Letter 3 - Detailed Guide to Bastard Gan Punks V2 (Bgans V2) nft collection.
All you need to know about the first large ai-created PFP collection in existence.
Short Summary:
First nft PFP collection created by Artificial Intelligence
“Bastard Gan Punks V2”, also referred to as “Bastards V2”, or, “Bgans V2”, created in March 2021 is the first 10k+ PFP (PFP stands for Picture For Proof, and/or Profile Pic) nft collection created by use of artificial intelligence. Gan in their name indicates that Bgans V2 was created by use of a branch of AI technology called Generative Adversarial Networks.
For the rest of this article, I will call “Bgans V2” simply "Bgans”.
Historical NFT collection
Bgans are a historical NFT collection as they were created one month earlier than BAYC, just before the golden era of PFP collections started. It is an artistically transformative NFT collection inspired by CryptoPunks. Having 11305 NFTs, Bgans V2 is a direct continuation of Bastard Gan Punks V1 (which is a small exclusive collection of 76 pieces, created in Spring 2020 and one of the very first known PFP nft collections created by use of artificial intelligence in existence).
Pioneering usage of the Glitch technique and first collection with IP licensing ability
Bgans is the first PFP collection that used the Glitch technique for the creation of its backgrounds, the first large PFP collection containing rotational & shape-shifting pieces, and the first NFT collection for which a separate smart contract was created by the artist, enabling each Bgan owner to make their IP licenses directly on blockchain and store it there (Bgan owners have full IP and Commercial rights granted by the creator for the Bgan they own, so they can create their IP and Commercial licenses using that smart contract).
First gender-neutral collection with traits defined by a community
Bgans is the first PFP collection that is gender-neutral: this is intentional, as Bgans are directly supporting gender inclusivity and equality for everyone. Unlike their inspiration, CryptoPunks, which have “Male” and “Female” traits in their collection, Bgans are genderless.
As Gan technology (which does not recognize gender traits and any other traits as such) created myriads of unique traits, Bgans is the first NFT collection in existence where collection traits were defined not by an artist who created the collection but by a lengthy and time-consuming community effort. This effort is still ongoing, as certain traits are still subject to community voting in the Summer of 2022 when I write this article.
One of the first web3 DAOs in the NFT space (DAO created in Autumn 2021)
Bgans are governed by BastardDAO in pure web3 spirit. Each Bgan holder can vote on all critical issues related to art collection development and plans and also create Proposals using the snapshot.org governance platform. Governance is thus fully decentralized, and all decisions are made by Bgan owners by voting on created Proposals. At the moment of writing, there are approximately 3000 individual NFT Bgan owners located across the globe with voting rights.
1. Introduction:
In the middle of March 2021, I was checking a new service for NFTs, named lazy.com, created by famous American entrepreneur and billionaire Mark Cuban. This service enables you to check anyone’s NFTs, and so I was naturally curious, and among many others, I was also checking Mr.Cuban’s personal NFT wallet.
On the very first position, Mr. Cuban had pinned a strange yet very beautiful shape-shifting CryptoPunk-like creature. I later learned that it is named Bgan (or, in full, Bastard Gan Punk V2), and it is one of 11305 NFTs in the new art collection created by young visionary artist Berk Özdemir.
This is the NFT:
The Opensea.io link to this NFT is here.
It caught my attention that he liked it very much, as it was pinned at the no.1 position in his personal NFT wallet for many weeks. Considering that Mr.Cuban is exceptionally active in the NFT space and owns hundreds of the best NFTs in existence (which he either purchased or were donated to him by various artists trying to catch his attention), this was the first indication to me that something very interesting might be happening.
Later, in March 2021, NFT Twitter woke up to Bgans quite intensively, and soon, some of the most influential people in the NFT space started to tweet about Bgans.
NFT collector and one of the most followed experts in the NFT space, Twitter account “ShroomDaddy” analyzed the significance of the collection in his now-notorious series of tweets named “Appropriation in NFTs and Art in General”, and another prominent Twitter crypto/NFT influencers “MoonOverlord”, “Cobie”, “Icebergy” and “Notsofast” with hundreds of thousands of followers also had some very good things to say about the collection.
