Pandora ERC404: a new token standard for ETH? | TS-004
Pandora ERC404: a new token standard for ETH? | TS-004
Plus: ETH devs band together to build a "better" erc404, Yuga Labs keeps minting on ETH and apes are mad, Anime PFP Persona Journey releases teaser + more
Hello friends - no announcements this week, just straight content. Subscribe if you’re new, lets get into it.
TOP SIX STORIES IN CRYPTO
Pandora erc404: merging erc20 and erc721 into a new type of token
ETH devs band together to build a “better” erc404
Yuga Labs mints NFTs on ETH and holders are mad (rightfully so)
Pudgy Penguins are about to flip BAYC
Wormhole announces W airdrop
Whitelist Opportunity: Persona Journey reveals Miyazaki inspired art
1. Pandora erc404: merging erc20 and erc721 into a new type of token
There’s a new token in town, one that combines all the powers of erc20 (fungible) and erc721 (NFT). It’s called erc404. And it made a lot of waves this past week on crypto Twitter.
“It’s not a real standard!”
“it solves the NFT liquidity problem!”
There were a lot of takes but before we jump to the controversy, lets take a look at the world before ERC404s: NFTs were fun to buy and sell, but they were also notoriously illiquid. To sell an NFT, you either had to list it on a marketplace like Blur or Opensea, or accept a WETH bid - this is why the Blur marketplace incentivized bidding heavily in the lead up to its token airdrop - because NFTs are very illiquid.
Enter ERC404 (developed and launched by the Pandora team). It mixes erc20s functionality with erc721s. Instead of buying or selling NFT on a marketplace, you could now purchase it on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap. And, you’re not limited to selling NFTs in whole units (1,2,3 etc). NFT fractionalization is built in. Owning 1.5 $PANDORA appears as just 1 NFT in your wallet. When you purchase 0.5 more, a second one then appears. It’s pretty cool, but it’s also caused a lot of stir in the ethereum dev community for 2 reasons.
ERC404 is not a token standard: (they’re numbered after the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) that they’re first submitted in)
ERC404 is terribly gas inefficient: the functions use up a lot of gas, which is slowing down the Ethereum network
To combat this, some big ETH devs are banding together, to build a “better” more gas efficient token (next story).
Regardless of that FUD though, $PANDORA went on a tear, reaching a $268M marketcap. A big driver of it is the fact that the main dev ctrl is very well connected (binance is listed on their website) and has mentioned lots of airdrops coming to holders. This narrative is one to watch this cycle.
2. ETH devs band together to build a “better” erc404
ETH Avengers, Assemble. When you launch a new token standard that ends up causing massive gas spikes in the network, people are going to notice. Especially ETH devs. They’re not only going to pick apart your code and tell you where you fucked up, they’re also going to re-write it for you. Which is literally what happened (see tweet below).
Cygaar is well known for contributing to erc721a, a gas efficient contract for erc721 NFTs. Him along with several notable devs went to work, to put out a more gas efficient, better named (his words) implementation.
They’re calling it DN404 (Divisible NFTs, not Deez Nuts). The GitHub for this should be out by the time you’re reading this, and perhaps there’s a coin that’s already launched with the new contract (my bet is on this account). The avenger-devs are all fairly big-brained, so this could replace erc404 as the defacto go to standard for when teams want to launch semi-fungible tokens, but time will tell. The boys over at Pandora Labs aren’t happy about another team coming to take their shine (see this thread for the beef). Which standard will win the hearts and minds of crypto twitter? All that and more, next time on Top Six.
3. Yuga Labs mints NFTs on ETH and holders are mad (rightfully so)
Yuga Labs has been fumbling quite a lot lately. From posting a low-res Otherside trailer, to publishing uninteresting grinding games like HV-MTL and Legends of the Mara (LOTM).
Their latest fumble has left many apes frustrated.
The gist is:
LOTM loot was awarded to game participants (NFTs)
The NFTs minted on ETH
The NFTs are being sold for ~$1-4 on marketplaces
The gas to to purchase them is $20
These NFTs, which are supposed to be low-cost, high volume, are still being minted on Ethereum. In 2024. Not a layer 2 like optimism, or arbitrum, or being deferred until the future ApeChain implementation, where gas would be in the pennies… Ethereum. Where you pay 20 dollars in transaction fees to buy a 1 dollar item. Anybody in web3 for more than a few weeks would know to not do this… but Yuga keeps doing it? What’s going on inside Yuga Labs? Has it become too corporate with the hiring of Activision and Epic Games Execs running the show? No one knows, but loyal bored apes are calling them out on Twitter in droves, and they need to course correct, quick!
4. Pudgy Penguins are close to flipping BAYC
When Bored Apes flipped the Punks floor in 2021, it was the culmination of a months long narrative that likely started as a “what if…”
Punks were the kings and to dethrown them, you best not miss. And for a time, BAYC did not miss. Yuga was operating on all cylinders. The price kept going up, the airdrops kept coming, and the music kept playing, longer than any one anticipated.
But, the lights do eventually come on, the music does stop, and BAYCs reign as top PFP ended when Punks reflipped them in 2022. From then onward, it’s been a sideways/slightly downward slide. Now, their dominance as the #2 PFP is being challenged by the up-and-comers, in what the Pudgy Penguins holders are calling: The Flappening
The Flappening
The Flappening, is, as the name suggests, when pudgies flip the bored apes in floor price. and it’s not far away. The lowest priced Penguin sits at 21.5 ETH, while the lowest bored ape is 23.5 ETH. The difference here is less than $4000, which in NFTs is not that much. Any day now, Pudgies will become the #2 PFP in the game. They will cheer, they will celebrate, but soon after, the Penguins will start to wonder, could they be #1? Might we too flip the CryptoPunks?
As of this writing, the CryptoPunks floor is 57.95 ETH ($144,889.49 USD).
5. Wormhole announces W airdrop
In a surprise tweet, Wormhole, a communication protocol which today powers many cross-chain bridges, announced their token, W. Who gets it? What is the criteria? When is it going live? None of that is known. The details are still scarce. What we do know is that the community gets 17% of the token (a large slice of the pie in terms of airdrops). DeGods, Y-00ts, and MadLads NFT holders are likely also getting an allocation, based on the tweets from WormHole and Frank last week (telling they have 12 hours to join the Wormhole discord and confirm ownership of those NFTs).
Will I be getting the wormhole airdrop? Hope so. I don’t have too much transaction or volume using wormhole, but I do have some. So until the criteria comes out, we’re all left Wondering: Wen W?
6. Whitelist Opportunity: Persona Journey reveals Miyazaki inspired art
While there are quite a few anime PFPs, I have to say, these are nice. The art is very Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli inspired, it’s something the space hasn’t seen. The team behind the collection, Unagi Studios, is fairly well-connected gaming company, backed by several prominent venture firms like Binance Labs.
You can still get the whitelist - the best way is to signup on their website and complete the tasks (connect your socials, join discord, occasionally like/RT a tweet). The mint is planned for February which should be sometimne in the next 2 weeks.
That’s all for this week - See you next time. and hit the subscribe button, mfer!
- atareh out