Launching Fingerprints DAO: Why On-Chain Art Matters
We are launching the Fingeprints DAO, owner of the Fingerprints Collection.
The main goal of the DAO is to curate, collect and promote on-chain artwork.
While doing this, we believe we’ll also build one of the most valuable DAO treasuries over the next decade.
This collection starts with 20 Autoglyphs with rarities from #1 to #7, amounting to 4% of the total supply. It’s the 3rd largest Autoglyph collection in the world.
It was assembled during the past 30 days by a small group of Brazilians led by Luiz (aka DT) and Shira.
Fingerprints was a DAO first, a collection second. The founding members are entrepreneurs and the idea was always to build a living organism, well beyond the initial collection.
The Macro Thesis for NFTs as a DAO treasury asset
Tier 1s
Tier-1 NFTs, denominated in ETH, should outperform ETH itself as the Ethereum economy grows — mainly from DeFi at the moment. Their scarcity makes them the true SOV once you’re crypto native.
Anything below Tier-1 presents a worse risk-return.
Collections vs. 1 of 1s
We look at collections because we want the DAO treasury to have the flexibility to allocate and manage the portfolio.
1 of 1s can appreciate more than collections, but they lack liquidity. The same goes for small collections and for ultra-rare types in a particular collection.
Historical Significance
When we look at the tier-1 collections, CryptoPunks stands out. The most successful NFT collection, launched in 2017, with an estimated market cap estimated of well over $1B, at current prices.
CryptoPunks than would be an obvious choice. But there’s something above Punks. A smaller collection that the average Punk owner can barely afford, with a similar (or higher) historical significance and the same provenance: Autoglyphs.
Why on-chain artwork matters?
Autoglyphs were the first fully on-chain art. Created in 2019, they’re a completely self-contained mechanism for the creation and ownership of an artwork.
There are 3 types of NFT:
- fully centralized NFTs (like NBA Top Shot), where no information is in a public blockchain;
- “pointers”, NFTs where the certificate of provenance is on a public blockchain, but the artwork itself is elsewhere;
- fully on-chain NFTs
Most NFTs fall under the first two categories. Surprisingly few NFTs today attempt to use the blockchain itself as medium and storage.
But we believe this is the true lasting story of this current hype cycle. The innovation of NFTs is not to have a database of certificates of provenance linked to an artwork stored elsewhere. The innovation is to have the token be the artwork itself.
Fully on-chain NFTs are the closest you can get to holding a physical artwork. For a DAO, an organization that puts decentralization first in its acronym, holding on-chain NFTs should matter even more than to an individual.
This is the rationale for our decision to start with Autoglyphs and to focus on on-chain artwork.
The DAO and Token Distribution
On-chain artwork, curated by a group of individuals that uses the blockchain itself to coordinate. Poetry.
The Fingerprints DAO token ($PRINTS) distribution will be the following:
- The DAO itself owns 50% of $PRINTS
- 50% was distributed to the donors of the founding collection (the 20 Autoglyphs)
Our goal is to progressively decentralize both ownership and decision-making in the DAO.
Phase 1
A selected group of crypto native entrepreneurs, artists, devs and collectors is being selected to get early access to a meaningful portion of $PRINTS once it’s launched.
This group is the first step in the direction of decentralization of ownership from the founding donors.
The first task the DAO governance will have after this group is in will be deciding what else should we collect besides Autoglyphs (and how much).
Phase 2
Progressively opening up the DAO to outsiders, mostly from invites from the Phase 1 group, but keeping the flexibility to change course.
Phase 3
Open the DAO to all, with different roles depending on the skin in the game and track record as a contributor.
Where to find more about us?
PS: We decided to change the name from Prints DAO to Fingerprints DAO. The original article was edited accordingly.