In parallel, significant Bgan sales were recorded on secondary markets, particularly on Opensea.io (the current volume of secondary sales just on Opensea.io alone is 7700 eth), and the rest is history.
Sources:
Before we start to discuss Bgans in detail, here are the main links readers can use to get complete information about this collection and the whole Bgan NFT ecosystem:
Artist & Creator of Bgan NFT ecosystem: Berk Özdemir (https://linktr.ee/0xberk)
Berk created 5 principal collections for the Bgan ecosystem: “Bgans V1”, “Bgans V2”, “Glixpixxx V1”, “Glixpixxx V2 - Grand Collection” & “Artglixxx”.
Bgans V1 and V2 sources:
BGANs V1 website: bganpunks.eth.link
BGANs V2 website: bastardganpunks.club
Opensea BGANs V1: https://opensea.io/collection/bastard-gan-punks
Opensea BGANs V2: https://opensea.io/collection/bastard-gan-punks-v2
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bganpunks
Discord: discord.com/invite/bganpunks
Overview web/marketplace (under development) BGAN V2: allbastards.com
Bgan V2 Trait Constitution: here
Bgan V2 FAQ: here
Smart contract to create a custom IP and Commercial Rights license for your bastard:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x9602874e70fa093793cadac9d0c392f80e3a80e0
Bgan V2 liquidity tools provided by NFT20.io and NFTX.org:
https://nft20.io/asset/0xcccbf11ac3030ee8cd7a04cfe15a3718df6dd030
https://v2.nftx.org/redeem/0xc3b5284b2c0cfa1871a6ac63b6d6ee43c08bdc79/
Glicpixxx V1, V2 and Artglixxx sources:
Glicpixxx website: glicpixxx.love
Artglixxx website: artglixxx.io
Opensea Glicpixxx V1 - https://opensea.io/collection/glicpixxxver001
Opensea Glicpixxx V2 - Grand Collection: https://opensea.io/collection/glicpixxxver002
Twitter: https://twitter.com/artglixxx
Discord: discord.com/invite/bganpunks
Overview web for Glicpixxx V2: https://allglicpix.com/
BASTARD DAO:
Constitution: here
Discord: discord.com/invite/bganpunks
Proposal governance system at Snapshot.org: here
Cryptovoxels Bgan House: here
2. The predecessors of Bgans are Cryptopunks.
So let’s speak now about what Bgans are. To understand this, we need to quickly mention the most successful collection in NFT history, which is CryptoPunks. CryptoPunks are an NFT collection of 10,000 Avatars, mostly humans (females and males), but there are some Zombies, Apes, and Aliens as well. CryptoPunks was created in 2017, and in 2021, we see record sales per NFT (Aliens sells in the range of 7–11 mil USD).
To have a complete picture, Apes and Zombies are selling for hundreds and millions of dollars as well, while basic CryptoPunks with the lowest rarities have floor prices in higher tens of thousands or low hundreds of thousands of dollars, subject to fluctuation.
Here are some random examples of CryptoPunk Aliens:
Examples of Apes:
Examples of Zombies:
Examples of Humans (Males):
Examples of Humans (Females):
CryptoPunks is a very successful NFT collection, and prices reflect this. In mid-2022, there are around 2500 unique holders of CryptoPunks, many of them extremely wealthy individuals.
3. The arrival of Bgans V2 via GAN technology:
There were hundreds of NFT collections inspired by CryptoPunks in 2021 (all of them can be seen via marketplaces like Opensea.io or Rarible.com). Pixelated avatar-style collections sold well at that moment, and many crypto fans were using those Avatars as personal online identities in the crypto space and on crypto Twitter.
This, however, got to the point when almost everyone who can work with pixels editor became an “artist”. There is an oversaturation of CryptoPunk-inspired pixelated avatar collections (literally hundreds); most of them are simple, low-effort derivatives, 99.99% worthless, both from artistic/aesthetics and investment point of view. Most of them look the same, most were created with the same software tools, and they do not bring anything new to the market. Many of them have even very similar descriptions on Opensea.io, usually using the wording “XXXPunksXXXs was created to pay homage to CryptoPunks. In my opinion, such projects are paying “homage” to quick cash-grab and will hold 0 value in the future.
