You Got The Lđks?
Issue 0x2âŚ
Airdrops are a huge part of Web 3.Â
The basics go something like thisâŚ
We are early, we currently use a bunch of half baked product and services, many of which lack for much of a UI, others that are buggy, and in the worst case, dapps that can threaten the contents of your wallet in some way.
ââ¨-â¨
Doesnât sound like much of a benefit so far, does it? However, unlike most previous web products these new products and services reward their earliest users, usually in a token drop. You use their service to some level, and they airdrop tokens into your wallet, good deal? Maybe.
ââ¨-â¨
On January 10th a token called LOOKS dropped, and the big difference between this airdrop and many others was LooksRarewas up and running on day 1.
ââ¨-â¨
LooksRare is an NFT marketplace hoping to compete with OpenSea (aka BrokenSea because it is reliably unaccessible, think Twitter fail whale circa 2008), a Web 2.5 behemoth valued at $13 billion. How did you get these LOOKS? If you have them, what do you do with them? And 30 days post launch, does LooksRare have a chance?
Interview with a Vampire
How does a new potential new service you have never interacted with get your wallet info to offer you tokens?
In LOOKS case it was a well orchestrated vampire attack on OpenSea. Since Web 3 transactions are all eventually recorded on a open ledger and tattooed to a blockchain, it allows other enterprising sorts to go out and collect that data, and attempt to build a better mousetrap. Competition is good!Â
Think of it as an open source API, for customer data. Ok, yes this is scary, but everyone remembers Equifax right? It isnât as if the current crop of corporations keeps our data under lock and key. In the case of a vampire attack the developers get your wallet ID and then you must take action from their to collect your tokens.Â
Wait that is it? Free money? Sort of, here is how we assessed LOOKS before claiming.
Remember none of this is any sort of advice, let alone advice of the financial sort.
LOOKS That Shill
Your first reaction when you see an airdrop come into your social stream should always be âthis is a scamâ, if it ends up not being a scam, then more than likely ponzinomics is at work, so seek to understand how the drop is organized, who is shilling & why, who gets what % of the tokens, and most importantlyâŚdonât be first, insteadâŚ
Check With Them
@0xquit
If 0xQuit hasnât reviewed the Solidity contract yet, we hold off â just our own personal protocol. There are plenty of other folks to check with, find your trusted sources, the truth is out there.
Connect Wallet & Claim
This is always the scariest partâŚ
Triple check the website URL and make sure it matches the official twitter bio of the airdrop.
In the case of LOOKS you needed to first connect your wallet and list one of your NFTs for sale on their site before claiming. Clever.
Revoke Access From The Site
If you didnât lose anything, you made it! But we like to immediately revoke access via revoke.cash (or other services) just to be sure.
đ Congratulations đ You now have your tokensâŚ
we have a bag of $LOOKS!
Wen Moon?
Time to head over to your favorite AMM â Automated Market Maker (Uniswap & SushiSwap are our current favorites) and check the price of your tokens against your favorite coins. You can swap them for other tokens, or in many cases you can stake them, or LP them, we will possibly get into all that in some future letter.
LOOKS Promising?
Who knows! LooksRare has been responsive to product requests, though their UI still has a ways to go, they are only 30 days old and so far they have definitely made more product improvements than $13B OpenSea has in the last month.
75,000+ Ethereum addresses have claimed a LOOKS airdrop and most days it is hovering in the top 250 tokens by market cap.
Furthermore, the protocol has rewarded buyers and sellers with 2,866,500 LOOKS tokens (over $10 million) per day in its first 30 days (Jan 10 - Feb 10).
Of course, that attracted wash traders in droves. Now, LOOKS has has started cutting emissions, however, the rewards are still juicy and they pay out some of them in straight ETH, which is nice.Â
The dance for these âliquidity miningâ schemes, where platforms reward users for providing liquidity and activity, is to be nimble, responsive, and remain sticky enough for both rewards seekers and new users, and in this case ride that overall up and to the right trend for NFTs.
Liquidity Is King
There is no doubt in Web 3 they who own the liquidity own the world. Thus far, OpenSea owns the liquidity of NFT buying and selling & thus far, they donât seem to want to share any of the loot with their users, but it is early in the game.Â
A service like LOOKS, which rewards the community for participating is definitely the future, the question is, will LOOKS capture enough liquidity to build a thriving Web 3 business â time will tell âwe are certainly pulling for a model like this to work, as one of the biggest pillars of Web 3 is universal basic equity.
Grab your đż because the number of products and services building products in hopes of getting a slice of NFT buyer/seller liquidity is going to be fun to watch.
Seize The Memes Of Production!
ⲠBack in the '90s...
Think airdrops are a Web 3 invention? Nope. Back in 1998 Ralph Bartel spammed our email inboxes with free TZOO shares if and when they went public. Travel Zoo, a dot.com era travel publishing outfit did not, at least at the time, have a bank account full of fresh VC money like many of their contemporaries, so they airdropped.Â
Thus, instead of shelling out for a Super Bowl commercial, they came up with an innovative scheme, 3 free shares of TZOO if you visited the website and signed up for their newsletter, and 7 more if you referred a friend who did the same.Â
Funny thing happened to this then Bahamas based company, they actually survived, created a thriving business, went public in the US, and those 3 shares of TZOO were worth around $500 in the mid aughts. Of course, claiming the shares, and dealing with the taxation was a bit of a nightmare for both TravelZoo and the early adopters who claimed their shares. Sound familiar???
Where Are The Now?
đ Call Back đ¸
Below is the best 2022 Super Bowl ad you wonât see during the telecast. A call back to the 1995 classic Bud-wise-er ad, completely concocted in the Cryptoadz Discord and created by Cryptoadz community members in less than two weeks.
Budvibeser
đľ Music To Set The Mood
MĂśtley CrĂźe's Got The $LOOKS
By New Salt
Collating Digital Culture Since '22
In order to unsubscribe, click here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue