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

In case you don’t know, Juicebox is the best way to fund and operate any Web3 business, especially NFT projects. If you’d like to know why we’d recommend reading ‘WHY Juicebox for NFT projects’ if you haven’t already done so first.

For now, we’ll be going deeper into Juicebox lore and fleshing out all the weird and wonderful options, looking at how to leverage them ideally for an NFT project. By the end of it, you’ll have set up a system where:

1. Buyers of your NFT will automatically receive a quantifiable stake in your project’s treasury in the form of ERC20 tokens.
2. People can invest in your project without having to own an NFT.
3. Automate payments to your key team members and display them transparently to your community.

In this article you’ll learn:

• How to create and configure a Juicebox project suited for an NFT collection
• How to link royalty fees from your NFT sales to your shared Juicebox treasury

1. Create your project​

https://juicebox.money/create or https://sepolia.juicebox.money/create (testnet)

I’ll go from the Funding cycle section of our create flow and recommend some possible starting points for your NFT project.

1. Funding​

Funding cycles​

We highly recommend using a funding cycle. This is the time period over which distributions will be made and other Juicebox settings such as the discount rate will be applied. Common funding cycle lengths are 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month.

Distributions​

You can specify the amount you’d like to distribute to each member of your team per funding cycle from the treasury. If you don’t raise the total amount of funds you’ve planned for your whole team, then each team member will be paid the percentage you’ve specified for them from any funds you have raised. For instance, if you planned for Mike and Bob to get 1 ETH each per week, but you only raised 1 ETH total in a certain week, then they will just get 0.5 ETH each.

If you’re opting not to go for the shared treasury approach, you can route all funds from the treasury straight to the owner, or a percentage cut to any other wallet address.

Token​

Reserved rate​

As mentioned earlier, whenever new tokens are minted as a result of someone buying an NFT or contributing for tokens straight up, this percentage of those new tokens will be reserved and the rest will go to the buyer. By default, these tokens are reserved for the project owner, but you can also allocate portions to other wallet addresses. A reserved rate of 50% will ensure the project owners maintain a majority share of the treasury and may be a good option for your project.

Discount rate​

The discount rate incentivises people to get in early on your project. It controls how the issue rate of your community ERC20 token changes over time. A higher discount rate means people who buy your NFT in the early days will receive more tokens / ETH than those who come in later. An exact figure is hard to give, but with a funding cycle length of 2 weeks, a discount rate of 10% may be a good place to start.

Redemption rate​

This redemption rate encourages token holders to hodl and stick with your project token for the long term. On a lower redemption rate, redeeming a token increases the value of each remaining token, creating an incentive to hold tokens longer than other holders. Similar to the discount rate, you’ll have to gauge how aggressively you want to pull this level, but a redemption rate between 50 and 75% is probably a good place to start.

3. Rules​

Pause payments​

You probably don’t want to check this. Check it only if you want to hold off payments for a certain period after you create your project.

Allow token minting​

You probably don’t want to check this either, it allows project owners to mint any amount of tokens to anyone on demand. Whenever you have this enabled, your project will have a warning flag on its Juicebox page warning contributors of the possibility of their tokens being diluted.

Reconfiguration​

This is important. It restricts how long before the next funding cycle reconfigurations must be submitted before they are able to take effect. For example, with a 3-day delay (a good starting point), a reconfiguration to an upcoming funding cycle must be submitted at least 3 days before it starts. It’s a great way to ensure your community against any malicious owner behavior.

2. Create a payable address​

This will create an Ethereum address that can be used to pay your project, rather than having to go through the Juicebox interface. It will be necessary in the model of the Juicebox NFT project we’re going for, since you will use this address as the destination for your royalty fees. You will be prompted to do this when you create your project, but can do it later at any time in the ‘Tools’ section of your project page pictured below.

3. Do your thang on Opensea, or wherever. Send royalty fees to the payable address. Let the magic happen​

And that’s it! Congratulations. You’ve set up a system where buyers of your NFT will have a quantifiable stake in your project with community tokens (ERC20), and have allowed people to invest in your project without having to own an NFT.

