MoonCatRescue Community Chooses đ„ - TokenSmart NFT Humpday Report #26
Welcome to the 26th issue of the NFT Humpday Report, a weekly column covering and providing embedded analysis on the NFT economyâs biggest topics du jour. Brought to you by WIP meetup collaborators and nft42 community hub TokenSmart.
This weekend the MoonCatRescue (MCR) community voted overwhelmingly in favor of permanently destroying the outstanding copies of the projectâs private key.Â
At the heart of the vote were the remaining Genesis MoonCats, which, because of MCRâs primitive design, could not be released without serious and unsatisfactory complications. Accordingly, voters decided to mitigate these issues by selecting to burn MCRâs private key and thus sealing these Genesis MoonCats in the MCR contract forevermore. Â
The decision gives the MCR community closure and clarity around the newly rediscovered NFT projectâs supply, and paves the way for the projectâs devs and collectorsÂ
Source: mooncatrescue.com/adopt.html
What is MCR: MoonCatsRescue is an NFT project that, like CryptoPunks, predates the ERC-721 standard. It was created and released in 2017 by ponderware, a two-person development team, after the launch of CryptoPunks and notably before the launch of CryptoKitties.Â
2017 was essentially prehistoric times for NFTs, so MCR faded into obscurity and was effectively abandoned with 1,000s of its cute pixelated cats still unminted. That is until 2021. This month, a surge of NFT âarchaeologistsâ started searching around for old NFT contracts that have been forgotten. MCR was discovered amid this surge, leading to the remainder of its cats being minted by collectors in a matter of hours. The ponderware devs noticed the flurry of activity, and have returned to the MCR community as well.Â
Since the last MoonCats were minted, thereâs been an explosion of interest around the revived project. To give you an idea of the scope of this interest, in the last week alone MCR facilitated over $13.5M in volume on OpenSea. That 1-week figure by itself is enough to put MCR into the category of the most traded NFT projects ever.Â
The problem: To understand why the MCR private key was an issue we have to understand that the projectâs smart contract was designed long ago. As a result of this old design, the project has a quirk that would make its remaining 160 unminted Genesis MoonCats almost all but certain to get scooped up by front-running, profit-focused bots.Â
For ponderware to best these bots, theyâd likely have to pay around ~500 ETH worth of transactions themselves. The other main alternative was waiting and seeing if more advanced possibilities become possible in the future.Â
Being split on the matter and not wanting to be community kingmakers, the ponderware team gave the community the opportunity to bring clarity to the matter â or weather the lack of clarity around future Genesis MoonCat releases â by putting it to a vote. If the community voted aye, then the MCR contractâs private key would be destroyed and the final Genesis cats would stay stuck in the contract.Â
The margin: Of the voteâs 1311 participants, 944 respondents voted âYesâ to permanently destroy the MCR private keys to 367 who voted âNo.â That means 72% were in favor to 28% against.Â
Mission success: In an update on the MCR website after the vote, ponderwareâs devs noted an old chapter was closing and a new one opening for the project:Â
âIt was sad saying goodbye, but we know that the Hero Cats are following their hearts. Weâre lucky to have the 25,344 rescued MoonCats and brave 96 Genesis MoonCats to care for. As the spaceshipâs thrusters engaged, the unrescued mooncats raised their paws in silence, recognizing the courage of the ethereansâ mission. Although years behind schedule and well over budget, our mission was a success. The final total of 25,440 MoonCats are ready to begin their new lives on the blockchain.â
Next steps: After the community vote, ponderware destroyed MCRâs private keys and airdropped a handful of MoonCats to reward people who participated in the voting process. The team is devising a POAP to commemorate these community voters, too.Â
What happens now: Itâs likely the community will come to new understandings of the genetics and rarity of MoonCats as people continue to dive deeper into the project in the months ahead. âIt wonât be long before we gain real insight into their story,â ponderware now teases on the MCR website.Â
That said, it seems all but inevitable that the community, including ponderware, will devise new experiences and projects around MoonCats. The whole episode will also continue to serve as a reminder that people perceive aged NFTs as increasingly valuable.
Thanks for reading the 26th NFT Humpday Report! Check back this time next week for more excellent NFT ecosystem coverage! Cheersđ