Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2023-07-05

As the show starts, Elf asks if the team had a good 4th of July. Dotta says he and his family attended a parade, swam, grilled, watched fireworks, and got donuts.

Jelly Donuts, Nifty Island, & Bloomberg FUD

With a nod to the sacrificial donut videos for the Shadow Hats' Dark List, Elf asks if they were jelly donuts. Dotta says they were jelly donuts from Krispy Kreme, but he doesn't think of that as a classic jelly donut, which he says would be more of a white powder donut.

Where's the Best Donut?

On this topic, Elf starts the discussion of Cult Questions, the first being, "What shop sells the best jelly donuts?" Dotta and Bearsnake agree that Dunkin has the better donut, but Bear also mentions a shop in Santa Monica called DK's Donuts that he describes as "off the charts." Lachness says that Donut Friend in downtown LA is where the team gets all of their donuts for LA-based events.

Nifty Island's Wizard Showcase

Then, the conversation moves on to the video posted by Nifty Island which showcases Wizards battling around the Secret Tower. Bearsnake gives a shout out to the Nifty Island team and says they're a pleasure to work with and a perfect case study of such a big aspect of Web3. Elf agrees with Bear's points and says it blows his mind that a small indie team is building such a big metaverse experience and notes that it will probably be the first 3D meta that Wizards will be deployed into. Bear emphasizes, "The first of many."

Billionaire Coliseum

During the conversation, Dotta has trouble with his connection, and Bear also notes that Elf is also cutting in and out, stating the Space is "quite ruggy" and jokes that they're getting limit rated. He brings up the recent launch of Meta's Twitter competitor, "Threads." Elf says Elon and Mark should just go into the coliseum and battle it out. Bear says that would be more entertaining than creating similar products and seeing who wins. Dotta returns and says he'll fight Zuckerberg in the coliseum. Elf says he would love to fight Elon.

Bloomberg Forgets the Runes

Elf says another notable event from the last few days was the project getting "FUDed hard" on Bloomberg. Dotta says not only was Forgotten Runes cited as one of the top projects to decline in price, but Crypto Twitter didn't even @-mention the project in any of its tweets. Dotta says he thinks the NBC people are reading his tweets, noting his posting of a similar graph. Elf says he thinks it's been confirmed that Jim Cramer is a Wizard holder. Dotta says, "Hopefully he sells soon? Is that how that works?" referencing the Counter-Cramer signal. Elf says he would love the opportunity to appear on a proper financial channel and give a candid description and "spiel of cult and magic shit."

Dotta says:

"If a guy can get on NBC News saying that birds aren't real, we should be able to get the Evil One up there."

Cult Questions, Continued

Nifty Founder Fight

Elf gets back to Cult Questions: A community member asks if the team can livestream Elf, Bear, and Dotta fighting it out using 3D models on Nifty Island and then have a live market bet to see who will win. Bearsnake says he's super game for that, but they can't invite Jitcy. Elf says the real question is, "Who would win between Lach, Waz, and Jitcy?" and mentions that every time the team has played games in the past, "we have sucked and they have been amazing."

Who Knows Udi?

Following this, Dotta is asked if he knows Udi Wertheimer. Dotta says he doesn't know him, just knows who he is. Bearsnake says that he's never hung out with Udi personally, but knows his partner on Taproot Wizards, who he says is a gem of a human being. The team is then asked if they would be able to get Udi on Wizard Wednesday. Dotta says it's totally possible, if the conversation is around Bitcoin and Ordinals, that he might come.

What to Expect After The Shadows

On the topic of Ordinals, the team is asked what should be expected following the Shadows/Shadow Hats, which are the two Forgotten Runes Ordinals collections. Elf notes that he will only say the finish line for 3D is in sight, and they have some fun things planned with that. Dotta says he wants to make sure the team is pretty far along before they announce anything and agrees that 3D is the next thing to look forward to, though they have plenty of irons in the fires. Goblin Town is still in the works, but may not be the next thing to ship.

3D Warriors

On the subject of 3D, a question arises about 3D models for Warriors. Elf replies that Wizards will get their 3D models first and that Souls and Beasts will be next in the queue. Warriors will come after that. Dotta said that the Warriors mint was priced in such a way that 3D models were a part of it. He says the Warriors mint "went a bit sideways" and that the final format, design, and style for their models is something that needs to be worked through.

Forgotten Runiverse Slated for Fall Alpha Release

Bear also notes the alpha release of the Runiverse MMO in terms of anticipated shipment from the team.

"That's coming up relatively soon. I think we're slotted for the end of August/September as it stands, which isn't that far from now, considering it's the beginning of July."

Dotta says the Forgotten Runiverse game is going to be great and that there will be a lot of fun things there for Wizard holders and for the game in general. Dotta says the gameplay is looking really fun.

