Dust Labs: This Dust Looks Promising

$7 million funding, $7.1 million secondary sales, what can Dust Labs bring to the table?

Sep 08, 2022

Disclaimer: Values as of 08 September 202

Dust Labs, a NFT software company, announced that they have raised $7 million in seed funding on the 6th September. Among the investors, there were various prominent ones including FTX Ventures, Jump, Solana Ventures and Mysten Labs. On the same day, the NFT project y00ts was also launched, and brought in over $7.1 million in secondary sales. $14 million in a single day? Man, I can smell the money.

Featuring a collection size of 15k, the y00ts collection currently sits at a floor price of 150 SOL (~$4,875), 2 days after the mint. This is approximately 5.6x higher than the mint price, 375 $DUST (~$875). Pretty good price action for a relatively bearish market, and also rather expected given the hype that has been circulating the project. y00ts be yeeting their competition away.

So why is it that the market is hyped up for y00ts and why is it that money is flowing towards Dust Labs? Let us dive deeper into their ecosystem so that both y00t and I can have a better understanding.

Who is Dust Labs?

Relatively interesting name I would say, but they are probably sweeping NFT projects’ floors instead of sweeping dust. Sorry, got carried away, just like dust. Alright, back to the main point.

Dust Labs is a NFT software company led by CEO Kevin (@kevindegods) and creator Frank (@frankdegods). There is not that much information on the company itself, other than a very simple website and very simple twitter account boosting a follower count of 20k, as shown below.

Dust Labs Website

Dust Labs Twitter

In a recent interview, Frank shared that Dust Labs is a ‘tech company spun off’ from the DeGods NFT project, which is aimed at building software products for NFT projects, still a relatively new space. From what I understand, Dust Labs is essentially looking to build infrastructure that future NFT projects can tap on to grow their community and launch projects, and eventually create an ecosystem that can return value to hodlers, as evident from this tweet by them:

Dust Labs @dust_labs

This is the first of many, many tools we will be launching. We are taking everything we've learned from building @DeGodsNFT (and soon y00ts), productizing it, and scaling it. We are building a B2B SaaS startup to help NFT projects provide the most value back to their holders.

It is likely that more details on this will be released in time to come, but for now, we can take a look at the NFT project associated with Dust Labs: DeGods (@DeGodsNFT).

What is DeGods?

The highest valued PFP NFT collection in Solana, DeGods is a deflationary NFT project on Solana that comprises 10k virtual gods. The project has grown tremendously, from a mint price of 3 SOL, to the current floor of 430 SOL, and at 1 time reached a peak floor price of 616 SOL.

The 143x increase in floor price is explainable, given the diverse suite of utility that comes with the project, as explained below.

1. DeGods DAO System (DeDAO)

By owning a DeGod, hodlers are given exclusive access to DeDAO, where a DAO structure is used to control the DeGods ecosystem activities and decisions. This exclusive group has been known to contain top whales, analysts and buidlers within the Solana ecosystem, and at times give away alpha (investment leaks). Definitely a win for the members.

2. Utility Token: $DUST

By staking DeGods, hodlers will be able to earn $DUST. $DUST is a SPL token, which is essentially a Solana based token that will have a wide array of utility across the Solana ecosystem. With accumulated $DUST (I wouldn’t really want accumulated dust in my house), hodlers will be able to convert their DeGod into a DeadGod, which will increase the daily staking rewards. Essentially increasing the passive income for DeadGod hodlers.

$DUST can also be used to participate in auctions, raffles and whitelists. More on this later.

DeGods Summary

Evidently, the DeGod ecosystem is a robust one that encourages participation from hodlers, and they have held up very well in terms of the floor price since the launch, as shown below:

More importantly, it can be noticed that $DUST transactions peaked at 5,243 on 6th September 2022. And this is likely attributed to that of the hyped y00ts mint, which is what we will be looking into next.

To know more about DeGods, do check these links out:

https://coinmash.co/what-are-degods/

https://news.coincu.com/72999-what-is-degods-dust/

https://nftnow.com/guides/degods-and-y00ts-nfts-a-guide-to-the-ultimate-comeback-story/

What is y00ts?

So now that we know where $DUST came from (might be from the haze idk), let’s move on to look at the hyped project: y00ts (@y00t_nft).

Not only is the current floor price 5.6x of its mint price, y00ts overtook Otherdeed and ENS, and is now the 2nd top collection over the last 24 hours.

There are a few reasons as to why this particular NFT collection has been performing so well and managed to gain the market’s attention.

1. Scholarship Whitelist Program: y00tlist

The NFT collection was available for minting for 2 distinct groups:

(1) DeGods Hodler

(2) Exclusive Whitelist: y00tlist

To get on the y00tlist, one would have to:

(1) Apply (yes, just like how you apply for a scholarship)

(2) Answer a few questions and verify Twitter profiles

Eventually, those that were approved by the team will be showcased on @y00tlist on Twitter, giving that feeling of euphoria to those that managed to receive the approval, which further increases the desirability that people have to be on the y00tlist.

