Through my rhythmic work, I was able to get in touch with the Ordinals protocol very early on, and it was the first time I took the first step in doing a project instead of just directing projects. In March, I launched my own Bitcoin NFT project, Bitcoin Pizzas. Although, from the bottom of my heart, I don’t use the term “project” to refer to myself.
My friends call me Sweet Cake, they say to me, Sweet Cake, you have already succeeded, don’t think too much. In a sense, perhaps I have indeed succeeded.
Because “doing this thing is cool” and trust in me, I successfully gathered pizzab0y, FyFk, and Ssyan together to turn Bitcoin Pizzas from a brainstorm into a real project. It was February, shortly after Ordinals was born, and I was very anxious to find someone to bring the “pizza” idea to fruition, but the ready-made resources were either completely unfamiliar with the Ordinals protocol or felt that the returns were not proportional to the investment. Everyone wants to make money, so it’s really not easy for me to find three other people to work together without expecting any return, perhaps this is a kind of success.
The transaction volume of this project is close to 11 bitcoins. At the beginning, we did it with the attitude of “believing that everyone will see it”, but on the day when FOMO came, everyone’s first reaction was not enthusiastic, but felt the pressure coming. No matter how much the market FOMOs, we cannot get a penny from the rapidly increasing turnover. The soaring price will inevitably push up the expectations of some holders for us, but we have no income to do more things. However, the community has never cursed us, but has given us a lot of spiritual support, and even used their own small pictures to support us in marketing. Considering that we have no whitelist and only 300 Twitter followers when launching, perhaps this is also a kind of success.
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But I have always believed that I have never succeeded, because success in my opinion is used to describe the end of something.
The market changes rapidly, and hotspots switch very quickly. I am very worried that the attention of “pizza” will disappear, and this is actually happening. Regarding this, I don’t know what I can do because we have no money.
I have spent tens of thousands of yuan on this matter, but I still cannot give any return to the small partners who trust me. Even if they have told me more than once that money is really not important, they will not starve, but when I saw our painter successfully raised thousands of yuan for another cartoon image in her circle of friends, I was really anxious. Because of anxiety, I had a quarrel with FyFk. He felt that I began to “issue orders like a boss,” and he only did this thing because of his interest.
We have rejected the possible paths of issuing BRC-20 tokens, subsequent project Blockingid Mint, and so on in this circle, because we feel that this thing is not a NFT project from the beginning or at all, but a performative behavior art that protests against phenomena we hate, such as PUA and taking money without doing things seriously.
What else can we do without money? Apart from updating a “GM” picture with the “pizza” image every day on Twitter, occasionally warm community members help us make some meme pictures and videos, we really can’t do more. This actually leads to a paradox – for projects like Azuki, who have taken so much money, they can and should do more content that can coagulate the community and even play a commercial value, but these contents are so unimportant for them to make money. However, for projects like ours, the only way we can effectively activate the community and even maintain attention is content. Because a small picture is just a small picture. If there is no content that can be discussed by the community, what can the community expect people to talk about besides “this one is rising and that one is falling”?
I use “abstraction” technique to entertain my life in a high-intensity way on social media and my personal Twitter, and we have some memes, which allows us to get rid of the dilemma of “one picture at the beginning” and still not saying anything. But this is far from enough.
After half a month of thinking, I decided to “abstract” and operate my personal Twitter account to try some peripheral sales. This should be the only “stand-up-and-earn-money” way we can think of. For us who have no experience in this area, this is difficult. What we have to learn and worry about include but are not limited to whether the style is good-looking, whether the quality can pass, and how to control costs… Actually, whether we sell more or less is not important to us because we once again regard this as “experimental performative behavior art.” If we can make something that everyone is satisfied with in a situation where we have no income and resources are so limited, then those projects that take a lot of money but do nothing should feel ashamed. They may not even know that there is a “pizza,” this “brother among brothers,” but it doesn’t matter. We are just tired of expressing our dissatisfaction with the keyboard. We want to fight back with practical actions.