Still, because we have only 10,000 CryptoPunks, they can serve only 10,000 unique people if they achieve the maximum distribution.
There is, of course a much more significant amount of people willing to acquire nice virtual avatars (there will be hundreds of millions of them in not so distant future once Metaverses are a reality), and therefore, there is a significant demand for something unusual, beautiful, a little bit outlandish but still with the familiarity which is provided by some similar features to CryptoPunks. New and popular collections like BAYC or Doodles have been created since, but many people still prefer something that at least distantly resembles CryptoPunks. Something which is not a cheap derivative but which is a transformative art pushing the cause of Web3 with overwhelming artistic beauty and variety in addition.
The above needs are the main driving forces behind why the art collection of Bgans V2 is so successful.
As the creator of the collection, Berk Özdemir (Twitter here) wrote on the collection webpage bastardganpunks.club:
“BASTARD GAN PUNKS project started as a hobby NFT project of me (@berkozdemir).
There were two main reasons for me to initiate this project:
- to practice Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) with my own dataset, as part of my artistic research at the Masters programme at ArtScience Interfaculty
- Even though Cryptopunks were way cheaper last year than now, I had no money to buy any, so I challenged myself to make “interesting enough” remixes of them. So, I came up with the bastards concept. Bastard GAN Punks carry the genes of the original Cryptopunk, but they have many different traits from several punks, so they don’t know who their actual parents are. And you know, sometimes BASTARDS are much cooler than their parents. Look at Jon Snow, for example lol.”
As is further detailed, the Bgans V2 creation process was long and very technical. Creating 11305 very different and beautiful NFTs was not straightforward by any means.
Berk Özdemir first created NFTs named Bastard GAN Punks V1 (which is now a separate NFT collection of its own, consisting of only 76 pieces, more details here). Artist’s website describes the process of creation of Bgans V1 as follows:
The first iteration of Bastard Gan Punks was trained on 10,000 original Cryptopunks and gave birth to many weirdo adorable motherfuckin’ bastards. The process worked very well, and I was so happy with getting weird, interesting results.
However, since some traits of Cryptopunks exist on just a few ones (like Alien, Ape, Zombie, or Beanie, etc.); most of the rare traits were lost during the model training.
So, Berk then used a little different technique to create V2s:
For BGANPUNKS V2, I chopped all Cryptopunks attributes, made cross-gender copies of ones that were made for only one gender (BGANPUNKS ARE QUEER!), categorized them in different folders (Hairs/Heads, Eyes, Glasses, Smokes, etc.), and wrote a script to make all possible combinations of those traits. I also added skin and accessory color randomization + a couple of custom traits I’ve drawn myself. It was a painful and shitty process because I had to do all the cuts by hand and had to optimize the script via trial and error may be like hundreds of times, to not make unnecessary 1000000 images at the end, which would take a lifetime to train the model with my shitty GPU.
In case this has yet to emphasize clearly, the artist used advanced GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) to generate the base of his art. If you would like to learn about GANs, you can check more details here. For this introduction, let’s note that GAN usually consists of two neural networks that contest with each other in a game (in the form of a zero-sum game, where one agent’s gain is another agent’s loss). Given a training set, this technique learns to generate new data with the same statistics as the training set. For example, a GAN trained in photographs can generate new photographs that look at least superficially authentic to human observers, having many realistic characteristics. To quote Wikipedia, “GANs can be used to generate art. The Verge wrote in March 2019 that “The images created by GAN have become the defining look of contemporary AI art.”[11] GANs can also be used to inpaint photographs[12] or create photos of imaginary fashion models, with no need to hire a model, photographer, or makeup artist or pay for a studio and transportation.[13]”
Apparently, in the case of Bgans V2, GAN was uniquely used in an unprecedented fashion to generate a set of highly beautiful NFTs.
