TL;DR: With a new update or NFT collection being released almost every day, it’s clear the crypto ecosystem is constantly evolving. Meebits is one of the NFT collections paving the road to the digital universe — but it’s just the beginning. Knowing what brought it here and why it was created will lead you to make better decisions when investing or simply interacting with Meebits.
In this article, we’re gonna dive into the Meebits lore, answer all the Meebits related questions and even more. Prepare yourself for a fantasy story and a journey to the future of Meebits!
What is Meebits?
Meebits is an NFT collection of 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters that live on the Ethereum blockchain.
Unlike other NFTs, Meebits doesn’t have a lore or a specific story. Instead, they let the holders decide which way the creative direction goes.
Owning an NFT is different than screenshotting a JPEG — just like holding an original Rembrandt is more valuable than owning a replica. As their name suggests, NFTs are non-fungible by design. This is different from digital tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Fungible assets can be exchanged for another asset of the same type, much like BTC, ETH, or even fiat. NFTs, on the other hand, are unique assets where their ownership details are documented on the blockchain, ensuring digital scarcity and unique attributes for each asset.
But how exactly is digital scarcity being enforced?
The concept of NFTs first emerged in 2012 with the creation of Colored Coins, which could be used to represent real-world assets on the blockchain. However, Colored Coins only worked in a permitted environment, making it more similar to a database than anything else.
As the crypto industry became more popular, people have continued to experiment with the idea of a digitally scarce asset. This led to the creation of ERC-721 and ERC-1155.
The ERC-721 standard is like a set of rules for making NFTs. These actions help in making special tokens with their unique information, making them different from one another.
Behind the scenes, ERC-721 smart contracts keep a list of who owns which token, making it safe to pass tokens from one person to another. The contract also keeps count of how many tokens there are altogether and how many each person has.
As previously mentioned, Meebits NFTs are secured by the Ethereum blockchain. Ownership and transaction history are publicly visible on the Ethereum blockchain along with other important info such as the NFT’s metadata.
Understanding how to access an NFT’s metadata is essential for holders to grasp the specifics of what they’re buying.
Metadata usually includes visual attributes like color, type, wearables, and so on. On the blockchain, it looks something like this:
Meebits have their own set of traits that make up their. These are: beard, beard color, earring, glasses, glasses color, hair color, hair style, hat, hat color, jersey number, necklace, overshirt, overshirt color, pants, pants color, shirt, shirt color, shoes, shoes color, tattoo motif, type.
Some traits are rarer than others, which makes a specific NFT stand out from the rest. For example, only 0.36% of all Meebits have the robot type, or only 9% of all Meebits are bald.
Rarity is a mix of all these traits and it makes the specific Meebit more valuable.
The Meebits NFT collection has been autogenerated. This means that out of the potential combinations, only 20,000 Meebits will ever exist!
What is the utility of Meebits?
Meebits make for an awesome avatar pic, but it’s also your ticket to the Meebits ecosystem.
If you are an artist, then owning a Meebit gives you a free license to monetize it which way you see fit. Furthermore, you get access to the Meebits holders Discord, where other Meebits holders can join you in the journey to create awesome merch or apps that have Meebits in them.
As the Meebits brand expands, NFT holders will be able to continually earn rewards. Whether you are hodling for a season or longer, the Meebits ecosystem continues to explore new ways of keeping holders engaged.
Who created Meebits?
Meebits was created by Larva Labs in 2021. After the success of CryptoPunks, its founders went a step further to create 3D avatars that inherit the Punk aesthetics in a refreshed vision.
The story behind the Meebits NFT collection begins with its creators, Matt Hall and John Watkinson, who are the same team behind the famous CryptoPunks collection. Their partnership traces back more than a decade before the birth of the first Bitcoin block. They initially collaborated in Toronto during the early 1990s, where they were captivated by the creative possibilities of computers and aimed to build, experiment, and explore new frontiers in technology.
Their journey led them to the Ethereum community, known for its "cyberpunk vibe" and decentralized ethos, which deeply resonated with their counterculture values. This marked the beginning of their NFT journey.
Inspired by the decentralized and punk rock ethos of the crypto space, they embarked on a creative sprint that resulted in the birth of CryptoPunks. However, CryptoPunks had a rather unimpressive start, with a limited number of claims during its initial free-to-claim launch.
Recognizing the need to refine their approach, Hall and Watkinson managed to secure coverage from Mashable, which brought much-needed attention and credibility to their project.
As CryptoPunks went on to achieve massive success, Hall and Watkinson continued their creative journey, eventually launching Meebits in May 2021. Meebits can be seen as a spiritual successor to CryptoPunks, aiming to bring the iconic CryptoPunks aesthetic into the 3D realm and serve as the ideal 3D avatar for the emerging Web3 era.