This was a novel way of carrying out a whitelist and garnered significant attention, even from celebrities such as soccer legend Wayne Rooney, rapper Lil Baby and former NBA star Allen Iverson. Very big names indeed.

y00tlist @y00tlist

Welcome @WayneRooney. Your application for @y00tsNFT has been accepted.

As mentioned earlier on, Dust Labs is a software company looking to develop NFT tooling, and this scholarship program is one example of that.

To know more about how the minting works, you can read it here: https://decrypt.co/109086/solana-nft-startup-dust-labs-y00ts

2. A Novel Take on NFT Intellectual Property

Even more critically, y00t is bringing about a novel and custom version of copyright and ownership, which they call ⓨ, in contrast to the more common ⓒ. This is to me a revolutionary model, that will bring about a much more robust ecosystem for NFTs, not just for artists, but also for hodlers.

Currently, sub-communities built by a hodler of a project, or fan-art drawn by them are not rewarded by the NFT ecosystem, despite such efforts often bringing more attention to the NFT projects.. y00t is looking to change this, by introducing the concept of a ‘y00ts st0re’, which is essentially a marketplace of custom made y00ts traits (such as shoes, hoodies or caps). There are two stakeholders that will be positively impacted by this

(1) Artists

Artists that submit custom made traits will own the ⓨ for that, which will allow for the following:

(a) Setting the trait price on the y00ts store

(b) Setting the trait supply

(d) 5% royalties on every sale trait

This evidently brings about two benefits for artists. With the first being the revenue stream that they have from receiving royalties. And the second being that since the artists now own the IP of their work, which is registered by the NFT collection, it will not be possible for others to copy and create a derivative of the trait.

(2) Hodlers

For hodlers of the NFT collection who wish to create a sub-community based on interests, they can now search for an artist in the y00ts st0re and commission a custom set of traits, thereafter registering the club with ⓨ. Here forth, the club creator will be able to receive a share of the royalties when the custom set of traits for the club is sold.

Very evidently, the positive spillover effects brought about by the y00ts st0re is not limited to just artists alone. This cultivates an environment that is rewarding towards hodlers that contribute to the ecosystem, rather than just the norm of staking rewards. With this extrinsic reward now available, it is likely that the ecosystem will become more robust, with more initiatives being pushed out by the community members.

More on IP: https://www.bsc.news/post/y00ts-hypes-up-the-nft-ecosystem-who-s-buying

More on custom traits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X3BiIeoiLxVYhJ9zB7SDx7IsVoB36wuS9fzWPx63-is/edit

3. Beautiful Animations

And lastly, the y00ts mint boosted an extremely beautiful minting page, as shown here:

hΞadsauce 🟠⚒️ⓨ @headsauce_

must have been one of the lucky ones, my @y00tsNFT mint was smooth AF and worked first time. The mint experience was visually beautiful 👏👏 (sound on 🔊🔊)

Evidently, this is very appealing to buyers given both the visual and audio effects. It should also be noted that this form of minting site is also one of the product that Dust Labs is looking to provide.

Thoughts

Personally, I am very excited for what’s to come for y00ts & Dust Labs, due to a couple reasons.

1. Very Promising Future: Diverse Use Cases

Let me first talk about y00ts. The model that the team is pushing for, in terms of granting IP rights to that of contributing members will create a tightly knitted community, that comes together to bring the NFT project to greater heights. And this is I would think, the crux to a successful NFT project, such as that of BAYC and CryptoPunks which both have very very strong following.

In terms of Dust Labs, they are looking towards creating NFT tooling. Infrastructure is the basis of what everybody builds on. Should we believe that NFTs will be around in the future with far more utility than what it currently has, Dust Labs is in good position to leverage and capitalise on this opportunity. In addition, Dust Labs is also looking to create tooling that will also be applicable for Ethereum network, further expanding the addressable market that they can tap on.

2. Proven Track Record from Team

The team at Dust Labs attracts me with their proven track record. Which is apparent from how the price of DeGods has not only managed to achieve a 143x increase in floor price, but has also managed to maintain that floor fairly well as evident from the Q2 2022 chart below.

Price of DeGods in Q1 2022

Price of DeGods in Q2 2022

Frank himself, is well known for being an outspoken creator in the Solana space, and has shown his creative juices with things such as Paperhand Bitch Tax. And I’m curious as to what more he can do to bring innovation to the space.

A very good thread:

Waylon @DoctorJayPeg

Not sure what to make of the @dust_labs VC raise annoucement? let me break it down for you. 👇 a 🧵 #Solana #SolanaNFT #NFTs #y00ts #DeGods

Nonetheless

The project is still in its very early phases, with very little features being pushed out for now. We would still have to keep a lookout for the updates that comes to the projects, and see whether the team is delivering as they have promised.

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