Doodles' DOOD Token: Airdrop Savior or Royalties Killer?

No doubt the NFT space has been white hot, and justifiably so. Doodles NFT sales exploded 97% in just one day, propelled by the recently announced DOOD token launch coming soon. $1.1 million in daily sales. A staggering 368% increase in weekly sales volume! Everyone's talking about it. Should we be celebrating? Or, alternatively, are we seeing the writing on the wall for NFT royalties, signaling the beginning of the end? Let's dive deep.

Airdrops: A Royal Flush or Bust?

Doodles is rewarding holders of DOOD tokens with an airdrop. Sounds great, right? Free money! Let's connect the dots. The energy propelling this spike in sales isn’t an earnest love for the art form or the community. No—it’s about the perceived value of those free tokens. Speculators are now rushing into Doodles in order to participate in the airdrop and trying to make a quick buck along the way.

Think of it like this: it's like a casino handing out free chips to get people through the door. The casino is reaping the benefits today, but this is short-lived. Sooner than we think, all of us will look down and realize those chips are plastic poker chips. The real value erodes.

What does this mean moving forward. Are we creating incentives for a culture of flipping NFTs rather than investing in the art and the artists who create it? Are we on the verge of building a system where immediate returns outweigh all prospects for sustainability?

Royalties: The Creator's Lifeline?

NFT royalties are a myth oft touted as a sacred lifeline for creators. A percentage of every secondary sale goes back to the artist, providing a passive income stream and incentivizing them to keep creating. It’s a model that, on paper, enables artists to prosper. I've seen firsthand how royalties can empower creators, especially in places like South Asia, where access to traditional funding and support is limited.

So when projects like Doodles begin focusing more on token airdrops than royalties, what are the repercussions? In doing so, are we devaluing the thing that makes NFTs special – their ability to directly support artists? We hope that other projects will follow in their footsteps. This would likely trigger a race to the bottom leading to the eventual eradication of royalties altogether.

This Doodles royalty structure is herself an exception among top NFT projects. It typically forwards a small percentage of every secondary sale directly back to the original creators. This approach is indeed the national norm, but it is admittedly ripe for disruption.

It begs the question: is the DOOD token launch a clever way to bootstrap liquidity and reward holders, or is it a short-sighted move that prioritizes short-term gains over long-term creator sustainability? Depending on how it plays out, this decision could drastically reshape the NFT landscape. It would result in a dramatic decrease in creator’s royalty earnings.

Unintended Consequences Loom Large

Here’s where things get freaky — and truly fascinating. The DOOD token’s success would create a cascading impact. But other projects will be under pressure to abandon royalties. Or they can try to flavor it airdrop–based incentives, wishing to catch a hot air and raise up trading volume. This would force creators to focus on speculative token launches to meet revenue needs. Otherwise, they are in for a tough time locking in long-term, durable royalty revenue streams.

Picture an alternate universe where creators hustle hard for the fifth discovery on the next airdrop. In this race, they give up the creativity and quality of their work. It's a bleak picture, isn't it?

South Asian crypto communities as well. For most creators in these areas, their only true option is full stakeholder participation and a fair share of royalties that keep them living. If royalties were to suddenly vanish, this could disproportionately impact them, widening the existing inequalities that are already present in the NFT landscape. So let’s begin to reflect on the ethical ramifications of our choices. We need to make sure we don’t turn around and build a system that only helps the lucky few.

The wider NFT ecosystem appears to be on the mend too, with sales volume up 7% week-over-week. Ethereum-based NFTs are still far in the lead, with Polygon nipping at their heels. This rapid expansion should not blind us from the unforeseen hazards that come with this neck-breaking transition to token-based incentives in transportation.

I stress the importance of our community being taught the basics of econ/financial literacy. It’s critical for us to help keep them from making the mistake of taking the “easy money” bait.

We have to engage in a little painful introspection. Instead, are we creating a vibrant, sustainable ecosystem that creates opportunities for creators and innovators? Or worse, are we building a new speculative bubble that will soon pop and leave artists and collectors in equal measure stuck with nothing? The answer, I fear, comes down to whether we value immediate profits more than we value future quality of life.

We need to ask ourselves some tough questions. Are we building a sustainable ecosystem that supports creators and fosters innovation? Or are we creating a speculative bubble that will eventually burst, leaving artists and collectors alike holding the bag? The answer, I fear, depends on whether we prioritize short-term gains over long-term values.