This is the reason why we “run” without eating grass. Of course, there is another reason. We must do something to make ourselves feel that this project is still alive. Of course, we can also comfort ourselves that everything we wanted to do has been done, and it’s okay to lie down, especially in such a bear market. Relaxing after work may be better than doing a bunch of things that no one will see. But… let’s do it.
“Grassroots” exploring the difficult path of development
After launching my own Bitcoin NFT project, I was lucky enough to interact with many friends who were doing small picture projects on Bitcoin as a “project party”.
Blueberry (@aowu2048) is the founder of Pixelbirds SBlockingrrow, the first Bitcoin small picture project in the Chinese circle. Blueberry is a developer and did this project purely out of interest in the Ordinals protocol. Outside of this project, he has a mature team that has previously attempted NFT-related attempts on Ethereum. He once told me that Pixelbirds SBlockingrrow was like a “DLC (game expansion pack)” for him, not that the project would be pulled down after it was successfully launched, but that whether the project made money was not that important to him. Because of interest, the launch of Pixelbirds SBlockingrrow was also fair and free, which is the pattern that Bitcoin NFT veterans were once familiar with-all people who like the project can download their favorite pictures on the official website and burn them themselves.
Blueberry has always wanted to do more for the Ordinals ecosystem at the technical level. He helped projects such as Bitcoin Knight and Pixel Hares complete the launch at the technical level, and hopes to translate this help into a LaunchBlockingd product, and then turn this product into part of Pixelbirds SBlockingrrow’s empowerment for holders. At this year’s pizza festival, I also tried the “Open Edition” attempt of the BRC-1155 protocol with him. Blueberry, Ivan (the developer of BRC-1155), and I have discussed many things about how to develop BRC-1155 in private, but for us who have regular jobs, development is very difficult. Not only do we need to improve the indexing of BRC-1155, but also promote trading markets such as Magic Eden and wallet applications such as UniSat to adapt to this protocol on the market side. There are many trivial things that need to be discussed and refined, such as the specific implementation of the Burn function, and so on. We are not working as a strict team, and we cannot make hard demands on efficiency.
ACE (@CKN_ACEE) is the founder of Bitcoin Knight, and he has designed logos for UniSat and Jack Levin’s BRC-20 project $VMPX. Because of his love for Ordinals, he created a pixel version of the project he previously launched on Cardano and airdropped it to the original holders, trying to bring more players into the Bitcoin NFT circle. Last week, Bitcoin Knight V2 was successfully launched, and approximately 3 bitcoins were raised in the public sale phase. Jokingly, compared to me and Blueberry, ACE seems less “grassroots.”
ACE understands “charging” in this way – NFT is a type of entertainment consumption, a dessert after the main course. Essentially, after the conversion from money to image is complete, delivery is over. Bitcoin Knight’s central idea from the beginning was also to lower user expectations and not think too much. He believes this is a benign way of growing, and over-delivery will satisfy the emotional value of holders. When airdropping the first generation of Bitcoin Knight holders with a bitcoin pixel version, ACE also emphasized that this was just a gift, which may be worthless, but at least worth 1 satoshi. Just take it.
ACE said that the funds raised in the public sale were already sufficient to land their desired protocol, BRC-721K. This is a pledge protocol for small bitcoin images. In addition to improving some of the problems with BRC-20 tokens, BRC-721K can also deploy “lotteries” to improve the liquidity of small images. Simply put, you can sell your NFT as a “prize” and attract interested players to buy “lottery tickets” to participate in the lottery. Compared with waiting for transactions to be completed, this may be a faster way to sell your small images.
CXEEO (@CXEEO_) is the artist of Neo Yauto and also the COO of the project. Unlike Blueberry, ACE, and my project, Neo Yauto first released BRC-20 tokens and then issued small images. Like Bitcoin Knight, CXEEO and his team had a successful project on another chain before, NUO2069 on Ethereum.