4. Traits Categorization of Bgans V2:
The collection of 11305 Bgans V2 is highly diverse and complex. I have not yet seen the NFT collection with more traits and categories. This makes collecting Bgans both intellectually challenging and great fun for many collectors I know from the Discord and Twitter communities as well. I have a lot of fun myself as well.
The second thing to note is that most traits as they are now defined were created not by the artist himself but by a vibrant community of fans and collectors, active mainly on Discord and Twitter, who suggested the categories, then categorized all Bgans using those categories, and finally had the whole thing approved by the artist, who then subsequently transferred these traits to code. This is an excellent example of community work, and it took months for community members to go via multiple Excel sheets and carefully categorize every Bgan.
In addition, the traits creation and definition process is still ongoing at the time when I write this review, and chances are subject to the community vote. There is an evolving document called the “Trait Constitution”, and anyone who thinks their Bgans is eligible for a change of trait can prepare a Proposal on Snapshot.org, and the community then votes on it.
Here is an overview of traits that were created by the community, approved by the artist, and exported to marketplaces like Opensea.io, so they are already final and definite (the link to the verified Opensea collection of Bgans V2 is here):
HYPE TYPE (this trait distinguishes between static and moving Bgans)
SONG WORD COUNT (this trait applies to all Bgans, regardless of HYPE TYPE)
BASTARDNESS (this trait applies to all Bgans, regardless of HYPE TYPE)
BACKGROUND (applies only for static Bgans)
GLITCH PATTERN (applies only for static Bgans)
BAD HABITS (applies only for static Bgans)
FACING DIRECTION (applies only for static Bgans)
TYPE (applies only for static Bgans)
BACKGROUND GLITCH LEVEL (applies only for moving Bgans)
BACKGROUND MOOD (applies only for moving Bgans)
FLOATY HEAD (applies only for moving Bgans)
SPEEDOMETER (applies only for moving Bgans)
NUM OF FRAMES (applies only for moving Bgans)
HEAD TURNS (applies only for moving Bgans)
We’ll talk about each trait now in detail.
Trait: Hype Type
There are two main categories of Bgans — they are either moving or static.
10458 Bgans have the “Calm AF” Hype Type trait (static .PNG images of Bgans)
847 Bgans have the “Hyped AF” Hype Type trait (moving .GIF animations of Bgans)
Here is a random example of Hyped AF Bgans:
Here is a random example of Calm AF Bgans:
Trait: Background
This trait only applies for static Bgans (with Hype trait: “Calm AF”):
There are two values:
“Glitchy AF” (glitchy backgrounds with several colors and patterns, 2003 Bgans)
“Static AF” (background consists of 1 color only, 8455 Bgans).
Example of Static AF Bgans:
Example of Glitchy AF Bgans (3 of many different backgrounds in the collection):
Trait: Type
This trait only applies for static Bgans (with Hype trait: “Calm AF”):
There are:
Main categories (Apes, Aliens, Humans (Large and Petite), and Zombies)
2. Hybrids (combinations of Main categories)
3. X-Bastard category
Let’s see them in detail now:
Main Categories:
Large (Humans, 4138 Bgans): defined in general by a large head, specific ears, and nose.
Petit (Humans, 1758 Bgans) is defined in general by a smaller head, specific ears, and nose.
Apes (1954 Bgans): defined in general by specific head shape and nose.
Aliens (1777 Bgans) are defined in general by specific ears, shapes and noses.
Zombies (106 Bgans): defined in general by a specific degree of red in the eyes.
2. Hybrids (Hybrids are Bgans that have traits belonging to at least two main categories) :
ALIEN APE HYBRID (20 Bgans): defined in general by a combination of specific head shapes, ears, and noses.
ALIEN HUMAN HYBRID (381 Bgans): defined in general by a combination of specific head shapes, ears, and noses.
ALIEN ZOMBIE HYBRID (44 Bgans): defined in general by a combination of specific ears, eyes, and noses.
APE HUMAN HYBRID (84 Bgans): defined in general by a combination of specific head shapes and noses.
