Summary:
- The rainbow-colored Doodles NFT collection just raised an impressive $54 million from prominent investors in Sep 2022.
- Its strategy to become one of the biggest consumer brands in the world is propelled by a community-first approach and multimedia push featuring American rapper Pharrell Williams.
- The recent launch of Doodles 2 allows users to customize their Doodle NFT with super rare traits from the original Doodles collection, increasing the overall value of the entire brand.
What Is Doodles NFT?
The Doodles NFT collection, launched in October 2021, consists of 10,000 unique, rainbow-hued NFTs designed by artist Scott Martin (alias Burnt Toast). Like other NFT collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Apes, Doodle NFTs are made up of hundreds of visual traits that are mixed and matched to create one-of-a-kind designs.
The various characters and components of a Doodles NFT include hand-drawn skeletons, cats, apes, mascots, and others, as well as rare costumes, heads, and other accessories.
In addition, Doodles NFT owners can purchase additional features and experiences, such as Doodle spacecraft NFTs, making the Doodle universe an ever-expanding and ever creative place for its community.
Through its Doodle decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Doodles also empowers its community by allowing Doodle NFT holders to vote on community-driven features and events.
The Doodles team states that the project was birthed to “bring joy to everyone who sees them,” and it has achieved this in more ways than one. Since it launched, the collection has generated $528 million worth of secondary sales to date, based on data from NFT aggregator CryptoSlam. The entire Doodles brand is currently valued at $704 million, after a recent funding round (see below section.)
“Our vision at Doodles is to be one of the world’s leading producers of media and entertainment,” the team said in a June 2022 tweet. “We’re building an ecosystem rich in diversity and utility.”
The brand has since expanded beyond the initial 10,000 NFTs and has released a new NFT collection called Doodles 2.
Doodles NFTs are created from hundreds of visual elements. They include animals, skeletons, gherkins, and more. (Source: doodles.app)
4 Reasons To Put Doodles NFT On Your Watchlist
As the industry evolves and matures, those in the NFT space are starting to realise that success means striking a delicate balance between growth and community–grow too fast and you’ll bump up your revenue in the short term but dilute your brand and cause your early investors to dump your assets, causing price to fall.
Doodles looks set to grow less by the numbers and more by enhancing the experience for its existing users.
Here are some compelling reasons to keep an eye on it if you’re shopping around for NFTs to invest in during this buy season:
- It really takes a community-first approach. Almost every NFT collection touts this, but Doodles actually demonstrates this by limiting its Discord to 1,000 members so that initial members obtain privileged early access to exclusive deals such as live events and merchandise.
- It’s riding the trend of hyper-customization. Its new collection, Doodles 2, offers customizable NFTs, where a collector will first mint a basic Doodle NFT, customized according to skin tone, hair color, and other basic components, and then customize it with a number of Doodle wearables and rarity traits from the original Doodles collection.
A Doodle 2 chooses its preferred headwear in the Doodles 2 ad (Source: doodles.app)
Doodles Space NFTs allow collectors to embellish their NFTs, such as adding a spaceship to their assets, thereby expanding growth opportunities for its core character. (Source: doodles.app)
- It’s making a concerted push toward full multimedia integration with music, video, gaming, and more. The upcoming creation of Doodles Records will see Doodles’ chief brand ambassador and musician Pharrell Williams create original soundtracks that can be laid over the Doodle NFT graphics to create animated clips (the art will be hand-drawn by founder and artist Burnt Toast.)
Doodles Records will see chief brand ambassador Pharrell Williams make music for the Doodles project. (Source: CryptoBriefing) - It has attracted a roost of big-name backers. In the middle of crypto winter. In Sep 2022, Doodles NFT sales volume spiked by over 1,200% over the past day, as Doodles announced a $54 million funding round led by the VC firm of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohania, Seven Seven Six. The money will be used to “to rapidly acquire a world-class team of engineers, creatives, marketers and business executives, as well as to fund product development, acquisitions, proprietary technology, media and collector experiences,” said the Doodles team.
How Much Is a Doodle NFT?
Doodles NFT mint price started at 0.123 ETH ($300 at the time), as opposed to the more usual 0.1 ETH for these types of projects. This does not seem very “community-first” initially, but it was a smart move that resulted in a growth treasury of 420 ETH to power future developments. Decision-making on how to use this treasury is controlled by the founders and collectors, with the latter having one vote per Doodle NFT owned.
This in turn led to an increase in the Doodles NFT price, which quickly took it from newcomer to market leader.
The Doodles NFT price started low at an average of 1.26 ETH per Doodle NFT. That figure stayed around 1-5 ETH for months but then rapidly rose with the implementation of new projects and announcements.
One project to make real ripples was Doodles Space NFTs, which allows collectors to have their Doodles fly around in an audiovisual-enriched space realm until their “bladder capacity” ran out. By the beginning of 2022, a Doodle NFT was going for 20.70 ETH, translating into approximately $60K at the time.
Average Doodles NFT price graph from October 2021 to September 2022. (Source: OpenSea)
The Doodles NFT price hit its highest point in July 2022, when the NFTs were selling for an average of 35.64 ETH. This has dropped significantly to an average sell price of 8.75 ETH today (September 2022), no doubt dragged down by the overall downtrend in crypto. However, with upcoming announcements about Doodles 2, price may soon see some positive action.
Who Created Doodles NFT?
The founders behind the Doodles NFT collection are three individuals that bring with them a combination of experience, talent, and network. In fact, two of them have come directly from the massively successful play-to-earn blockchain game, CryptoKitties.
The founders of Doodles. (Source: doodles.app)
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- Burnt Toast: A Canadian–based illustrator, designer, animator and muralist, Scott Martin (alias Burnt Toast) is the art talent behind the Doodles NFT project. Martin has worked for WhatsApp, Google, and SnapChat, among others, and worked on releasing his own NFTs before joining forces with Keast and Castro on Doodles.
- Tulip: A Canadian-based product marketer and NFT consultant, Evan Keast (alias Tulip) has worked in blockchain since the early days with experience at Kabam Games (Net Marble), Dapper Labs and CryptoKitties.
- Poopie: An early blockchain enthusiast, Jordan Castro (alias Poopie) has worked in the industry since 2013 and previously led the team behind CryptoKitties.
How to Buy Doodles NFT?
As with most NFTs, Doodles can be bought on OpenSea. Here, collectors can browse and buy the Doodle NFTs on offer, filtering by the desired features (background, body, hair, face, head, and others), price, currency, quantity, as well as payment method (buy now, auction, buy with card).
OpenSea will also give prospective Doodle NFT collectors information on the value of the project, the total number of Doodle NFT owners as well as previous sell prices for specific NFTs.
OpenSea remains one of the leading platforms to buy and sell Doodle NFTs and check Doodle NFT price. (Source: OpenSea)
Conclusion
NFTs have been one of the fastest growing spaces in blockchain, but their use case is only just starting to take shape. The founders of the Doodles NFT project are hoping to be at the forefront of that move, with big ambitions that takes NFTs from digital art pieces into the realm of personalization and entertainment.
It is true that the current bear market has had a negative impact across the industry, and Doodles NFTs have not been spared. However, with Doodles 2 on the horizon and new announcements forthcoming, it may only be a matter of time before the bull rises its head once more and charges up the Doodle puke rainbow.