Conclusion​

We hope you’ve enjoyed digging into the details of Juicebox and how you can leverage the protocol for your NFT project. If you’re interested in having a crack at the setup described here, have a play on Sepolia. If you’ve still got some questions, come shoot us a message in our Discord or arrange an onboarding call. As always, happy Juicing!

Disclaimer: This is not financial or legal advice. As always, speak with an expert and do your own research.

Juicebox is an extremely flexible and powerful Web3 protocol made to fund and manage shared treasuries. It has been responsible for some of the biggest names in crypto community fundraising, including ConstitutionDAO, AssangeDAO and MoonDAO. Funding and operating an NFT project with Juicebox is an especially effective way to leverage the protocol, providing massive benefits to both owners and their communities. In this article we’ll cover why, and in a follow-up article, we’ll cover how.

In this article:

1. Basics of the Juicebox protocol.
2. Why Juicebox NFT projects are better.
3. What does it cost?

1. Basics of Juicebox​

Juicebox allows people and communities to crowdfund their project and give their contributors a stake as community tokens (ERC20) in return. Once funds have been raised, the protocol can be leveraged to automate payments from the treasury in a controlled, transparent and decentralized fashion.

2. Why Juicebox NFT projects are better​

Juicebox NFT projects are a win-win for both communities and owners. There are countless ways you can configure your Juicebox project for your specific goals, but here’s a general strategy we recommend for NFT projects:

Instead of sending your NFT royalty fees directly to the owner’s wallet, you can send them to a shared treasury owned by your community. Upon buying an NFT (and paying the royalty fee), the new owners of your NFT’s would automatically receive an amount of your community tokens proportional to their purchase amount. The more someone pays for an NFT, the more tokens they receive. This gives your community members a formal and quantifiable stake in the shared treasury - your project as a whole. Your community could also contribute and gain stake in your project by just buying tokens, not necessarily having to own an NFT.

For communities​

Token value​

You can use these tokens for anything you want, perhaps governance, raffles or exclusive access to future drops. But a unique feature of Juicebox is that it allows the option for these tokens to be redeemed by community members for a portion of your project’s treasury. As the pie grows over time, a contributor’s tokens will be worth more. Your community can gain on top of just the increase in value of their NFT’s.

Having a shared treasury is optional, however, and you could instead just have all royalty fees sent to the Juicebox project route straight to the creators. In this case, the token your community receives could not be redeemed for any ETH.

Your community can gain on top of just the increase in value of their NFT’s.

Trust and transparency​

Firstly, a properly configured Juicebox project makes rug-pulls impossible. You can give your community time to react before any changes to your funding and spending parameters take effect.

Additionally, your Juicebox page shows exactly how all your funds are flowing - how much and where it’s coming from, and where those funds are subsequently being spent. The only way funds can leave the treasury is by configuring and scheduling a payment, for which your community will always have time to react to.

Spending (left) and income (right) shown on a project’s Juicebox page

You may be asking, “Ok I see the benefit for my community, but what’s in it for the owner?"

For owners​

Maintain a high stake in your project using the Reserved Rate.​

If you choose the option of your token holders being able to redeem from a shared treasury, we should mention that as an owner you can control exactly how much stake you maintain of this treasury over time. The reserved rate allows you to keep a portion of all newly minted tokens. A 50% reserved rate means you will maintain a 50% ownership of treasury no matter how big your project gets.

This is mostly irrelevant if you don’t want a shared treasury and to simply route all funds into the project straight to creators.

Allow for people to contribute to your project without buying an NFT and, therefore, raise more funds.​

This model opens up a massive and mostly untapped market of people interested in investing in an NFT project without necessarily buying an NFT. Whether it be too high of a floor price, not wanting to go through the whole selection/auction/listing process, or anything else, Juicebox opens the door of your project to these people through community tokens.

Consider if the projects like the Bored Apes had followed this model - how much more funds could the creators have raised as a result of people buying some stake worth less than the purchase price of a Bored Ape?

How much more funds could the [Bored Apes] creators have raised as a result of people buying some stake worth less than the purchase price of a Bored Ape?

Automate payments to key members of your team.​

If you’re going for the shared treasury approach, Juicebox allows you to pre-program specific distribution amounts from your treasury to any ETH address, e.g. pay vitalik.eth US$1000 every week. This saves the hassle of manually transferring funds to your team from your personal or shared multisig wallet.