APE ZOMBIE HYBRID (38 Bgans): defined in general by a combination of specific head shapes, eyes, and noses.
And finally:
3. X-Bastards (158 Bgans: a very special and probably most prized category among many collectors, where only extremely glitchy/pixelated Bgans were assigned, for which it was impossible to classify them otherwise).
Trait: GLITCH PATTERN
This trait only applies for static Bgans (with Hype trait: “Calm AF”):
This trait is one of the core traits in the collection, as it defines different backgrounds Bgans can have. Some examples of backgrounds:
GRID (158 Bgans):
ABSTRACT LIGHT (140 Bgans):
2x2s (45 Bgans):
EYES WITH DIAGONAL (59 Bgans):
EYES (23 Bgans):
EGG CARTON (99 Bgans):
These are only a few examples of backgrounds; in total there are 32 different backgrounds in the collection.
Trait: Bad Habits
This trait only applies for static Bgans (with Hype trait: “Calm AF”):
BIG SMOKE (1702 Bgans): defined by Bgans holding a “Big Smoke”:
VAPE (1624 Bgans): defined by Bgans holding a “Vape”:
PIPE (1717 Bgans): defined by Bgans holding a “Pipe”:
Some of them, in rare cases, are combining these items, like in the following examples:
BIG SMOKE ‘n CIGGIE (49 Bgans)
or
BIG SMOKE ‘n PIPE (60 Bgans)
There are even rarer combinations where Bgans are combining as many as three items, although this is extremely rare. It is possible to filter those traits on Opensea.io.
Traits: Text (Song)
This trait applies to all Bgans:
Each Bgan carries a particular song assigned to it. The text was generated by AI, and the artist stated on his website:
Also, for each BGAN V2 to have its own story like a fortune cookie, I fetched all Punk & Emo song lyrics from this website and trained them with GPT-2, which resulted in very weird texts, which you will see in the NFT description. In BGANS V1, there were lots of people who loved my humorous approach to NFT descriptions (I was writing goofy and edgy stuff); this time, I trusted GPUs on this task.
Texts are very different: some of them are only 1 or 2 worders, and some are complex and long. The longest text contains 49 characters.
In most cases, it seems texts are not related to Bgan’s image. However careful examination of 11305 strong collection shows that few Bgans are equipped with self-referencing text. My favorites are Zombie Bgan singing about “Zombies Hunt” or another Bgan (which looks like a member of the medical unit) singing “Your Symptoms”.
Here they are:
Text: “NON FUNGIBLE TOKENS, ZOMBIES HUNT ANDUNT, THE ONLY FUNGRY AT THE GUNFUD COURSE REPLACE THE TRUTH INSOLE WITH THE PASSING”
Opensea.io link here
and
Text: “YOUR SYMPTOMS”
Opensea.io link here.
I am sure there will be more examples like this, but I still need to check all texts in detail.
Apart from the content and meaning of the Bgan songs, it should also be noted that while the majority of the text is in English, there is no shortage of Bgans singing in Spanish, French, German, Scandinavian languages, and in languages which I was not able to identify using Google translator. This by itself is an area that is of interest to many collectors in the community and can contain a lot of hidden gems.
Trait: Bastardness
is the one and only “original trait” assigned to each Bgan directly by the artist.
As can be seen from the trait values distribution, which can be found, for example on Opensea.io, the trait is pretty symmetrically distributed (around 90–110 Bgans per trait value), with few exceptions. For example, values “AB123 BASTARD” and “GOD BASTARD” are each assigned to only 1 Bgan, thus making those Bgans very rare.
Trait: Facing Direction
Bgans can face either Left (4799 Bgans), Right (5434 Bgans), or can be Front-facing (225 Bgans).
Example of Left-facing Bgans:
Example of Right-facing Bgans:
Example of Front-facing Bgans:
Above were all traits related to static Bgans. The following are traits that are related exclusively to moving Bgans.
Trait: Background Glitch Level
This trait only applies to moving Bgans (with the Hype trait: “Hyped AF”).
