Solana profile picture (PFP) collection y00ts is the most prominent NFT project to date to migrate from one chain to another—and early data suggests the community of holders is supporting the move, with nearly 77% of the NFTs already migrated to Polygon since the late Monday launch.
DeLabs, the Web3 startup behind both y00ts and the even more valuable DeGods project on Solana, announced in December that both collections would undergo the process of “bridging” to a new blockchain in the coming months—y00ts to Polygon and DeGods to Ethereum. Both moves were ultimately set for March.
Late Monday night, DeLabs and associated tech startup Dust Labs launched the migration for y00ts, which is effectively a “burn and mint” process that sees holders burn (or destroy) the original Solana version of the NFT and receive a newly-minted Polygon version on the other end of the Wormhole-based bridge.
DeGods, the most valuable NFT project on Solana, has a history of announcing unexpected twists—from upgrading its artwork to buying majority control of a BIG3 basketball team, and even recently putting some of its previously-burned NFTs on Bitcoin.
But the project’s creators delivered one hell of a Christmas surprise: DeGods will leave Solana.
On December 25, DeLabs founder Rohun “Frank” Vora revealed his latest “social experiment,” announcing that DeGods NFTs would be “bridged” over to Ethereum...
In just over 24 hours, more than 75% of the total supply of y00ts NFTs (11,362 out of 15,000) had reportedly already been migrated to Polygon. As of this writing, less than two days after the migration tool launched, the tally stands at 11,506 migrated NFTs—or nearly 77% of the total collection.
Based on the current 1.79 ETH ($3,230) floor price at the OpenSea marketplace—or the price of the cheapest listed NFT in the project—that represents nearly $37 million worth of NFTs that had moved chains in just over a day. And since some of the NFTs are valued higher than the floor, the actual tally is potentially much higher.
DeLabs has incentivized holders to make the move swiftly. Anyone who migrated to Polygon within the first 24 hours would have network gas fees reimbursed by marketplace Magic Eden, plus they’d receive $5 in USDC stablecoin for listing the Polygon-based NFT on the same marketplace. Furthermore, they’d have fee-free y00ts trading for 30 days.
On top of that, DeLabs said it would randomly airdrop a free Bitcoin-based DeGods NFT (or Ordinal) to one of the y00ts holders who migrated within the first 24 hours. On the flip side, NFT holders who don’t migrate to Polygon by April 3 will be hit by a 33.3% “Paper Hands Bridge Tax” creator royalty fee on secondary sales—10 times the standard rate set by DeLabs.
Leaving Solana
DeLabs and Dust Labs plan to carry through with the other half of the plan this week, as DeGods will commence migration from Solana to the Ethereum blockchain on March 31st.
In an exclusive conversation with Decrypt in February, DeLabs founder Rohun ”Frank” Vora and Dust Labs CEO Kevin Henrikson spoke at length about the team’s intentions to migrate both y00ts and DeGods away from the Solana blockchain, in favor of Polygon and Ethereum, respectively.
Bitcoin NFTs via Ordinals are the buzziest thing in the space lately, with more than 100,000 such media assets committed to the blockchain in barely two weeks. Surprisingly, that tally includes 535 NFTs from DeGods—the most valuable Solana NFT project.
DeGods revealed the move on Monday as word circulated that the profile pictures (PFPs) had all been inscribed on Bitcoin in a single block. ("Inscribing" is the process by which NFT-like assets are created on the Bitcoin blockchain, akin to "minti...
Frank revealed that the lure of y00ts to Polygon didn’t originate from the $3 million grant paid by Polygon Labs, but rather the roster of corporate giants building on the network—including Reddit, Disney, Nike, and Starbucks, among others.
Envisioning easier accessibility to forge partnerships with Polygon-native brands, Frank revealed that the visual design of the y00ts avatars was created with the possibility for brands to “imprint their logos."
In the case of DeGods, Henrikson said that “it wasn't about if, it was just a matter of when” the collection would move to Ethereum. “If we're gonna be the biggest, most popular NFT collection in the world, you're gonna have to be on Ethereum,” he said.
On this panel from NFT Paris 2023 moderated by Decrypt's Dan Roberts, Web3 leads from some of the largest consumer and tech brands discuss their NFT strategies. Marc Mathieu of Salesforce, Tim Walther of VW Group, Eva Assayag of Panerai, and Samir Addamine of Absolute Labs joined the panel.
“We're trying to take big swings, and we are trying to do it in a way that is going to make it exciting on the upside for people to participate,” Frank said in February, teasing the types of incentives that ultimately accompanied the y00ts migration.
Teasing the DeGods move ahead, Frank tweeted today: “Friday gonna be iconic.”
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