Welcome to State of SEEN the weekly newsletter about all things happening in the SEEN ecosystem.
Product
v2 Launch is Imminent
If you follow us on Twitter you would have seen screenshots of the upcoming redesign that will accompany our v2 launch.
v2 will allow SEEN to scale effectively and would not have been possible without feedback from our amazing community.
Here is an overview of important changes being made:
SEEN Staking
SEEN has generated nearly 170 ETH over the last 4 months through the various auctions and NFT drops on our platform.
Going forward, a portion of these sales will be distributed to SEEN stakers. It will be single-sided xSushi style staking without the risk of Impermanent Loss.
There will not be a token migration event so holders won’t need to do anything with their SEEN tokens in order to interact with the new staking interface.
We expect a major uptick in auction + NFT volume over the coming months which will greatly benefit stakers and increase the amount being distributed on a recurring basis.
Bringing on big name artists with high ticket auctions is another catalyst that will increase protocol revenue and distributions to stakers as well.
The ETH -> SEEN swaps should also bring added volume to the trading pair on SushiSwap.
New Auction Formats
SEEN started with English style auctions where the highest bidder was crowned the winner after 24 hours. v2 will allow us to experiment with new formats like sealed-bid or Dutch auctions.
This experimentation could lead to an uptick in auction participation as we play around with different formats that allow people to bid without needing to spend gas on several separate transactions.
Another big change we’ve implemented is extending the auction timer in case there is a bid within the last five minutes.
There have been several instances over the last few weeks where bidding wars emerged in the last 5 minutess but were cut short because the end time was hard coded into the auction contract.
This small adjustment should increase the total dollar amount of closing bids and allow for more exciting finishes.
We have also discussed launching auctions that only last for a few hours to motivate people to place bids quickly instead of waiting almost 24 hours to get in on the action.
Stake SEEN -> Launch Auctions
The SEEN ‘Spotlight’ will be a section on our site that allows anyone to stake SEEN to launch their own NFT auctions.
This will replace the previous ‘Launchpad’ initiative where we had artists submit their work before being short listed and presented to the community for a vote on which pieces they wanted to see on the platform.
This will benefit the community in a number of different ways.
All of the artists who had reached out to us will have the opportunity to launch their own auctions without waiting for the team or community to select their work.
It will also increase the demand for the SEEN token by providing true utility and making it an integral piece of the ecosystem.
The SEEN team will still be curating our own auctions and drops as we gradually move towards being fully decentralized, eventually allowing the DAO to take full control of the entire selection process.
SEEN curated auctions and drops will be completely separate from ‘Spotlight’ auctions. The combination of the two will allow for more volume, awareness, and revenue for the protocol.
Ideally we will also move towards building out a way that makes it easy to mint and trade NFTs on the site so artists are able to receive royalties on secondary sales.
Reduced Fees
SEEN is unique in that the entire auction process was built on Ethereum and all bidding is done in ETH.
When we first started out, the price of ETH was less than $400 and gas was cheaper than a slice of pizza.
Exorbitant gas fees have made it costly to launch auctions, mint NFTs, and place bids. For example, it would have cost us over $1000 to launch the auction last week which resulted in postponing the auction until fees became more reasonable.
The v2 redesign has drastically reduced the amount of gas being used in each one of these processes thus lowering transaction costs by about 40%.
This will allow us to earn more money on each auction and also allow more bids to be placed as gas costs will not be as big of a concern.
Auction Recap
This week our featured artist was the SEEN OG @buddyart00
Buddy was a founding member of SEEN and one of the first artists to make noise in the NFT space when he and @bluekirbyfi broke Rarible with their collabs.
The artwork we auctioned was centered around Buddy’s creative processs. ‘Dammit’ saught to capture the highs and lows of being an artist and was his first ever 1/1 NFT.
Buddy has 1/8 NFTs listed on Rarible for 19 ETH and 1/3’s listed for 70 ETH.
The winner of our auction got a steal securing the 1/1 for 2.3 ETH.
Upcoming Auction
We started out by selling physical pieces created in house that were linked to NFTs. We’ve since expanded into working with established artists, musicians, and selling standalone NFTs.
The upcoming lineup highlights how far SEEN has come in our goal of building the auction house of the future.
Here’s who we have on deck for the week ahead:
1penemy
@drtoscanodds aka @1penemy is an NYC based dental surgeon turned street artist, who will be making his blockchain debut on 3/2 with a series of NFT drops followed by a live auction on 3/3.
@drtoscanodds is the official dental surgeon for about 25 model and talent agencies in NYC and LA, which incorporate The Lions, One, Marilyn, Storm, Wilhelmina, IMG, and Major to name a few examples.
His street art embodies the spirit of a woman’s struggle in his high-profile female subjects, not only by featuring them in a mugshot and displaying them in a “lineup”, but also by wheatpasting them like “wanted” posters in back alleys and on graffitied walls all over NYC.
His collectors include Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Cindy Crawford, and many more.
Details on the NFTs and custom made physical 1/1 will be released tomorrow.
Here is the full slate of artists lined up over the coming weeks:
Community
Most blockchain projects have an established presence in virtual worlds, and the SEEN community has expresssed interest in setting up an exhibition in Cryptovoxels or the MoCA.
Having a space in a virtual world would further establish our credibility in the NFT community and show prominent collectors that we are in it for the long term.
To get this initiative started, a few members of the SEEN community held a call with @BnoiitC from the MoCA on Friday. We discussed potential ways we could collaborate and are going to be posting a snapshot with a formal proposal after the details are finalized this week.
The main options we had discussed were renting out an existing space in a prime location or purchasing our own parcel of land to build something from scratch. Both have unique benefits and we welcome the community to share feedback in our Telegram group.
Industry Deep Dive
The goal of this section is to provide in-depth analysis on important trends happening in the NFT space.
This week @doublewordscore put together an excellent report on generative art, a genre that sits at the intersection of mathematics and aesthetics.
The dichotomy between those contrasting principles is what makes this sector truly fascinating.
Click here to read the full analysis.
Random
https://twitter.com/RyanBerckmans/status/1366180744368898048?s=20
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That’s it for the inaugural edition of ‘State of SEEN’. You can follow the project on Twitter, Telegram, and here on Medium.
See you next week!
-the seen.haus team
