, the DAO came pretty close to losing the shark. There was even one bid where the last signer was executing the transaction with only 45 seconds left on the clock.

After a last minute bid of Ξ258.88 by 0xa8...0e7d, the team had minutes to coordinate and agree on the next bid price before multisig signers could approve the transaction. And on September 21, 2021 at 2:19am, SharkDAO won the final bid for 269.69 ETH.

Noun 47, the Shark Noun

SharkDAO celebrates their shark-versary​

Since their launch on August 8th, 2021, SharkDAO has raised over 1000 ETH on Juicebox, acquired six Nouns, and brought together over 400 sharks. As a sub-DAO, they’ve pushed several proposals over the fin-ish line in the Nouniverse including Nouns-based short films and FOMO Nouns. SharkDAO has also helped provide eye exams and glasses to thousands of kids in need, donated 5 ETH to the Coral Restoration Foundation, and started a new Juicebox project to raise 60+ ETH for founding member Del Piero’s son’s leukemia treatment.

The Shark Noun has become an icon and remains one of the most recognizable Nouns. In a particularly surreal turn of events, Noun #47 aka Swim Shady was featured in Yuga Labs’ Otherside promo video alongside Cryptopunks, Cool Cats, CrypToadz, World of Women, and Meebits. Not only were Nouns included as one of a handful of projects to represent NFTs a whole, but the Shark Noun was chosen as its iconic ambassador.

What’s next for SharkDAO? Stay tuned for future NounsDAO proposals like the Monthly Nouns Comics project currently being developed by DefaultedUser and ComicsDAO in collaboration with SharkDAO. The Shark Island pfp project is also currently in the works as well as the DAO’s growing collection of Shark-themed art.

Shark Noun featured in Yuga Labs’ Otherside promo video

The value of SHARK is derived not only from its ETH stored in the Juicebox contracts, but also from the NFTs the DAO has deployed treasury funds to acquire, from the JBX that the DAO has begun accumulating by paying platform fees, and perhaps most importantly from the productive community forming within the project that gives it boundless potential moving forward.

— Jango, from Juicebox V2: Protocol adjustments useful for adding treasury tokens to AMMs

Relevant links​

Listen to Dropnerd tell the story of SharkDAO on episode 5 of The Juicecast

Follow Juicebox on Twitter: @JuiceboxETH

Follow SharkDAO on Twitter: @sharkdao

Join SharkDAO’s Discord: discord.gg/QNbuygdK3A

Set up a Juicebox project on Juicebox.money

How Lexicon Devils is building the metaverse, getting paid to do it, and managing their treasury on Juicebox.

Metaverse architecture and video games​

I spent the majority of my childhood exploring the internet and playing classic computer games like Age of the Empires, The Secret of Monkey Island, and especially The Sims. For hours and hours I would build, design, and arrange anything I could think up. Unbound by the limits of gravity, money, or even common sense, The Sims was an excuse to imagine what was possible rather than what was realistic. At the time this maybe seemed like a silly diversion, but like many of our early internet activities this turned out to be great practice for the future that was hurdling towards us. Spending hours customizing a Myspace page was, in retrospect, a great introduction to frontend development. And perhaps The Sims was the perfect introduction to metaverse architecture.

Old Town in The Sims (2000)

Lexicon Devils origin story​

Lexicon Devils, named after an EP by LA punk rock band Germs, is a guild of metaverse builders architecting virtual experiences in Voxels, Substrata, and beyond. They acquire parcels, design and execute complex builds, and organize interactive events including DJ sets, treasure hunts, parades, art exhibitions, and performances.

Around the time that Shark DAO was making waves, Peacenode got a call from Stav and started chatting with Nicholas and Dropnerd about this “beautiful infrastructure layer of the internet that we’re all building on Ethereum.” One thing led to another and Peacenode was soon talking with Mieos from WAGMI Studios about a cross-DAO collaboration to create a Juicebox metaverse experience and the rest is history.

I’ll never forget meeting Wacko, he was rocking the most insane wearables every 30 seconds. We just had to ask if he could join us and put him on the payroll.

— Peacenode

Rather than sending funds p2p, Peacenode explained that the Lexicon Devils project on Juicebox would issue payouts to a team of contributors on a set schedule. In other words: “I know you don’t know us, but let’s hang out.” Building in the open with a trustless, transparent treasury means easily building friendships and communities regardless of identity or credentials. Find your community, bring the good vibes.

