Ethereum NFT Hit Doodles Will Launch Doodles 2 on Flow Blockchain

Doodles are one of the most prominent Ethereum NFT projects around, with colorful profile pictures (PFPs) that stand out on social media, more than 550 million dollars in trade volume to date, and musician Pharrell Williams as head of brand.

But for its next big drop, Doodles is on its way to Flow blockchain.

Today, Doodles announced that its upcoming larger Doodles 2 project will launch on Flow, the Web3 platform best known for sports NFT projects as NBA top shot and NFL all day.

Doodles 2 was first announced last June at an NFT NYC event. It retains the pastel, cartoonish style of the original series and artist Scott “Burnt Toast” Martin, but is said to span millions of NFTs instead of the 10,000 avatars of the first Doodles series.

It will also let NFT holders endlessly customize their characters for use in games, on social media and elsewhere. Owners of Doodles 2 NFTs will be able to customize the appearance of their avatars, including body, clothing, expressions and accessories.

Doodles will release digital wearables for the NFT avatars “via limited-edition IRL drops tied to specific events and brand collaborations,” a press release said, with the items then tradeable Gaia marketplace on Flow.

At NFT NYC, the team said Doodles 2 would launch on a different blockchain platform than Ethereum due to the customization element, as Ethereum mainnet transactions can carry expensive network gas fees. Some in the NFT room had speculated that it would be Solanaor maybe Polygon.

Flow is an unexpected choice, and a coup for Flow creator Dapper Labs. Doodles will be the first high-profile NFT project to start on Ethereum and move to Flow, which has seen decreasing NFT activity in recent months as his the token price has fallen sharply. Dapper Labs laid off 22% of the team in November amid a broader decline in the NFT market.

In its announcement today, Doodles said the Flow launch will “mark the start of a future of strong cross-interoperability with Ethereum.”the launch of Doodles 2 NFTs will be linked to the existing Dooplicator NFTs on Ethereum which was offered for free to existing Doodles NFT holders last June.

A Doodles representative told Decrypt that Flow blockchain developers helped create an app-specific bridge for the project that allows NFT holders to use their Doodles characters across chains. If a collector connects to an Ethereum wallet that contains both a Doodles NFT and a Dooplicator NFT, they can use the Dooplicator to create wearable customizations on Flow.

The Bridge app will then ask the user to connect a Dapper wallet on Flow to receive wearables. The Doodles 2 rollout will begin on January 31 for existing Doodles NFT holders, the team said, with further details to follow before then.

Interestingly, Dapper Labs helped create Ethereum’s NFT standard back in 2017, and the CryptoKitties project almost took down the network to which users flocked to collect and trade digital cats. Dapper decided to create its own blockchain platform as a result, and in 2020 said it would also bridge CryptoKitties from Ethereum to Flow– But it still hasn’t happened.

Doodles were valued at $704 million in September when it announced a $54 million fundraising led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six firm, with participation from 10T Holdings, Acrew Capital and now closed FTX Ventures.

On Monday, Doodles announced the purchase of animation studio Golden Wolf, which has worked on projects for Disney, Adidas, Adult Swim, Nike and PlayStation, among others. Golden Wolf previously produced the Doodles 2 animated teaser seen above.