VC #8: Supplying Speculation
VC #8: Supplying Speculation
Some old-fashioned speculation on the upcoming "Bored & Dangerous" book NFT including supply, price, & more!
This is Valet Confidential (VC), the best way to keep up to date on Jenkins the Valet, Azurbala, the Jenkins Audio Experience, Book 1 with Neil Strauss, mutant hijinks, and everything else in the Writer’s Room ecosystem.
You can always find us on Twitter (FilmBook, SpaceWalk). Send us your ideas, questions, and wild speculation about the future of the Writer’s Room universe.
The day is rapidly approaching my friends. The catalyst of Roadmap 2.0. The idea that started it all. The book being written by a perennial New York Times Best Selling author. It’s time to prepare for “Bored & Dangerous”.
Any good “NFT launch-prepper” has their own process to think through various dynamics of supply, price, and allow lists spots. Some of that process is based on stated fact. But most is wild speculation. We’re no different! We thought a peek behind the curtain of our regular discussions could be helpful to the big brains that read our newsletter.
SpaceWalk (SW): Hey! Remember the days when Bill Simmons’ fingers worked, and he and Malcolm Gladwell would write emails back and forth, discussing various topics in the sports world? Maybe you and I could go back and forth a bit on one of our favorite topics: the supply and pricing dynamics for the upcoming book NFT drop!
FilmBook (FB): Wait, which are you? Simmons or Gladwell?
SW: Damn. Let’s see… Maybe Zach Lowe!
FB: HA! Didn’t see that coming.
SW: And who are you?!
FB: If you’re Zach Lowe, can I be Howard Beck??
SW: What up Beck! Ok, let’s get into it. Where’s the best place to start?!
FB: Let's revisit the "Bored & Dangerous" NFT specifics first, along with the staking and burning mechanics. (Ed. note. We went more in-depth on this topic in a prior VC post checking in on RoadMap 2.0, which you can find here.)
Here’s what we know. The book, "Bored & Dangerous," is being written by perennial New York Times Best Selling author, Neil Strauss. The story and many of the drivers of the narrative have been voted on by the Writer's Room NFT holders. The main character is Jenkins, the Head Valet at the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The other (all?) characters are apes and mutants from the BAYC and MAYC, and have been licensed to the book, and therefore will receive a percentage of the profits from each sale in royalties. The NFT and book cover will feature art from the stellar mbsjq. There will be a custom beat that will play on the NFT from the Grammy nominated Murda. There will be a "Where's Jenkins?" art piece from the award winning Japanese design firm, IC4 design. An absolutely unprecedented roster of collaborators and partners. And, I'm sure we will be getting another surprise or two.
On the mechanics, we get a really fun Stake or Burn decision. If we stake our Bored & Dangerous NFTs, we receive governance tokens for “Media DAO” (MDAO). MDAO will strive to be a decentralized media empire, incubating content across all media verticals. MDAO will also own a significant portion of Azurbala, collectively govern all the content they produce, and be seeded partially with proceeds from Azurian avatar sales.
Azurian avatars you say? Well, if you decide to burn your Bored & Dangerous NFT, Azurbala awaits. You’re transported to an area called the Sprawls, where your NFT is burned, and you will receive a mint pass in return. That mint pass can be used to get an Azurian avatar, which will be a “character” once minted. We get to choose a faction, potentially mine $MARROW, digitally flex our participation in the Writer’s Room ecosystem, and I’m sure participate in plenty of adventures and licensing opportunities as Azurbala matures.
Going to be some really tough decisions!
SW: Ok, let me see if I can whip up one of my fancy, hand-drawn diagrams to make sure I understand this:
SW: Is that about right?
FB: Yep, you got it.
SW: Now, let’s talk supply. JTV announced that all TWR holders will receive one free Bored and Dangerous book NFT and a guaranteed AL spot for a second book. That gets us to 13,884. Then they came out and said any Ape or Mutant who licensed their avatar – but didn’t hold a TWR NFT – would also get an AL spot. Hard to estimate how many of the 4,000+ licensed Apes and Mutants didn’t hold a TWR NFT, but let’s go with 60%. That gets us to about 16,284.
FB: Think there will be a public mint?!
SW: I think so. I fully expect Tally to provide AL spots for some of their core communities (BAYC, MAYC, Audio Experience communities) and maybe a small percentage available for public mint.
FB: How many available spots for the community AL and public mint?
SW: I love round numbers, so let’s just say we get to 20k – an additional 3,716 or so. That number feels right to me, how about you?
FB: That guess makes a lot of sense. We probably need to “war game” this out a bit don’t we? How many holders do you think will burn vs stake? I’m thinking 65% burn, 30% stake, and then probably around 5% just sit in wallets or are owned by Tally Labs and partially out of circulation.
SW: Yeah I think those numbers are a good guess.
FB: Ok, so let’s apply them to a count of 20,000 NFTs. That means:
-13,000 Azurian avatars
- 6,000 MDAO stakers
- 1,000 NFTs in wallets or used internally by Tally Labs
That feels right. As we know, the majority of pfp projects that have achieved mainstream success have had mint counts between 10,000 and 20,000. I think that number creates exclusivity and demand, and importantly for MDAO, plenty of secondary action. I think it will be max, 25,000 Bored & Dangerous NFTs. It’s honestly going to be tough burning something so historic like that though.
What about price of the NFT, any ideas?
