Those willing to manage ruins are few, but I believe that beneath the ruins, the next Labubu must be hidden.
Author:Zeke, YBB Capital Researcher
Cover:Photo by Firosnv. Photography on Unsplash
I. The Demise of Non-Fungible Tokens
The last cry of Non-Fungible Tokens ended with Pudgy Penguins' Token, and Doodles' recent Token on Solana only created a small ripple. Yuga Labs' subtraction continues, this time even involving its most soul-defining IP, Cryptopunks. The BitCoin Non-Fungible Tokens from the last wave of revival have also nearly reached zero, and these once-crazy narratives have indeed fallen into decline, with no one paying attention anymore.
I used to attribute the reason to difficult implementation and high entry barriers. The former seems to have no issues currently, while the latter is not entirely true. NFT also had a period of free Mint on-chain meme tokens, with Goblintown and MIMIC SHHANS being large MC memecoins from that era. Creators earned a fortune solely from transaction fees, and many Non-Fungible Tokens in the inscription era were even more decentralized, but this couldn't prevent NFT's decline. Forming or joining an IP community is very simple, but continuing is the real challenge.
So, I believe we might have the wrong approach. After the initial rocket-like rise, Molly didn't make PoP MART legendary, and the company's stock price has been falling from 2021 to 2024, just like NFTs. However, PoP MART made a comeback by building an entire IP wall. Now, PoP MART has 12 of its own IPs including Molly, DIMOO, BOBO&COCO, YUKI, Hirono, 25 exclusive IPs like THE MONSTERS (including Labubu), PUCKY, SATYR RORY, and over 50 non-exclusive collaboration IPs with Harry Potter, Disney, League of Legends, and others.
People's preferences are always fickle, and IP has a limited lifespan, but what if I had hundreds of choices? Now Labubu is booming in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, with its peripheral dolls maintaining value like a plastic Maotai. Yuga Labs' ideal state was ultimately realized in Web2, and this was no accident.
We should rethink what an IP business is, what the Roadmap for Non-Fungible Tokens is, and why PoP MART can achieve such heights without content support.
Three, Pudgy Penguins
I attended a small penguin Hong Kong event last year, and this Non-Fungible Token project has always been so passionate about its community.
Pudgy Penguins' success lies in practicality, practicality, and more practicality. Non-Fungible Tokens themselves don't have significant technical differences; no matter how clever the Mint process is designed, it's ultimately just a JPG. The difficulty of Non-Fungible Tokens is IP implementation, which is hundreds of times more challenging than creating 10K PFP. Yuga Labs wants to do Metaverse, Azuki wants to create anime. OK, these are cool, but these projects starting at hundreds of millions will only ask community members to pay.
This extremely compressed world is too impetuous, with everyone wanting to succeed quickly. Holders want to make big money, project teams want to reach the top in one step. Few blue-chip projects are willing to humble themselves, and the more impatient they are, the harder they fall. The original Pudgy Penguins team was also such an impetuous grassroots team, and after their reputation was damaged, they sold the small penguins at a low price.
At this point, the small penguins met their true owner, Luca Netz, a worker with years of physical marketing experience who brought the small penguins back to their proper height. Luca Netz is truly building a brand, operating a company for Non-Fungible Token holders. From marketing to plush toys to future games, every step of the small penguins is solid, with the company profitable and holders also profiting. There's nothing special about this; it's just doing what it should do. Therefore, it proves that bottom-up IP can exist in Web3, it's just that too many project teams are unwilling to lower their stance.
So, I really dislike the word "falsification", as if some things should never exist. Electric cars were once considered stupid, and Siri on my phone was also stupid. But this doesn't prevent green-plated cars from now filling entire cities, and AI is even more remarkable.
Many so-called falsified tracks will still be attempted by Web3 in the future, just lacking a matching project team.
Four, Path
The path to success is simple, and the path to success is also difficult. PFP's next stop will ultimately need to break out of some inherent crypto logical frameworks, and becoming the next Web3 Disney requires extensive accumulation. I've discussed in previous articles whether NFT scarcity has been counterproductive in moving towards the masses. If defined as a trendy consumer good, the 10K limitation might be too large. If defined as a Web3-specific asset and fundraising method, IP ultimately needs to be converted into physical consumer goods to fulfill the community's promise, rather than a bunch of strange sub-series.
Based on the unique culture of crypto and the attributes of Non-Fungible Tokens, clinging to an IP until old age is also helpless. How to do more with these PFPs? How to expand a project into an IP factory? This might require us to accept some new concepts and introduce more technologies and gameplay.
Five, Is Token the final stop?
I still don't understand the significance of NFT Token. This situation seems more like exploitation of lower-level by upper-level, and a dilution of original NFT value. I can only understand it as the project seeking a convenient liquidity exit method.
From APE to DOOD, they all seem like variants of air Tokens. Their empowerment often involves staking for some on-chain transaction dividends, purchasing items in Metaverse, governance rights, etc. In an ideal scenario, it's a perfect cycle of holder → staker → developer.
In the long term, as mentioned in the fourth paragraph, this is a dilution. Distributions like Azuki's Anime are even more like outright robbery.
Short-term heat is important, but the project's longevity is more crucial. Don't let Token become the final stop.
Conclusion
In this fast-paced, dopamine era, we've witnessed the rise of many Web2 emerging IPs. Non-Fungible Tokens should have grown well in this era, with many irreplaceable characteristics. Four years ago, I viewed it as cyber Maotai, but reality is more like cyber tulip. Few are willing to manage the ruins, but I believe the next Labubu is definitely hidden beneath these ruins.
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