Otherwise, as mentioned prior, you can simply route all funds from the project to creators and their teams.

3. What does it cost?​

Up front, all Juicebox costs is gas. As of the 23th of May, it’s about US$150-200 worth of gas to launch your project, deploy your own ERC20 token and a payable ETH address for you to link your royalty fees to. Then, for any funds you end up withdrawing from your project’s treasury, you’ll pay a 2.5% fee to Juicebox. But, for this 2.5% cut of your payout distributions, you’ll receive Juicebox’s native token (JBX) in return at its current issue rate. Moreover, your fee will give you a growing stake of Juicebox’s expanding ecosystem and treasury.

Conclusion​

If this has already been enough information for one reading, feel free to tap out now. But if we’ve piqued your interest at all, you may want to read on about exactly how you’d setup your Juicebox NFT project here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xqj5AyG8pZcpdtbxYfOzqwIaMNyrhQZPfVhfsUpYw1M/edit). Alternatively, come hangout in our Discord and arrange an onboarding call if you’re interested in learning more. Happy Juicing!!

Disclaimer: This is not financial or legal advice. As always, speak with an expert and do your own research.

On Tuesday, May 3rd (Wednesday May 4th local Chinese time), some Juicebox members (including jango, Zeugh, peri, filipv and your favorite author, to name just a few) engaged in an open discord call with Chinese-speaking JB community members and contributors. This article recaps some of the main points discussed. Also a huge shout-out to Zhape for his excellent on-the-fly translations!

Translation needs​

The translation efforts are coming back underway as JB has overhauled its documents over the past few weeks. One area of concern was in how to best achieve accurate translations that can be written engagingly. The need for accurate translators, particularly who are comfortable working from English to Chinese, was underscored by Zhape. If you are comfortable translating into Chinese fluently and would like to contribute to translation efforts, reach out to Zotico in the #translation channel.

Guerilla Marketing Campaign and Community Building​

Zeugh gave a brief highlight of some intended efforts at marketing and community building. Currently, there have been discussions to send some Juicebox contributors to Crypto or NFT conferences where they can network and spread the word about Juicebox. Possible eventual speaking opportunities at conferences, or sponsorships of conferences, are also being discussed, but at the moment the goal is to start small and see if we can spread the word about Juicebox and make meaningful connections between communities, or create opportunities for people to open projects on the Juicebox platform.

Translating outreach/community content​

One area discussed was the importance of trying to make it a priority to translate into Chinese blog posts, interviews, or other materials that will help bridge the gap between our Chinese-speaking and English-speaking communities. For instance, an article such as this one that simply updates the community at large on a recent discord call, or an article that announces major changes coming with V2, would be excellent opportunities to inform our Chinese-speaking readers and to open the opportunity to gain feedback from them.

The state of V2​

jango gave some insights on how the V2 protocol is coming along. Front-end of the protocol is still under development and coming along nicely, and in the mean time fine-tuning measures in the back-end continue to ensure a smooth rollout. The V2 protocol will allow many creative opportunities to build extensions, and offer more tools to project creation. So far early reception has been very good.

Tokenomics strategies​

The question of how tokens should be disbursed, traded and valued also came up. The goal of ensuring that a project received the best rate of JBX per ETH is being discussed and worked on. Practically, this would mean that if a better JBX rate existed from an AMM, a project creator would receive that rate JBX at the AMM exchange rate. While JBX currently has low liquidity, one line of thinking is that such a system, which would necessarily drive traffic to such AMM’s, would serve as a mechanism to build those liquidity pools. Importantly, the impetus for such a process starting will likely come as Juicebox incentivizes these opportunities.

Voting equity​

Another core topic of discussion was around voting equity in the current DAO governance. The question centered around how to strike a balance between early contributing members, such as jango, who have very large sums of JBX and thus have tremendous voting power, and members who may be contributing heavily but are newer, and thus have far lower voting power. This is a catch-22, but it is important to note that this imbalance is certainly aware to early contributors such as peri, jango and others. In the case of per and jango, they do not engage in voting for this reason (both were quick to point out). One solution is to continue issuing JBX, which will give more voting power to more individuals, but this also flies squarely against certain opinions to completely stop JBX issuance. It is a complex situation that has a lot of moving parts, and is inextricably linked to the JBX issuance/AMM situation mentioned above. Ultimately the thinking is that with these new changes, solutions may present themselves and we will see growth and directions in these domains.

