JUMP Icons is a new kind of journalism series that spotlights best-in-class brands in the web3 ecosystem. This series aims to capture significant moments in web3 culture through a unique blend of storytelling and technology in a way that's native to web3. In the JUMP Icons series, each brand's story is not just narrated through words, but also encapsulated in an NFT that creatively portrays each brand's approach to web3. The NFT art paired with this story is a tokenized twist that brings journalism and story-telling into the modern age.
NFTs minted from this collection are on Base. Explore the full collection and holders here.
Let's start by establishing one thing — the world has never seen a brand like Nouns. Perhaps the only thing it shares with other great brands is that Nouns breaks the rules.
A conversation with Prof Werder
What better way to learn about a brand than to speak with one of the community's most active members, Prof Werder. Perhaps it's my inner brand strategist speaking, but conversations with community members at the forefront offer invaluable insights.
I was joined by JUMP community member Garthly, and together we learned the most important aspects of the Nounish way of life.
We delve into Bud Light's acquisition of its Noun, involving its community in proposal voting, and speculate on the unexplored opportunities for established brands within this evolving landscape.
While many legacy brands have rushed to launch their own NFT efforts, we advocate instead for active engagement within existing web3 communities, which we believe provides more value for all participants involved.
Nouns 101
The Nouns brand, revenue, and organizational strategy have demonstrated that the next generation of brands will be community led.
CC0 Rights: The Nouns Project boasts the most open copyrights for all its artwork, allowing unrestricted usage of Nouns branding by anyone, whether internal or external to the project.
Open Treasury: The Nouns community welcomes pitches from anyone seeking funding for projects they believe will resonate. In order for a proposal to be put up for vote, a minimum of two nouns is required to submit a proposal.
Daily Auctions: Each day, the DAO hosts an auction for a new Nouns NFT. The first NFT was sold on August 8, 2021 for a whopping 613.37 ETH.
Founder Rewards: Noun founders, aka Nounders, do not receive royalties nor possess special rights beyond owning 10% of the Noun supply for the initial five years. This alignment of incentives ensures that the founders' Nouns gain value only when yours do, fostering community cohesion.
In this interview, the Nounders share what inspired the creation of Nouns and their vision for the future.
The emergence of Nouns in the NFT landscape stemmed from reflections on the limitations of CryptoPunks. The team aimed to redefine distribution mechanics, shared value, and departed from the copy-and-paste ethos of the 10k PFP era.
The Nounders envisioned Nouns holders as more than just price cheerleaders, emphasizing community and innovation.
Nouns' uniqueness lies in its "Nounish" ethos, reflected in its novel distribution mechanism. Continuous auctions promote fairness and inclusivity over time, a departure from the narrow windows of opportunity seen in crypto history.
Seneca highlights Nouns' infinite potential, mirroring blockchain's boundless horizons. The fact that Nouns can live on as long as Ethereum continues to exist is very unique to blockchain, and something that could not be done before. If you think about this a 1,000 years from now it is mind blowing to comprehend.
Building a brand through community led projects
What does it look like in practice to actually deploy treasury capital to fund efforts that align with the Nounish mission? You can read every proposal here to find out.
Proposals have funded everything from technical protocol upgrades to Nouns movies.
One of the newest and most exciting proposals is the launch of a Nouns Client built on the Farcaster protocol. Nouns famously deleted their official Discord server, forcing the community to organize itself via public forums, across Twitter, and through community led Discord servers.
With the rise of Farcaster, a new era of organizing community and communication has arrived. The Nouns x Farcaster proposal received unanimous support among those who voted. The proposal aims to fund three teams to build a Nouns Client, giving each team $50,000 to complete the project over a three month sprint.
Keep an eye on this! The teams selected for this sprint will be chosen soon.
Sub-DAOs
The strongest signal of a thriving brand is when the community self organizes. Brands such as Harley Davidson come to mind, however Nouns takes this aspect one step further. Because the Nouns art has been placed in the public domain via CC0, anyone can spin up a Nounish community and generate revenue for their sub-DAO.
One of the best examples at the moment is the Yellow Collective.
"The Yellow Collective is a new onchain club on the BASE Ethereum L2 network, designed to support and empower artists and creatives in the Nouns and Superchain ecosystems. One Collective Noun will be auctioned off here every day, forever. Auction proceeds will be used to host art contests and pay commissions to creatives in our communities, in collaboration with The Noun Square Onchain Media Collective."
Auction prices for sub-DAOs settle at much more affordable prices versus the primary Nouns DAO daily auction, which still commands 7-10 ETH on a daily basis to win.
Perhaps one day there will be thousands of sub-DAOs within the Nouns ecosystem, spreading Nounish vibes across the entire galaxy thousands of years from now. Seriously. It could happen.