3D Ponies

Following this, Elf answers a question about 3D Ponies, which he says he would love to make. However, as he has mentioned previously with the Beast models, he is not sure where quadrupeds could be deployed.

"But that doesn't mean we can't make our own things with 3D Ponies."

Forgotten Runiverse Expectations

Bear circles back to the Forgotten Runiverse game and says that they are making sure to pay homage to holders and building in incentives that benefit everyone in the ecosystem.

"Of course the game needs more than just the Cult to be successful."

He says there are some novel things in it that will benefit the Cult in more than one way.

"We can't put everything that has been done in our ecosystem in the game from day one...but making sure there's a lot of connectivity between everything is what gets me really excited."

Sudoswap V2 With Special Guest Owen (@0xmons)

Introductions

After wrapping up this section on Cult Questions, Dotta brings up guest speaker Owen from Sudoswap to talk about the new Sudoswap V2 platform. Owen steps up and mentions that he met up with Bearsnake recently at 3XP and that it was cool to see other Wizards in person. Before Owen gets started, Elf mentions that Owen was the person who taught Dotta how to store the Wizards on Ethereum. Owen confirms this and says that they spoke about how to set everything up in calldata. Elf thanks Owen for giving them the ability to put the art on-chain.

Dotta's connection drops, but when he returns he is able to ask Owen to speak about the features of Sudo V2 and troubleshoots his own connection in the meantime. Owen says for those who aren't familiar, Sudoswap is an NFT marketplace.

Where Sudoswap Differs From Other Marketplaces

The difference between Sudoswap and other popular marketplaces is that it moves more logic into smart contracts rather than using signed orders. This difference gives Sudo some advantages over other marketplaces while also making some things more difficult to do on the platform.

Programming, ERC-1155 Support, & Royalty Splits

Its advantage is that it supports more programming. Owen gives the examples that prices can adjust when items sell, orders can be set to fill only under certain circumstances, or orders can be set to fill in a certain type of token. He also speaks on orders for ERC-1155 tokens. Owen says that support for ERC-1155s has been spotty on other markets, so Sudoswap wanted to focus on making them "first-class citizens." He also says that royalties are configurable on-chain and can be set up by collection owners as well as shared if the owners choose to do so.

Dotta says that he likes that royalties can be configured on a per-token basis, which he feels is a good fit for Magic Machine's vision in which royalties can be returned to groups of artists and creators. Owen gives an example of a derivative open edition where the artist of the derivative and the Wizard owner both get paid out when the open edition sells.

Dotta says:

"I think we will definitely be putting out some experiments in that area soon."

Power Tools

Responsive Pricing

Then, Dotta asks Owen to speak about some of the "power tools" possible with Sudo V2 for collectors. Owen says one of the things you can do more easily with smart contract logic is price adjustment as a response to sales.

For example, if there is a pool of 10 Wizards at .8 ETH, and one is purchased, the entire pool can move up a designated increment as a response to that sale. So the pool may then be priced at .9 ETH after that initial sale for the remaining 9 Wizards in the pool.

Property Bids & Single-Trait AMMs

Owen and Dotta also speak about the ability to bid on properties and how that is able to be enforced on-chain. Owen says a Merkle tree would have to be set up for the IDs that you care about. However, he says the contracts are a pretty agnostic. Owen says savvy users could write contracts for different checks, giving the example of a contract to only purchase NFTs owned by a friend with an "owner of" check rather than a Merkle tree verification check. The person who makes the pool can pick any contract to do the logic.

Dotta says in this case, a Merkle tree is a gas-efficient way to designate a set of NFTs and gives the example that a person is willing to pay 1 ETH for any Kobold. On the client, the property of "Kobold" is designated and the IDs of all of the Kobolds are calculated. In this way, Dotta says this theoretical Kobold Connoisseur is able to basically set up an AMM that only provides liquidity for Kobolds. He says this is really powerful, and he doesn't feel like the design space has been explored because it's so new.

Elf interjects to say that he has no idea what Dotta and Owen are talking about and he and Bearsnake joke about being out of the conversational loop.

Dotta then asks Owen to give an example of the possibility of auction parameters from a layman's perspective.

Gradual Dutch Auctions

Owen says V2 has a new type of listing that behaves like a Dutch auction, where the price can start high and then decrease over time if people aren't purchasing. The difference here is that it's possible to have a Dutch auction with multiple items. Using the earlier example, he says the pool may start at 10 ETH and decrease over time to 5 ETH. If someone decides to buy a Wizard from the pool at 5 ETH, the pool then increases again in price after the first sale for the other 9 Wizards in the auction.

Dotta says, in theory, this could work well for a new mint, but he isn't sure about the gas price for loading the entire collection into a pool. Owen says this could cater to a mint, particularly if it was a collection of ERC-1155s because there wouldn't be a gas fee per token.