3 — NOISY (336 Bgans)
2 — DISTORTED (174 Bgans)
5 — GOES TO 11 (171 Bgans)
1 — UNPLUGGED (108 Bgans)
4 — FLASHIE AF (58 Bgans)
Trait: Background Mood
This trait only applies for moving Bgans (with Hype trait: “Hyped AF”):
TRANSIENT COLORS (801 Bgans): The background color is changing
FIXED COLOR (31 Bgans): The background color is stable and is other than white
WHITE (15 Bgans): The background color is always white
Trait: Floaty Head
This trait only applies for moving Bgans (with Hype trait: “Hyped AF”):
There are some very special moving Bgans, with the so-called “Floaty Head”
NAH (822 Bgans): indicates it is not Floaty Head
YEAH (25 Bgans): indicates it is a Floaty Head, which looks like this:
Floaty Heads are some of the most sought-after items in the collection because they are extremely rare (only 25 of them in the 11305-strong collection), and also because of their very distinctive look.
Trait: Head Turns, Speedometer, and Num of Frames:
Are all more technical traits that only apply for moving Bgans (with the Hype trait: “Hyped AF”). They are out of the scope of this article. for readers who want to learn more about them, I advise you to check Opensea.io for examples and join Bgan Discord.
4. How to collect Bgans
Ranking/Appraisals
Many tools started to rank/sort Bgans based on traits (described in the previous section) and aesthetics. The main sources right now are:
Sites collectors can use for trait rarity are:
rarity.tools, nftexp.io, and alphaonchain.com
Site collectors can use for aesthetic rankings (based on manual voting):
Now, the above tools for trait rarity are using math to calculate rankings (and are giving significantly different results), but collectors should always keep in mind that beauty itself can not be ranked.
When it comes to Bgans, there are two important things to consider: Traits and Visuals (Aesthetics). I feel that in the future, when Bgans will get into mass NFT markets, Traits will be the way how “average collectors” without much initial information will go about it, while for true experts/informed collectors, aesthetics will probably be dominant. These are much fewer people but also much wealthier and more influential than the average collectors. So it might well happen, in my opinion that aesthetically very pleasing or very interesting Bgans will command significant premiums in the future over those with rare traits.
Saying above, let’s now explain how different ranking websites work. They are all doing pretty similar things.
First, they search for what categories/traits are in a particular collection. Then, they retrieve data for each particular category/trait and calculate Rarity points (the more rare traits, the more Rarity points are assigned to that particular NFT).
Once done, they sum up all Rarity points for a given NFT to calculate the final rarity score and then rank the NFT accordingly (higher final rarity score = higher overall ranking).
In the future, an average collector will rely more and more on ranking websites and tools, as there is no easy way to check all items in the 11305-strong Bgan V2 collection without literally spending a few full days on it.
The great thing for Bgan collectors is that the community together with the artist, has done an amazing job defining rarities/categories, and this results in the fact that RARITIES AND VISUALS are having a big intersection in most cases.
So what is the best way of collecting Bgans? I am personally always looking for the best possible combination of traits, while visuals must also be beautiful.
So, for example, in the case of CALM AF Bgans (static ones), it is BACKGROUND + DIRECTION + TYPE + BAD HABITS + SONG COUNT. The rarer the NFT is in each category, the higher the overall ranking score and final NFT ranking is.
Considering all the above, the highest-ranking Bgans probably would be HYBRIDS/X-BASTARDS/ZOMBIES + FRONT FACING + “N”/DOUBLE+ GLITCHY BACKGROUND + RARE SONG COUNT.
While this is good basic information to take into consideration, things are more complex in reality, as secondary market activity already shows us.
Secondary Market Activity
Bgans are actively traded on places like Opensea.io and Rarible.com. The nature of the secondary market is very complex, though.
So far, some collectors are focusing on collecting Bgans purely based on the rarity of their traits, while another large group of collectors ignore traits completely and focus on pure aesthetics. The best summary of all this I have read in recent days is from OG Bgan expert and collector, Twitter account “snooplyin42”, who recently posted this analysis:
I would not be able to say it better.