CXEEO said that Neo Yauto’s development in the Bitcoin ecosystem is also not profitable. What they want to do is not much different from what they did on Ethereum. They still want to create a city IP with Guangfu culture and Cantonese culture – “New Yao Du.” They have outlined a city map of a parallel universe on the chain, and they will issue a “citizen card” for their holders and other cooperative project holders next. At the same time, this is also the key to opening the next stage of New Yao Du, gradually building an Ordinals multi-universe, and enriching the story of this virtual city, allowing the Ordinals ecosystem to interact here. They are planning a large offline event, hoping to connect Web2 through the event and see what chemical reactions will occur when the virtual Guangzhou on the chain is landed in the real Guangzhou.
It’s a big goal, CXEEO admits. It requires money, but at this stage, what they want to do is difficult to monetize. Therefore, they created a Launchpad called SBlockingrk, hoping to support the development of Neo Yauto by helping to launch and incubate projects. Currently, SBlockingrk has cooperated with many projects including Japanese IP ACG WORLDS. This idea is actually quite similar to ACE’s. ACE also believes that the future development of Ordinals should be To B rather than To C. They both want to use the influence of their own projects to help entities incubate new projects that want to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem. At present, CXEEO and his team are still relatively indifferent to making money, because in the bear market, it is useless to force it, and they can only focus on doing their own things.
In addition to the three small picture projects, I also interviewed a developer who is not a small picture project owner. His name is Dada.
Dada (@ordinalsda) was deeply involved in the construction of BRC-20 in the early stage. When BRC-20 was just born, he kept in touch with BRC-20 developer domo and made many suggestions. Dada is planning a tool that is more convenient for developers to land on the Bitcoin ecosystem similar to the BRC-20 protocol. With this tool, developers can easily land their ideal protocol. Even developers who have never heard of the BRC-20 protocol can quickly get started without spending energy on developing supporting facilities such as indexes.
Dada has this idea because BRC-20 still does not have a complete governance system. Many ideas that can improve BRC-20 cannot be realized through proposals, and everything still depends on domo’s ideas. Instead of waiting for the governance system of BRC-20 to be improved, we should further pave the way for the implementation of more good ideas. If BRC-20 continues to maintain the status quo, consensus will not stay on BRC-20, but will migrate with better and more perfect technologies.
Conclusion
Azuki’s incident has caused many loyal Azuki holders to issue “doomsday theory”-their faith in NFT has collapsed. It can be understood that they have suffered the kind of injury of “the person I love the most hurts me the most.” However, as a “pure dick” project party, I still want to stand up and speak my mind.
Azuki’s “collapse” is not the complete erosion of trust in the entire NFT market. In fact, there are still many people working seriously, but they may not even have the opportunity to be lucky enough to be seen by a small group of players like us. In many groups, I see many such voices-the currency circle is talking about money, talking about chicken feathers and feelings. I am sure that such voices are quite a part of them, not from Azuki holders, who were beaten by a pole and felt a little uncomfortable.
Coming to the currency circle, I would definitely like to make money, but which circle would I not want to make money in? It’s nothing more than insisting on “standing and making money” or abandoning the bottom line and “harvesting”. In addition to using the left foot to step on the right foot to dig players’ pockets, there must be a path of “standing and making money”. Recently, Pudgy Pengunis, which has caused discussion, has begun to take off the “long shirt” of “NFT” and is seriously making content and selling toys. The “little ghost” Weirdo Ghost Gang in the Chinese circle is also mentioned more often, and it is using music to create memory points for its “IP”. We can even say that Azuki’s collapse is not the collapse of the vision it proposed, but that it simply did not do well.
If Azuki’s decline makes players have stricter requirements for project parties, is it possible that this is also the beginning of a “good money drives out bad money” in the NFT circle’s large purification? Project parties may be required in the future. It is required to be more stringent with moral standards, or the funds raised will be more strictly managed, such as the income from the initial sales being beaten down, and the income will be controlled through contracts. This reminds me of a lot of jokes that appear in many live broadcasts, “Bosses, don’t feed the anchor too much, otherwise it will be stopped again.”
Idealism will not die, NFT will get better and better, to the point where one day, the word “NFT” will not even appear in my article. This time the ending, I don’t have to say “I look forward to it” anymore, because I am also doing some insignificant little things in practice. Thinking of this, I felt satisfied as if I had eaten a cow.
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