Two-Sided Pools

Dotta then asks if Sudo can be set up as a two-sided pool. Owen says that you are able to pick which address gets the tokens. By default, that address is the owner, so that the tokens go to their wallet. However, another pool could be selected as the recipient of those tokens.

Wrapping Up

Dotta says he doesn't think he has any other questions, and Elf chimes in to say he thinks it's cool that Sudo brought back royalties. Owen says the design came from a defensive position and the refusal to constantly play a game of Whack-A-Mole.

Owen's Web3 Origins

Bear says he loves origin stories and asks Owen how he came to be interested in these kinds of topics. Owen notes he was working on an NFT project as well, 0xmons. People in the community wanted to trade, which led to the creation of an OTC site. Following the creation of the OTC site, Owen began thinking about missing features, and potentials for marketplaces when opened up to let people program. Before working on NFTs Owen was doing Web2 programming, and applied to grad school for work with AI, but got rejected.

Elf says that he's been a fan of 0xmons for a long time and he is glad that Owen has been with Wizards since before the beginning and he's glad that they're all still connected. Following this, Owen says his DMs are open for anyone who wants more information on Sudoswap.

Elf also says that "part of his deal" is that he isn't so much into trading NFTs; he just buys NFTs that appeal to him. Dotta says this is the challenge of Sudoswap: it's for powerusers and worth looking into if you want sophisticated strategies to buy and sell.

The Shadows

Dotta Horror-Bombs Himself

Following this, Elf moves the conversation to The Shadows and notes Dotta's original operation of the Shadow Hats Twitter account, which has now been turned over to Elf. Dotta asked the account's followers to "sacrifice their souls to jelly donuts" for a chance at the Dark List. Shortly after this, Dotta realized he may have made a mistake, accidentally horror-bombing himself. He describes himself as a sensitive soul and says he was unable to stomach some of the video submissions. Elf says he loves it and certainly has the constitution for it.

How to Make the Dark List

Elf also says that he has been really impressed with the quality, theatrics, and cinematography of some of the submissions. In the videos, he was looking for creativity, and if the submission struck him, he gave the account a follow back. This means that account is Dark Listed. Dotta says the Dark List is basically the allowlist and reiterates to keep in mind this will be a paid mint. Elf says if you have been followed back by The Shadow Hats account, DM the team with your Ordinals address. Elf notes he may be slow to reply because of rate limits. Elf also says the team is keeping eyes on people who are being creative in general and making Shadow Hats art.

He notes there are more ways to achieve Dark Listed status, but these are TBD at the present time.

The Shadow's Supply

Dotta notes the supply for The Shadows will be 666. He says the team has wrestled with options for Dark List distribution to current Forgotten Runes holders while also inviting new members. He says he will keep everyone updated on the easiest ways for Wizards to participate.

Dotta says:

"We mostly think of The Shadows drop as being a marketing campaign for the collection and the IP...We really see this as a way to grow our community rather than some of the airdrops that we do, which are designed to reward the community."

Elf say this thesis is playing out, as he has seen a lot of engagement from the Ordinals community and has started to see a lot of new faces in the Discord. Dotta says the donut videos are drawing in people who have a drive to create, and that's what they're filtering for.

Elf Explores New Chains

Elf also says that he has been inspired to explore other chains lately, and mentions he has been buying NFTs on Tezos, which he says he could do a whole segment on. He also mentions finding another awesome NFT project on Cardano as well as shouting out Claynosaurz on Solana. Elf notes there are a lot of other communities to explore, but says that it makes sense to first explore the community on Bitcoin. Bear says that he wants this to be a case study for how to eloquently move from an ETH-based project and play in the Ordinals space.

Ordinals Market

Elf mentions that the ETH NFT market has been crashing lately and is curious if that will affect the Ordinals market. Dotta says a lot of ETH people were the first to explore Ordinals, but he feels it is also somewhat independent. Dotta mentions the mints of Ordinal Maxi Biz and the upcoming Lil Peepos from Inscribed Pepes that he anticipates will do really well. He says Ordinals haven't really suffered from the same liquidity tide going out that ETH has, because it's a totally independent chain.

Merlin's Shadow Hats Muse Page

Elf also gives a shout out to Merlin, who made a Muse page for The Shadow Hats, which is now linked on that account's page.

Ledger x FRWC Update & Forgotten Runiverse Update

Ledger Manufacturing Issues

Then, Bear gives a quick update about the Ledger collaboration, which has been pushed back due to misprints from the manufacturer. Bear says that he is happy that Ledger didn't push through subpar-quality Ledgers and notes that he will have some pictures of some of the prints that came out correctly soon. The team will hold off on distribution until the full batch can be distributed simultaneously.

Runiverse Whitepaper Update

Madotsuki also gives an update on the Runiverse game and says there is a trailer currently in the works. He mentions that a whitepaper for the game will likely be released within the next month or so to present all of the mechanics of the game.