Liquidity
Bgans V2 is a global NFT collection with large and increasing demand from some very wealthy investors and art collectors. As such, Bgans are not exactly cheap to collect, particularly if one is interested in a slightly better one with interesting rarity or visuals. On the other hand, they are still significantly cheaper compared to CryptoPunks.
The good thing for smaller collectors and NFT investors is that the collection is highly liquid not only because of the dedicated base of international collectors on Opensea.io or Rarible.io but also because, due to its size and quality, it has its automated liquidity pools (ALPs) built on the Ethereum blockchain.
This means that if you are a Bgan collector, you can swap your Bgans back to Eth (at least for the price of the floor items in the Bgan V2 collection) without a need to find a “living” buyer.
This makes Bgans “insta-liquid”, 24/7/365.
The two main automated liquidity pools for Bgans are currently built within the nft20.io and nftx.org projects.
Bgan V2 liquidity tools provided by NFT20.io and NFTX.org:
https://nft20.io/asset/0xcccbf11ac3030ee8cd7a04cfe15a3718df6dd030
https://v2.nftx.org/redeem/0xc3b5284b2c0cfa1871a6ac63b6d6ee43c08bdc79/
It is outside the scope of this article to explain these pools and the technology behind them, but I do recommend everyone serious about NFTs get familiar with NFT ALPs in detail, as liquidity is super important for so many people in the NFT space.
5. Notable Bgan and Glicpixxx holders and collectors
Cobie — Host of UpOnly, professional Twitter poster with 701k followers, 77+ Bgans.
M4T — The largest BGAN whale with 294+ Bgans, member of @flamingodao, owner of one of the largest NFT collections in the world.
Punk 6529 — Philosopher, Collector, Building Open Metaverse, 373k Twitter followers, owner of several grail Bgans.
Shroom Daddy — Massive NFT collection, 22k Twitter followers, 200+ Bgans.
888Mooncat — The largest Glicpixxx whale with 247+ Glicpixxx and 80+ Bgan collections.
Notsofast — Collector, Black Lotus destroyer, 187k Twitter followers, 73+ Bgans
6. Bgan Ecosystem
The bgan ecosystem is quite complex. I will describe it in a separate letter.
7. The future
Future of Bgans
While the Bgan V2 collection is already created and actively traded on the secondary markets, the artist and the vibrant Bgan community are far from asleep.
And why wouldn’t the community be happy? Bgan holders are owners of beautiful art and are part of the great web3 movement, while young and innovative artist truly cares as much as they can for them.
By the way, when it comes to ownership of Bgans, full IP and Commercial rights belong to each Bgan owner for the Bgan they own, as noted on Berk’s website:
NFT OWNERSHIP: IF YOU ARE PROVIDING A WARM HOME AND FOOD TO A BGAN; YOU ARE FULLY PERMITTED TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANNA DO/MAKE WITH IT. MEANING YOU OWN THE FULL COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTWORK AND DESCRIPTION TEXT.DO A NON-COMMERCIAL OR COMMERCIAL THING, START YOUR FRANCHISE WITH YOUR BGAN AS MASCOT, BRANDIZE IT WITH MERCH, OR MAKE A SONG WITH A DESCRIPTION, IT IS ALL UP TO YOU. YOUR BGAN IS A FAMILY MEMBER OF YOU AFTER ALL ❤️
This is so very different from many NFT projects out there and emphasizes the true Web3 spirit of the creator.
8. Summary
Apart from the amazing potential of this collection, its bright future, and its very active community, what I like the most is the sheer and partially outlandish beauty of individual Bgans.
It is only possible to achieve this level of beauty with nascent GAN technology and the exceptional vision and the genius artistic execution of the creator. Only the combination of this new technology and visionary artist made the beauty in this art collection possible.
Look at this one, for example:
And it is exactly this beauty that makes me happy. Viscerally happy ❤️
Disclaimer: This text is the personal opinion of Mooncat #888, head curator of Mooncat #888DAO (Twitter here, gallery here, NFT account here).
Mooncat #888DAO consists of NFT collectors and fans. However, our opinions and the opinions of our members are only our modest assessments of reality and are not financial advice.