#68 Pfizer’s DAO investment. Porsche NFT collection- What went wrong?
Disclaimer: Everything we write in "The Crypto Insider Report" is an x-ray of the industry as we see it, through the lens of publicly available information. We are not financial advisors.
What Are the Main DAO Struggles Right Now?
I’m sure you’ve heard about DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) being Crypto’s next big thing during the most recent bull market. And that’s for good reason - they are! A DAO allows individuals to get together and work towards a common goal, in a trustless, decentralized way, breaking the barriers of geography and, hopefully, bureaucracy.
When it comes to breaking the barriers of geography, I’d say DAOs are already doing great. It’s the latter (bureaucracy) that is still an issue, and a recent piece by Scott Fitsimones tackles just that. Scott is the author of The DAO Handbook, as well as the founder of CityDAO - an organization that bought 40 acres of land in the US. So he’s not someone who just reads and tweets about stuff - he’s actually a doer, sharing some of the obstacles he had to overcome.
First of all, when it comes to on-chain activities, the DAO landscape has progressed a lot. There are easy ways to create a multisig wallet, you have tools to handle payments, proposals and voting in user friendly ways. However, it’s the intersection with the real, hard world that is difficult. When you start looking into incorporating your DAO and starting paying taxes on it, the options are difficult and limited. Scott incorporated CityDAO in Wyoming, but it was in no way simple. He needed help from a lawyer and an accountant and even then it was not trivial. Then, if you want to raise money, or to buy real assets, you again have hurdles to overcome. CityDAO managed to buy real, physical acres of land in Wyoming, so there’s something to learn there for all of us.
Right now, if you have a DAO that has only on-chain activity, the landscape is getting better with each day. When it comes to interacting with the physical world, we still have a long way to go.
Mihnea
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Pfizer’s DAO investment
I believe I’ve written about VitaDAO before but just in case my memories are fading me, I have to tell you they’re doing what us cryptonatives think DAOs should do. Namely, pool funds together (or raise money) to work on important world problems. In this case, VitaDAO focuses on biotech and longevity research and is made up of over 9000 people supporting all the efforts. Unsurprisingly, Vitalik was one of the investors in previous rounds:
In a new round, the DAO raised $3.5 million to continue their efforts (anti-aging) and the round included Pfizer Ventures (yes, that Pfizer) and Balaji Srinivasan. Which means that Pfizer will be voting onchain using their $VITA soon enough and help commercialize VitaDAO’s projects. It’s refreshing to see traditional companies see the potential of DAOs and even more so the fact that Vita formed as a DAO and not a regular LLC.
And it’s also interesting to see the close link between longevity research and crypto. Vitalik and Balaji are just a few of the loud promoters of research in this area. And it’s fitting to the crypto narrative: exploration, pushing boundaries and innovating using cutting edge tech without regard for physical borders. I hope we live to see this efforts materialize so we can be proud of being here when it all started thanks to crypto.
Matei
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Porsche NFT collection- What went wrong?
Ok, so we all probably know by now that the Porshe NFT launch didn’t go that well but let’s see why and what happened.
German luxury car manufacturer Porsche's nonfungible token (NFT) collection reached 2,839 Ether ($4.5 million) in total sales volume, according to data from NFTScan at the time of writing on January 26th. The collection had a floor price of 2.74 ETH and a high price of 9.18 ETH, with over 1,705 total sales. Even though the supply of the collection was initially intended to be 7,500 NFTs, Porsche quickly suspended the minting process on January 25th after receiving feedback from users with regards to the high minting prices and the lack of utility for NFT holders. The supply, therefore, has been reduced to 2,263.
The German automaker first presented its NFT collection, which features images of its iconic Porsche 911 Carrera sports car, at the Art Basel show last November, U.S. magazine Fortune reported. The brand promoted it as “rare, iconic, and timeless like its sports cars.”
Many people claim it was because of the high minting price (.911 ETH). However, given the brand sells expensive luxury cars, I think it is safe to assume the price wasn’t the issue but more the wrong targeting and the poor marketing strategy.
On the other hand, the company’s failure to attract solid market interest is attributed by some commentators to the insufficient understanding of the rules that govern the crypto markets and their detachment from Porsche’s traditional sales channels. During the communication campaign Porsche barely collaborated with the crypto space leaders, completely failed to educate their Web2 community, and communicated very poorly.
To me, this looks like a classic example of a brand jumping on the bandwagon without giving enough thought and time to understanding the audience and adapting the marketing strategy to the reality of the crypto sphere. So, to conclude, you can’t expect to use a Web2 marketing strategy for successfully launching a Web3 product and you can’t expect to sell a Web3 product to a Web2 community.
Evelyne
For more educational crypto content, check out the links below:
The Stakeborg DAO Talks on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOrFZZifNn4Nx4nSQL3WS52ALPXgrTSVG
Discord channel: https://discord.com/channels/901898461568442458/903006233584341052
StakeborgDAO Quarterly Reports: https://docs.stakeborgdao.com/reports/dao-quarterly-reports
Stakeborg Academy: https://academy.stakeborg.com/
🤝👷🏼♂️🧱