Love them or hate them, NFT projects are still very much a thing, and right now, y00ts is the toast of the town. But is there really anything unique or interesting about the y00ts? Or is this just another over-hyped collection of JPEGs? Let’s zoom in on the y00ts and find out if there’s anything that really sets them apart from other collections…
What Is y00ts, and Why Should I Care?
Let me break it down for you friends—y00ts is a collection of 15,000 NFTs on the Solana Blockchain. As for the d00ds behind the y00ts, it’s Dust Labs , the same team that launched the highly successful DeGods . Now up until recently, y00ts were called Duppies and were supposed to be an expansion collection for the DeGods Ecosystem. However, after a Twitter hack, the team decided to change course, and on July 30 2022, Duppies officially became y00ts.
As for minting a y00ts NFT, you’ll need 375 $DUST (about $750 at the time of writing). And in case you aren’t aware, $DUST is DeGods’ native token. But there’s a little more to the whole minting process, and this is where the y00ts project actually gets a little more interesting. In short, if you want to mint a y00ts NFT, you’ll first need to submit an application to get on the y00tlist . And when I say an application, I mean you fill out a form and provide motivation as to why you should be included on the list. It’s kinda more like a job application than anything else, so make of that what you will.
If your application is successful and you’re accepted to the y00ts Scholarship, then you’ll be allowed to mint a t00b NFT. This can then be burnt to mint a y00ts NFT, but it’s not obligatory. So if you want to hold on to your t00b or sell it on the secondary market, you can. It’s completely up to you!
However, while it appears 100 spots were still open on September 5, it’s highly unlikely that any remain now. And to be frank, the mint is supposed to happen really soon…like, as I’m writing this, tonight soon. So I somehow imagine the deadline to submit your application is, unfortunately, past due.
So All Good in the Hood?
Is all well with the y00ts? Well, right now, the answer is yes. However, the mint date was originally scheduled to take place on September 4, but just 5 minutes before the mint was due to commence, the team encountered a “blocker bug.” What is that? According to an article appearing on FXStreet , blocker bugs are “issues that arise during the testing phase of a project’s development.” In other words, something wrong done happened.
Despite apologies and promises made by DeGod’s founder Frankⓨ (33.3%) , reactions to the delayed mint have been mixed. Many NFT fans have simply taken it in their stride while others are less than impressed with this oversight. Having said this, things would’ve probably been way worse if the team had just let the mint go ahead, and that could have been utterly disastrous. While it’s unfortunate, there’s little else the team could actually do to deal with the problem given the timing and circumstances.
And as I write this, just moments ago, the y00ts announced the new mint date along with all the details of how things will go down:
If you didn’t get a chance to submit your application or get on the list, don’t worry as there’s little doubt that, if everything goes smoothly, y00ts will soon appear on secondary NFT markets like SolSea and Magic Eden .
OK, But What About This ⓨ Thing?
Now that you have all the details of how the road for the y00ts has been so far, I’d like to discuss this new approach to copyright that y00ts is attempting to pioneer. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are genuinely new to this space, the subject of intellectual property and copyright has been an issue with NFTs from the get-go. NFT projects talk about “decentralizing” stuff, but just how much they’ve managed to achieve this is questionable. Meanwhile, others have turned to CC0 to make the IP available to pretty much anyone, but is this really the best available approach?
Check out our article Is CC0 the Future or Will It Destroy Your Favorite NFT Collections? by clicking here.
So if you want to know how y00ts’ approach to all of this will work, you can check out their ⓨpaper . To give you the tldr, ⓨ is a way of registering a “copyright (ⓒ)” while the NFT collection itself acts as the governing body. In other words, ⓨ will act as a kind of registry that will keep track of businesses and individuals that have been granted the rights to use an NFT’s IP. The idea here is to stop unscrupulous parties from misusing or abusing the IP while also ensuring that legitimate creators and companies can help to build and promote the brand.
The first area in which this model will be tested out is in the upcoming y00ts store. Simply put, the y00ts store will allow creators to submit custom y00ts traits that will then be sold and traded on the marketplace. In order to receive approval to have a custom trait listed, it will need to fulfill the following criteria. The trait must:
- Fit the same space as the original trait (cannot turn a t-shirt into a fur coat)
- Be identifiable by the original metadata tag (a hat can’t become a crown)
- Contain no hate speech or pornographic imagery
- Contain no direct usage of existing copyrighted IP, and
- Meet a standard of quality to match the collection
Once a trait is approved, the individual(s) that made the submission will own the ⓨ for it, thus allowing them to:
- Set the price of the trait on the y00ts store
- Set the supply of the trait available
- Sell the entire ⓨ to someone else, and
- Collect 5% of the royalties on every sale of the trait
Consequently, nobody else will be allowed to copy the trait, style, theme or brand in question. Any submissions found to be derivative of an existing custom item will be summarily rejected. And finally, users will only be able to submit their custom traits for 6 months after the marketplace is launched. Thereafter, any new traits appearing on the store will be released in collaboration with big brands and personalities and be limited in supply.
Is This How It’s Done?
It remains to be seen whether this particular approach will work, but it certainly sounds like a step up from CC0. If nothing else, it’s good to see the teams behind projects attempting to find solutions to longstanding problems and experimenting with different approaches. However, as with all experiments, the results may be quite different from what is hypothesized.
Regardless of the experimental nature of the project, one thing is for sure—y00ts has definitely got a lot of people talking…
Here’s hoping the y00ts mint goes off without a hitch and that everything the team has planned comes to fruition and works as well as or even better than intended. We’ll definitely be watching the y00ts closely and report on any further developments as they arise.
So what do you think of the y00ts? Have they got an award-winning approach? Or do you think this is just another NFT project that’s destined to be forgotten? Let us know your thoughts!
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