Main Takeaways​

This call provided important information and helped streamline communication between the English-speaking and Chinese-speaking Juicebox member communities. The nature of questions remained substantive throughout and finding a cadence to have such calls seems like a good strategy moving forward. A huge thank-you to our members, both English- and Chinese-speakers, for taking the time to hop on this call and for having such open and transparent discussions. And again a huge thank-you to Zhape, who translated and managed the discussion and kept a good flow going!

If you held JBX before 2022-02-23 and have not done so already, claim your JBX!

We've seen some super interesting results from the Juicebox Benefits Airdrop which launched last month. ARCx has worked with us to collate and summarise some preliminary findings from the airdrop. Results below!

Definitions​

To fully comprehend the findings, it helps to quickly define the terminology used in our analysis.

Most of these findings centralise around a concept called the "Retention Rate". The retention rate is defined as the lowest JBX balance for an address after the airdrop. To better understand this, let's use an example:

0x123 claims 100 JBX tokens from the airdrop. They then go on to sell 30 of their tokens immediately after claiming. This address then waits a week, and buys back the originally sold 30 tokens. In this scenario 0x123 would have a retention rate of 70%, even after buying back the tokens, as it is the greatest amount of tokens sold after the claim.

This logic ensures that per address the retention rate can only go down over time.

The second concept to understand is the "Average Retention Rate". Many of these graphs aggregate the retention rates across all claimers in the airdrop. The average retention rate is defined as the average of all the retention rates for all addresses whom have claimed already. So, again using an example, if 10 addresses claimed the airdrop each day, then the average retention rate on day 1 would only consider the first 10 address and not any of the addresses who claimed on day 2, day 3, etc.

Findings​

The first graph shows retention rates 28 days after several major airdrops. The Juicebox Benefits Airdrop had unprecedented levels of hodling!

The next graph also shows retention rates, but instead shows them over time. After a brief selloff, retention was remarkably stable.

Next, we consider this same retention rate over time broken down across the 3 different score chorts (see JBP-114). Interestingly, the cohort with scores between 53-200 had the second highest retention rate, beating out the 201-300 cohort by ~15% at times.

Finally, we looked at how quickly each cohort claimed their JBX. Interestingly, the 53-200 tier fared better than the 201-300 tier in this metric as well.

Thank you to everybody who helped make this airdrop happen. More information and analysis will be coming soon!

Juicebox v2​

Jango's proposal to Deploy v2 passed by overwhelming majority. You can learn more about v2 on the docs.

Currently, v2 is scheduled to deploy on April 16th.

Frontend efforts are already well underway: as of 2022-04-07, the V2 feature parity milestone is 64% complete. Feature parity is Phase 1 of PeelDAO's roadmap for v2.

veBanny Frontend​

VeBanny has pushed into a new stage. We have completed all the Layers, Backgrounds and token spreads. The Ui for the VeBanny voting token minting site has been fully drafted. All contracts are written and nearly finalized. Next steps are to tighten up some front end pieces and start the build out.
―Mieos

For realtime progress updates, take a look at the Figma.

Juicebox High​

Juicebox High is live (and you are on it right now)! Join the Discord and send a message in #documentation if you're interested in contributing or have ideas for improvements.

You can use the new blog with your RSS reader by adding https://docs.juicebox.money/blog/rss.xml or https://docs.juicebox.money/blog/atom.xml.

Metaverse Festivities​

Lexicon Devils has some amazing plans for April! Here's the schedule:

Head to the Juicebox Lounge to join!

Juicebox in the words of​

Felixander has launched a new interview series called "Juicebox in the words of".

In his words: “Juicebox in the words of” is a series that highlights JB community members in interview form. Learn about members’ roles at JB and what makes them tick.

Interviews with zom, filipv, jango, and peri have already been published. You can find the latest interviews (and more) on the blog.

Vote!​

FC#20 temperature checks are live now. Head to the Discord and vote! Snapshot voting opens at 00:00 UTC on 2022-04-12.