And who knows, you might even end up making an ultra tropical banana-themed learning center complete with an animated gondolier.

The first iteration of the Juicebar and Juicebox Learning Center

A home for Banny: iterations of the Juicebox parcel in Voxels​

v1 of the Juicebar was built as a home for Banny, the iconic blunt-smoking banana mascot of Juicebox. It was also home to the Juicebox Learning Center, a juicy and playful institution where visitors could watch videos about the protocol, learn terms in the glossary, and participate in ongoing JB events. This tropical parcel quickly became an oasis for long-time Banny devotees and newcomers alike to learn more about the crypto crowdfunding protocol that enables anyone to fund the “thing” of their dreams on Ethereum.

As part of the growing bannyverse, WAGMI Studios and Lexicon Devils organized the first ever JB metaverse treasure hunt with clues that make up a seed phrase… but only with the help of a decoder. Prizes included 200,000 $JBX and a treasure chest filled with dope NFTs.

The Bannyverse Treasure Hunt

Since October 2021, the Juicebox plot in Voxels has gone through many iterations as a center for learning, discovery, and entertainment. It stands out from surrounding parcels with its attention to detail and references to IRL architecture and design. Through pixelated curves and large windows blending the inside and outside, the current Juicebox v2 build combines characteristics of mid-century modern design with a tropical Banny aesthetic. Bringing this all together in one big juicy cocktail, the v2 build is a utopian dream in line with the ethos that anyone can grow and fund their dream project.

v2 of the Juicebox Learning Center, Transit Center, and Juicebar

Lexicon Devils' wild and imaginative custom builds​

In addition to building for Juicebox, Lexicon Devils have designed and built a custom HQ for Dreams Never Die, a web3 music DAO, and a browser-based metaverse experience for NFT project Slothtopia. Wackozacco was also commissioned to design a number of custom builds on Architect Island which draw inspiration from Neo-Andean, Oriental, Tudor, and Structural Expressionism movements.

Dreams Never Die HQ at 31 Bran Ave

Custom builds by Wackozacco on Architect Island

left to right: 3 Schism Street, 7 Marayaco Ave, 2 Schism Street, 29 Marble Road

I never would have imagined [becoming a metaverse architect]. I was designing video game skins when I was younger, not really thinking about it. As I was growing up, I felt like I needed to do something more meaningful and then I found out that you could paid for doing stuff like this. It was a re-discovery of a passion and realizing that it can produce value.

— Wackozacco

Whether referencing the physical world or playing with what defies reality, Voxels and other metaverses allow for architects to focus on design and function rather than costs, materials, or bureaucratic mazes like zoning laws. Anyone is able to learn to build in the metaverse, regardless of their education or previous knowledge of architecture. Coming from a wide range of backgrounds, the team at Lexicon Devils has spent the last year creating metaverse experiences and custom builds for other orgs, all while managing their treasury on Juicebox.

If you had asked me in January 2020, I couldn’t have anticipated where I am today with my friends. It’s pretty amazing. Actually, when I was a kid, there was a stint where I wanted to be an architect. I was a Lincoln Log kid, so maybe it makes sense.

— Peacenode

Lincoln Logs, a popular children’s toy invented in 1916 by John Lloyd Wright, son of well-known architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

FORMING and coming full circle with Juicebox​

As the pinnacle of their monthly Juicebox event series Lexicon Devils is hosting FORMING, an experimental hyperverse concert with a curated lineup of performances by web3 musicians. Lexicon Devils has created and funded a new Juicebox project through which all participating artists will be paid in ETH. By paying musicians through the project, artists also get a chance to learn first-hand about the Juicebox protocol and how it works.

“That’s the synthesis of our experience of learning about Juicebox. It’s not just an event at JB, but an event that gets people to learn about JB through our events”. — Wackozacco

Relevant links​

Listen to Peacenode and Wackozacco tell the story of Lexicon Devils on episode 8 of The Juicecast

Visit the Juicebox parcel in Voxels

Visit the Lexicon Devils HQ in Voxels

Follow Juicebox on Twitter: @JuiceboxETH

Follow Lexicon Devils on Twitter: @Devils_Lexicon

Set up a Juicebox project on Juicebox.money