Author: Patti, ChainCatcher
Editor: TB, ChainCatcher
After the release of Morph's Platinum Soulbound Non-Fungible Token, the anticipated Mint situation was surprisingly cold.
In fact, there were many unreasonable aspects in this Platinum Card issuance:
1. Freely airdropping the SBT Freemint rights of the Platinum Card to users who previously owned the Black Card, diluting the Platinum Card's rights;
2. The Black Card and Platinum Card were issued too closely together, with unclear rights.
These series of actions quickly caused an uproar in the crypto community, and users began to question the value of the Platinum Card. Morph's "arrogant" attitude in handling user rights protection and demands also accelerated the event's development, ultimately evolving into a rights protection event on Twitter.
Unclear Black Card and Platinum Card Rights
So, what are the Black Card and Platinum Card?
As a consumer-level infrastructure project, Morph launched the Morph Black business in late March this year. According to their external promotion, the Morph Black Card is a crypto card product that combines high-end rights and convenience, extending the on-chain ecosystem application scenarios to daily life. In simple terms, users can deposit funds with the card issuer and use them for daily fiat currency consumption like a credit card. Additionally, Morph promises to manage the deposited funds and bring some returns to users.
Its core rights include exclusive DeFi high yields and high-end real-world privileges. Morph promises that Black Card users will enjoy exclusive DeFi yield strategies, combining low-risk yield products, Morph subsidies, and ecosystem airdrops to bring returns far exceeding traditional banks and ordinary DeFi protocols.
However, reality was not as beautiful as advertised.
On April 10th, Morph Black Card began staking. Without publishing specific staking time limits, staking yields, and most card rights not actually landing, the number of stakers reached hundreds within the day.
Immediately after, on April 11th, Morph launched the Morph Platinum Non-Fungible Token Mint activity, with a total of 10,000 tokens. The SBT Mint price was 0.3 ETH, with each address able to Mint up to 100 SBT tokens (equivalent to 30 ETH). Morph also promised that the Platinum Card would bring a series of high-end rights to holders, including the possibility of early Morph token distribution, and rumors of "instant Mint locking in a $500 million valuation, enjoying 50% liquidity upon token issuance" further attracted potential holders to "get on board".
But the reality was that the Platinum Card sales were dismal, with only 5% Minted after opening. Under such poor sales, users discovered that the project team gave Black Card holders free SBT Freemint rights, and SBT was considered the "biggest highlight of the Platinum Card" by most users.
Specifically, SBT represents future early token distribution rights, which was one of the important highlights of this Platinum Card sale. Giving such an important right to Black Card holding users was undoubtedly seen as diluting the card's key value in Platinum Card users' eyes.
In fact, during the initial Black Card issuance, there was no mention of SBT-related rights. When these rights were given to Black Card users after the Platinum Card sale, users felt that the project team was giving away the unsold Platinum Card allocation to Black Card users whose rights had not been fulfilled, which strongly opposed users who had previously Minted the Platinum Card.
Additionally, attentive users noticed that neither the Black Card nor the Platinum Card's white papers clearly displayed specific rights. Most users couldn't distinguish between the Platinum and Black Cards, and promotional materials vaguely defined their rights as "high-end privileges".
Under the influence of this series of events, public opinion began to ferment.
Official Response Causes Community Dissatisfaction
When Morph's grand rendering of the Platinum Card's value sharply contrasted with the market's dismal sales, some users began to question the card's actual value, believing its promotion was exaggerated and lacking specific landing scenarios and practical applications. Multiple crypto KOLs and users voiced their concerns on social media, demanding reasonable explanations and compensation from the project team. In response, Morph quickly initiated a space to pacify the community.
However, contrary to expectations, this space became a catalyst for the conflict.
During the space, users expressed their dissatisfaction and doubts about the project team. Facing these questions, Morph emphasized listening to user demands and tried to explain the Platinum Card's value and potential, pointing out that the market's cold response was due to multiple factors, not the product itself.
However, Morph's attitude in the space was criticized by users. Morph's official personnel stated that Web3 users "easily overestimate the impact of short-term events and underestimate the value accumulated over the long term". Users perceived this as implying that they were making a big deal out of nothing and that this small wave wouldn't significantly impact the entire Morph project. This response was considered "arrogant and cold".
When crypto KOL crypto Wei Duo hoped to re-evaluate and adjust the Platinum Card's value, Morph's project team responded that they would need an additional $10,000 per Platinum Card to enhance user empowerment, which further increased user anger and dissatisfaction.
Subsequently, crypto KOL Star Master directly requested a refund and rights protection but was muted by the project team, instantly making Morph the target of community criticism.
At this moment, dissatisfaction was spreading in the community. Users began expressing doubts about the Platinum Card's value and dissatisfaction with the project team's promotional approach on social media.
Crypto blogger 0x_MiJiu米酒, who previously staked the Black Card, called out to the Morph project team, demanding a clear explanation of the Black and Platinum Card rights and their specific implementation timeline.
Crypto user Star Master Animaia, who previously participated in the Platinum Card Mint, began establishing a rights protection group.
Crypto KOL Zhu Que also began criticizing Morph, stating that after the Platinum Card's release, the project team did not strengthen corresponding rights and value but instead repeatedly diluted its value.
Conclusion
In fact, we can see that the main point of conflict in this wave is the "rights conflict" between the two cards.
In the payment track, card issuance has always been a must-compete area for major consumer applications. Centralized exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Bitget have long joined this track, hoping to connect crypto assets with the real economy through crypto payment cards.
So, facing such a competitive payment track, how to occupy the market high ground? The key lies in the rights attached to the payment card, which is also the problem Morph encountered in this card issuance.
Morph chose to graft Web2 credit card-like physical rights onto crypto payment cards to create additional selling points, but in fact, these rights are difficult to implement comprehensively.
Setting aside fancy real-world rights, the strongest highlight of crypto payment cards still lies in their rates.
Take the currently popular payment card Bybit, for example. Transaction fees range between 0.9% and 3%, and new card users can enjoy a 10% cashback benefit. Such simple and transparent rights might be the reason for the higher usage rate of such payment cards.
When card issuers emphasize future rights of crypto payment cards to seize the market, they should consider the consumer's perspective - how to make users more clearly understand the rights and implement them as soon as possible, rather than selling cards with rights as a gimmick.
This rights protection storm is still ongoing, and currently, the Morph project team has chosen to remain silent and has not issued the latest updates, while users who previously paid to mint platinum cards are still attempting to protect their rights.
In the future, will the Morph project team provide further elaboration on the rights and interests of platinum and black cards?
ChainCatcher will continue to follow the developments of this event.
