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Gambling, degening and winning, Cubist Collective brings out the degen within. Shilled by most influencers the past few weeks, you’ve at least considered taking your hedge on the shiniest project, Okay Moon Trippin Apes, Right? Right.
Instead of needing WL for the hyped mints, how about betting up or down the spread without worrying about rarity traits, staking, or any other project qualities? No problem, just place it on their site. Simple. This gives you exposure with known risk. 50/50 odds aren’t too shabby and can vary depending on how the market wagering is going, but essentially it’s the NFT version of long or shorts. Sidenote, if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t invest. As we always recommend DYOR
Thinking about mints as a gamble in technical terms, you’re already choosing your side. Minting equates to a long per say, and not minting (if you have WL) is taking a short.
Okay - enough about the gambling for right now, what else does this project offer? It’s been all over twitter so what's the big deal? Doesn’t $SOL have tons of casinos already, and also aren’t we in a builder meta? When we talk about buildooOOOrs - Cubist Collective doesn't pop up in many people's minds, but let’s change that.
Let’s talk cube:
Cubist Collective has a few really valuable uses that the Solana ecosystem could benefit from as we mature, and it’s no wonder CC has taken a few months to get off the ground.
With a portfolio management tool, incentivized community alpha as well as the degen equivalents of longing and shorting the markets some would argue you’ll never need to get alpha anywhere else. (Definitely don’t recommend that, but people might actually take this stance.)
Portfolio Dashboard:
This was the best screenshot I could find of the holder dashboard. I am not a holder (yet) so I don’t have access to this dash and was too lazy to ask around for any holders to send me a real screenshot. You still get the idea. #Degenmoves
The same way you connect with magic eden and other platforms, the NFT’s in your wallet appear to have tracking tools displayed, such as floor price, listing count and % indicators of what I would guess is price and volume. Very helpful for a cohesive location to view your portfolio. Pretty standard for most tracking tools lately, so this is average in my opinion from the outside looking in.
Incentivized Alpha:
A super bullish narrative for me that will define whether I invest or not, is the community driven alpha the project is centered around. Not only can you make price predictions of hyped mints, but also existing projects as well. The entire premise is community led research and cooperation. “...Cubists curate content in alpha channels, where other members upvote alpha, and machine learning and an eyes on approach validate this and reward good calls…”
Maximizing the incentives to holders is ingenious with how the project operates, and relies on the volume of floor price movement, but in turn the support that this creates can encourage great alpha callers and researchers to stay plugged in, driving a higher floor price and demand as well. One location for all your information helps keep track of the endless chaos NFT’s bestow.
How do contributors get paid? The Community Incentive Fund - A 6 month, 5,000 USDC minimum fund payout was pulled from mint funds. Future allocations of the fund are broken down by:
20% of the proceeds from the mint,
Continuously receive 25% of the royalties from secondary markets,
and a weekly allocation of $CUBIST
The project has also created the $CUBIST token, which will be available to stake, as well as be used within the ecosystem to fund further initiatives, bring in new talent and keep the ball rolling.
The token will also be used as currency other DAO’s pay with to receive the alpha generated by the collective, and having access pumps the deflationary proponent of the token. The breakdown of the float below.
A key piece of the mint funds notes that founders won’t get access to the Community Incentivized Fund, which tells me they aren’t trying to double dip on profits and have the best interest of the community at the time of writing. Bullish.
With all this talk of tokenomics and community payouts how can this sustain?
Sustainability:
I have covered other ponzinomics tokens enough to where it feels like my middle name, but the way this project uses alpha calling and other informative research to benefit the community is where the Solana space can improve overall. The incentivized spread of information will bring about the smartest minds and most driven contributors to share information with a direct incentive, thus providing value to the community, the contributor and the project as a whole. Other DAO’s, take note.
Best outlined with this diagram 👇
An endless cycle with some game theory tied to the success and accuracy of alpha, but seemingly very effective. This is all provided the secondary sales and income generated can support the contributors past the 6 month mint fund allocations.
So far, the math is doing a lot more than checking out so far. Even in a bear, where NFT macro volume is down substantially, over the past 7 days alone, 7,727 SOL has been wagered on new mints, $SOL price, and even NBA finals wagers. At the 6.5% - 8.5% fees, that is $15,060 USD - $19,700 USD including the 27,000 SOL volume on secondary it has produced.
Projects in the Solana space would be encouraged to use this theory of money flow to expand their community engagement on top of already provided value and we could see the space take off. If a project with seemingly this much alpha being spread fails, the whole ecosystem will be in a pivotal moment. I don’t see that happening but that’s why we never overinvest.
All in all, I have my eyes on this project and will be monitoring floor prices over the next few weeks since there is lower liquidity in the markets as a whole, you all might hear more from me on Cubist, but for now, signing off.