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DeGodsthe most valuable NFT project on Solanahas a history of announcing unexpected twists – from upgrading artwork to buy majority control of a BIG3 basketball teamand even recently to put some of their previously burned NFTs on Bitcoin.
But the creators of the project delivered one hell of a Christmas surprise: DeGod’s will leave Solana.
On December 25, DeLabs founder Rohun “Frank” Vora revealed his latest “social experiment”, announcing that DeGod’s NFTs would be “bridged” to Ethereum—the largest and most valuable NFT market, with projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks.
In the meantime, y00ts will be moved over to Polygonan Ethereum scaling network that is recently gained traction with brands such as Starbucks, Meta and Nike. The DUST ecosystem token associated with both projects will also be linked to both Ethereum and Polygon.
Few concrete details about the migration have been announced since then, but for the first time, Frank and Dust Labs CEO Kevin Henrikson exclusively discussed the motivation behind the move with Decrypt and explained the upcoming process.
Not “if” but “when”
When DeGods launched in late 2021, Solana was close to its highest price and NFT stage. expanded rapidly. When it became Solana’s most valuable NFT project on a large scale last summer, SOL had lost considerable value and the broader NFT market was in free fall.
At the end of December, shortly after the move was announced, SOL had fell about 97% from the top price. Frank had previously tweeted about a potential migration amid Solana’s late-year struggles and faced significant community backlash. Still, the rumors persisted as DeLabs continued to flesh out its actual plans.
Henrikson told Decrypt that Solana was “a great place” to start life, given the tools on the network and the fact that the NFT community was not as established as Ethereum’s. But he said DeLabs had bigger ambitions that the team knew would probably one day lead the 10,000 NFT profile picture (PFP) project to the Ethereum ecosystem.
“It wasn’t a matter of ‘if,’ it was just a matter of ‘when’ — and that was even in the earliest days of DeGods,” he said. “If we’re going to be the biggest, most popular NFT collection in the world, you need to be on Ethereum.”
DeGods, who have generated worth almost 150 million dollars of trading volume on Solana, will soon enter the largest market for high-value NFT collections. Frank confirmed his goal of making DeGods “the largest luxury NFT in the world.”
Currently a DeGods NFT on Solana at about $11,500 worth SOL starts at Magical Eden marketplace, but Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club PFPs on Ethereum start at 10 times as much. Trying to outdo ETH’s heavyweights will be a new challenge, but that’s a big part of the appeal of DeLabs.
Why polygon?
As a follow-up project, y00ts started made waves last summerreceived DeLab’s outreach from various blockchain networks about launching the NFT collection elsewhere.
It was eventually rolled out at Solana, but DeLabs sought an eventual destination that could help that collection reach a wider audience and partner with significant brands. Henrikson cited last year’s litany of brand announcements around Polygon, including NFT initiatives from Reddit, Meta, Starbucks, DraftKings, Disney and beyond, describing it as an opportunity.
He told Decrypt that moving to Polygon is “the fastest way to connect with these companies because they will be in the same chain.” Frank added that in addition to consumer brand deals, Polygon offers access to a growing list of metaverse gaming platforms. Many y00t’s visuals were even left blank “so that brands can print their logos there,” Frank said.
The project’s artwork was also designed to be broadly appealing—or “clean enough that I can sell pacifiers and diapers,” Henrikson explained of potential partnerships or licensing deals, but also “cologne for men and things that are more degen-centric.”
Ultimately, DeLabs accepted a $3 million non-equity grant from Polygon Labs as part of the deal to move y00ts to the network. Frank said that Polygon was “nowhere near the highest bidder in that regard” and that DeLabs chose the network for other reasons, but admitted that “it felt silly not to take” the grant when so many networks offered funds.
DeLabs will use the funds to help expand its team and take some of the public emphasis off Frank, he said. Furthermore, DeLabs and Dust Labs will develop a Polygon NFT launchpad and help incubate new projects, as Polygon Labs President Ryan Wyatt recently discussed at Decrypthis gm podcast. It’s a move to expand the network’s NFT scene beyond branded apps.
“The most powerful thing in crypto is aligned incentives,” Frank said. “I personally want to see y00ts succeed, but part of seeing y00ts succeed is seeing the rest of the ecosystem succeed.”
How it works
DeLabs has set a March 15 launch target for both the DeGods and y00ts bridges, but Henrikson told Decrypt that the end of March is more realistic. Until now, it wasn’t entirely clear how the team planned to get users to move NFTs between chains — especially on the point of whether the NFTs could be moved back and forth between the supported chains.
The bridge process via wormhole will be an optional “one-way migration” from Solana to the new chain in either case, Henrikson said, through a “burn and mint” process. Essentially, the Solana version of the PFP will be destroyed and an identical version will be minted on the new chain and sent to the holder’s designated wallet. There is no possibility to undo the migration.
Holders can choose to keep their existing Solana NFT from both pools, but they will lose access to ongoing incentives and future benefits around the projects. For example bet rewards offered to both – the DUST token for DeGods and points for y00ts holders – will only continue to accumulate for NFTs that have been linked to Ethereum and Polygon.
“You want to do burn-and-mint,” Frank said, “and you want some kind of incentive for people to get there in the first week — so it’s like a real party.”
Henrikson said that the Phantom wallet, which supports Solana and has added Ethereum and Polygon in beta, is ideal for this type of transition, as everything can happen in one interface. But the Wormhole process can work with other wallets, starting with any other Solana wallet and ending with the new NFT in the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMaskfor example.
What will be next?
Frank said DeLabs has been purposefully quiet about future plans ahead of the shift, but that the migration will herald the start of the next phase for both projects. “DeGods Season starts when we get to ETH and y00ts Season starts when we get to Polygon,” he confirmed.
Moving the projects from Solana to its new respective network will also serve as a showcase for Dust Labs’ software and technology, Henrikson said, adding that the firm was founded with the ambition to be “all-chain or multi-chain.”
Dust Labs, which raised $7 million last year, will offer its software across multiple chains for other brands and companies to use. He said doors to potential new opportunities are opening at a “much faster” rate than ever before, thanks in part to support from Polygon Labs and interest from brands looking to help expand the NFT space on that network.
While the announcement upset many Solana die-hards, Frank emphasized that the migration is not meant to be a definite goodbye to the original home of DeGods and y00ts. Any unredeemed y00t t00bs NFTs — whose holders burn to create a y00ts PFP — will continue to live only on Solana, and Frank said DeLabs would consider building future projects on the chain.
“We have so much love for Solana,” Frank said. “At times it can feel very charged on the internet, but for us it has nothing to do with that. We’re honestly thrilled to see the mantle quote-unquote ‘passed’ from us to another set of builders at Solana.”
But DeLabs and Dust Labs see their future spanning multiple chains, and believe the best place for DeGods and y00ts to grow is elsewhere. Frank said he never bought in “Yuga [Labs] playbook” that many other NFT projects have tried to copy, and that his plan is to branch out in search of new conquests and potentially wider audiences.
“Let’s not get complacent here. Let’s keep pushing the boundaries and trying new things, he said. “We’re trying to take big swings, and we’re trying to do it in a way that’s going to make it exciting on the upside for people to participate.”