SW: I think the short answer is 0.06942 ETH – for the culture. Sell 13,058 Bored & Dangerous NFTs and that nets out at 906 ETH. At an ETH price of about $2100 right now, that’s a cool $1.9M! Not bad.
The longer answer is a bit more complex. We know Valet Jones, Safa, and Neil Strauss want this book to hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list – they said as much to us in our first interview with them. Now remember, the book NFT isn’t calculated against the NYT list. It’s physical book sales. So regardless of the success of the upcoming NFT drop, the team can’t celebrate a #1 bestseller yet. But what they absolutely can do is take the success of the book NFT to fancy publishers and say, “Look, we told you guys. We are book people. Bored & Dangerous sold over 13,000 copies as an NFT, equivalent to nearly 76,000 traditional hardcovers priced at $25. Demand is real.” If 10,000 first week sales are the magical number to get on the NYT bestseller list, the team would have some firepower to justify a great publishing deal. 7x the typical first week bestseller is insane.
FB: Ok, but where are you going with this?
SW: Well, I want to throw out some edge cases as a possibility – not likely, but these could be some scenarios the team has thought through.
76,000 first week sales is amazing. 7x the typical first week bestseller. But not “book world” historical. One million is historic. You’re getting into the realm of high profile, former president memoirs. What would it take for Tally Labs to say this is a record shattering success? Let me throw some crazy scenarios at you.
First up, let’s say they increase the cost to 0.1 ETH. Not a huge increase in price, but that results in the equivalent of 100k physical book sales. 10x a typical best selling book.
Then, let’s dork around with the supply side. Let’s say they increase supply to 30k book NFTs. That nets out to about 193k physical book sales. Getting close to 20x a typical best selling book. If we use the same supply number and go up to 0.2 ETH, we get over 386k physical book sales. That’s John Grisham territory.
Having said all of that, what do you think the price will be and will the specter of the NYT bestseller list move the needle on price and supply?
FB: To quote the great American philosopher Tracy Morgan, from the underrated cult classic Totally Awesome, “Dream Baby Dream!” Lots to unpack here, and great ideas.
So I’m guessing the price may be more in-line with some of your later suggestions. I’m thinking .1-.15. As a nod to the initial mint price, let’s say .06942 x 2, or .1388. I think a couple of factors will be at play here.
1) It seems like generally across the space, this sort of price (or even higher) is well inline with expectations for established, high value projects, and the Writer’s Room is definitely that
2) Keeps the mint price generally affordable to others in the space, expanding the Writer’s Room community to new members
3) All licensors will be sharing in the profits of this sales as well, as 50% of net profits will be split amongst the 4,000+ apes, mutants, and Writer’s Room NFT holders that have licensed their NFTs to this book. So for licensors, a higher price would generate more royalties.
Additionally, your ideas on total sales, and specifically first week sales, are really interesting. We also know they are at least part of the calculus. Making that revenue argument to prospective publishers should go a long way towards not only signing with one, but securing favorable terms.
I think the Tally Labs team has mentioned this before as well, but this book may be the entry point for thousands, or tens of thousands, of new people into the Web3 community. Maybe a person couldn’t previously wrap their heads around NFTs, but who doesn’t love an amazing story? Maybe they get a QR code on the book itself that they can scan, and it takes them to a portal or to the POAP site, where they get to claim their first NFT! Would be an amazing way to bring even more people into the Writer’s Room community, as well as unifying all the NFT communities that purchase the book.
I don’t think the book will need a “push” to achieve NY Times Bestseller status because of merit alone, but I do expect the larger Web3 community to rally around it, and ensure it happens. That would be so huge for our space!
So ok we talked mint count, price, supply after burn/stake, NYT Best Seller strategy…I think a fun way to finish this out would be….what do you think is next for Bored & Dangerous after the book is both minted and published? Do you think we see it on the small/big screen? A board game? Toys? Whether it’s next or not…I really hope we see a full version (and subsequent versions) of the “Where’s Jenkins?” book. So nostalgic for Waldo
SW: A “bored” game?! Sorry — had to.
What’s next? I love your idea of a Where’s Jenkins book. Maybe the audiobook releases in the fall as an NFT that unlocks future audiobook versions for all Tally Labs productions. I could also see the eventual publisher coming back for a sequel after this one sells well. Bored & Dangerous II: GoodBoy Gone Bad.
But what’s incredible about the Tally Labs team is that they continue to push the envelope, explore new mediums, and work with amazing creative partners. They’re balancing this new world of Web3 with the traditional media models in a sort of fearless way. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m here for it!
FB: GoodBoy Gone Bad sounds like a collab between Tally Labs and Rihanna and now my mind is off to the races. But focus-up FB, we need to wrap this up.
It’s going to be so exciting to see where things like mint count, price, and final Azurian avatar supply end up once announced publicly. There’s no doubt we will be seeing community expansion, more notoriety across the space, and maybe even some mainstream crossover.
I also don’t know if we’re fully prepared for what a New York Times Best Seller, constructed partially from a fully decentralized perspective, would mean for the NFT space as a whole. That would be a massive achievement we can all be proud of.
Bored & Dangerous is a massive achievement any way you look at it, and something that moves all of decentralized content creation forward. It’s also the key that unlocks the door to Roadmap 2.0. Ready to walk through it?
Some Disclaimers: None of this is financial advice. DYOR. And yes, FilmBook and SpaceWalk are TWR collectors and long-term hodlrs.