[75] Opepen: Opt-In Mechanism Observations
[Mechanism Design, Opepen Data and Commentary, Art in Age of AI]
GM Readers!
Back with another Opepen essay as the project continues to evolve and capture mindshare amongst the NFT Art community. Today we look at some Opepen Opt-In data and share some observations that may or may not be notable.
-LJW
(P.S. For the summary and further breakdown of this essay, follow me on Twitter)
Relevant Essay:
🎨 Life in Color Relevant Essays: [The Checks Meta] + [The Opepen Meta] + [Opepen Choose Your Own Path]
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_Opepen Opt-In Mechanism
The Opt-in mechanism that Jack Butcher created for Opepen continues to showcase an interesting way to engage communities and drive attention.
Here is a quick refresher of how the Opepen opt-in mechanism works (from my previous essay, lightly edited here).
To go from an unrevealed Opepen NFT to a revealed Opepen NFT, the holder has to opt into a Set.
If the Set gets less than x% opt-in at each rarity level, then the Set will not launch. Initially x = 200%, then it was changed to x = 2000%. For example, for the One rarity level, if x = 200%, then 2 “One Unrevealed Opepen” have to opt-in to satisfy this condition.
The opt-in mechanism gives the community power to decide what they like (or not like) by voting with their NFTs on which Sets they want to see included into the collection.
This is a great way to test demand for something but in a way that is novel and fun.
Rather than rush towards some arbitrary timeline of reveal at the risk of alienating the community and holders’ collective preferences, the best way to square this circle is simply to ask the community.
(Check out my previous essay on a longer deep dive on the Opepen Mechanisms).
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_Observations on Opepen Opt-Ins
Since Jack and Jalil are building in public, there is a fair amount of opt-in data to look at. It’s all housed on the Opepen website.
I looked through the data and summarized it into a simple line chart below.
Looking at this data and having been a community member since the early days of the project … there are some interesting observations that jump out at me.
(Please note: all of this is based on observation, it is not meant to be statistically significant. Sharing my observations with the hope that is invites conversation because that is what good art is about.)
_Set 002: The AI Set
(So far) Set 002 had the lowest demand from an Opt-in standpoint. Set 002 was done with Stable Diffusion 2.1.
Since it was the first set in Opepen created with generative AI, I would have expected it to have a higher opt-in percentage, especially given the current AI boom cycle. Many in the Opepen community also jumped into generative AI by remixing images on top of the Opepen framework.
But of course, it’s not so clear cut. There could be a variety of reasons for the low opt-in percentage.
Is the low opt-in percentage due to it being early in the game and people were still just learning the mechanics (and were hesitant to opt-in)?
Was the community already tired of AI remixed images so the above images, while appealing, did not meet the bar of novelty for the community?
Or is there indeed a broader philosophical point here that people value art from human artists?
What qualifies as art from human artists … does it exclusively have to be made by hand? What about generative art where an artist creates the algorithm that creates the art?
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_Set 005: The Vision Pro / VR Set
Set 005 was announced the same day as the Apple Vision Pro announcement.
Around this time, there was some discussion in the community on whether a body should be added to the Opepen Framework.
During the Apple Vision Pro keynote, Apple introduced the concept of spatial computing and teased that the future computing paradigm would be largely based on engaging through our eyes only.
This effectively reduces our reality to a headset and what we see through the headset with our eyes.
As Jack Butcher was iterating on the art live for Set 005, he showcased a further reduction of the Opepen Framework to just the eyes to capture the importance of the Apple Vision Pro announcement.
Set 005 was one of the more popular sets from an opt-in standpoint. Many in the community thought it was such a unique way to capture a historic moment in tech, immutably on the blockchain.
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_Set 003 / Set 006: Artist Collaboration Sets
Sets 003 and Set 006 have the highest opt-ins of all the sets so far.
Both Set 003 and Set 006 were sets done with other artists.
Set 003 Batz featured a well known artist in the space that uses geometric shapes in their art. Batz’ art also served as an inspiration for Butcher’s work, so this was a collaboration that many in the community was very excited for.
Set 006 Piv featured artist who describes their art style as “punkism.” One of the highlights from the Piv drop was that Piv had a smaller following but Butcher felt it was important that Opepen as a platform featured artists with smaller followings as long as they were producing great art. The community loved every piece in this set and it was one of the most opted in sets. [See my thread on Opepen’s big vision]
Set 001, which featured Butcher himself as the artist was also very popular. Though in this space, the first of anything is usually quite popular, simply because it’s the first.
The broader observation here is that the community seems to value art by artists and the commentary behind that art.
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_Observations: May or May Not Be Notable
Here is a summary of my observations based on commentary, lightly correlated with Opt-in data. (Please note all of this is based on observation… the sample size is simply not big enough).
As of the time of this writing, we are only 6 sets in or 3% of the way through to the 200 sets in the collection.
And my observations don’t account for the fact that some holders might be in it just for the flip / trading (nothing wrong with that) + secondary sales data.
But my point in highlighting these observations is to invite conversation and different takes which is really what this whole project is about.
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_So What?
The opt-in mechanism is an interesting mechanism that drives engagement, discussion and signals of demand.
Blockchains enable economic signaling as a proxy for demand because value is tracked on chain in an open and transparent manner.
The Opepen Opt-In mechanism takes it a step further by asking the community to take action. But it also does so in a way that ties a bunch of things together: economics, voting, signal of support for a particular artists, etc.
The Opt-In mechanic is just one example of how Opepen uses mechanisms to enable a participatory culture within the community.
It all sort of feels like being in playground collecting and trading Pokemon / Magic The Gathering / YuGiOh cards … except on the Internet, the community is larger and the mechanics that power the community are infinitely more composable.
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🛟 Disclaimer:
This post is provided for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing written in this post should be taken as financial advice or advice of any kind. The author(s) may own some of the NFTs, art and/or collectibles mentioned in this post. The content of this post are the opinions of the authors and not representative of other parties.
Empower yourself, DYOR (do your own research).