The launch of Meebits comprised two main components: a community grant and a public sale.
As part of the community grant, CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs owners had the opportunity to "redeem" their collectibles for a complimentary Meebit. Owners retained ownership of their original CryptoPunks or Autoglyphs, but the Meebits contract would mark them as "used" once the Meebit had been claimed. The remaining Meebits were earmarked for sale to the public. The exciting aspect of this grant was that participants didn't know which specific Meebits they would receive, creating an element of surprise. Holders were also given the chance to trade their collectibles in a newly developed marketplace.
The Meebits that were not allocated through the Community Grant were made available for direct sale to the public. The team initially set a price of 2.5 ETH for each Meebit, with the intention of gradually reducing the price to 0 ETH over the course of the week, or until all the Meebits were sold. Within an astonishing six hours of being released to the public, all available Meebits were swiftly sold out. This meant that the price of a single Meebit had surpassed 2.4 ETH by the time the sale concluded. After the public sale concluded, Larva Labs made more than $70 million in revenue.
A lesser-known fact about the Meebits NFT mint is that it had an exploit. Originally, Meebits' NFT generation was meant to be entirely random. However, this newly discovered exploit empowered users to specifically select and mint high-value Meebits for free (excluding the ETH gas costs).
The exploit in the Meebits smart contract enabled individuals to handpick the Meebits they desired to mint. This means they could target the rarest and most valuable Meebits, which can be worth substantial sums. This exploit remained active during the mint, with multiple users employing contracts to uncover the remaining rare Meebits.
To give more info, the minter was able to initiate the mint function and undo the transaction if they didn't obtain a sufficiently rare Meebit. This process could have been continued until a rare Meebit was found, at which point the contract owner allowed the mint to be completed.
By investing a few thousand dollars in gas fees, exploiters have been able to obtain rare Meebits worth hundreds of thousands, and potentially even millions of dollars. In one notable instance, an exploiter successfully minted a rare Meebit and promptly sold it on OpenSea for a staggering 200 ETH, worth over $700,000 at the time.
Shortly after discovering the bug, the development team temporarily suspended community minting. However, the community brushed off the incident and moved on.
Who is developing Meebits now?
In 2022, Larva Labs sold the IP rights for CryptoPunks and Meebits collections to Yuga Labs. This means Yuga Labs is in charge of developing the brand direction for the Meebits collection.
Besides Yuga Labs, the Meebits community has united under the MeebitsDAO, an on-chain governance system. MeebitsDAO aims to create a structured roadmap and accountability for the creation of a Meebits metaverse.
It is important to mention that the MeebitsDAO is not affiliated with Yuga Labs. Rather, it is a collective of builders that wish to create more utility around their Meebits.
MeebitsDAO initially issued 200 Founder Tokens, which could be acquired by people holding at least one Meebit. Additionally, non-founders of the DAO can delegate their general Membership NFT token to the founders.
The system is slightly adjusted to give voting weight to Meebits holders and non-holders. These tokens are called $MOVX, and they accumulate in the wallets of the founders and members over time.
$MVOX has its own liquidity pool on Uniswap and PancakeSwap, where users can accumulate tokens. The $MVOX tokens can be burned to create new General Membership Tokens, which means new members can join the MeebitsDAO.
MeebitsDAO has a governance structure that involves several key components:
Steering Committee: The Steering Committee's primary role is to support the DAO and oversee day-to-day decision-making. They ensure that decisions made by the Voting Members are put into action. Importantly, the Steering Committee doesn't possess additional rights or privileges beyond their responsibilities. Their status within the community can vary, making them either Voting Members or Non-Voting Members based on their contributions, similar to the general community.
Voting Members: Initially, the Voting Members consist of the Founding Members. As the DAO evolves, voting rights will transition into a tokenized format using ERC-721 tokens, which can be transferred. Voting Members play a crucial role in the governance of the DAO, as they vote on proposals, project plans, changes to the roadmap, the allocation of prizes in hackathons, and more. They serve as the governing body responsible for decision-making within the DAO.
Non-Voting Members: Holders of General Membership tokens have the opportunity to participate by staking their tokens in Voting Members. These Voting Members can act as delegates, representing the interests and preferences of the general membership. This system allows for representative governance, ensuring that the broader community's voice is heard. The aim is to enable participation in the DAO at all levels.
Sponsors: Sponsors contribute funds to cover the administrative and infrastructure costs associated with running the DAO. This financial support helps cover expenses such as community management, custom tool development, and overhead. The budget for these costs is subject to approval by the governing body of the DAO. In return for their support, Sponsors gain the ability to propose projects for consideration by the DAO, organize hackathons, and even fund specific projects. For instance, a sponsor like "Metaverse Inc." could finance a team to integrate Meebits into their Metaverse VR application, and the funds allocated for this purpose would eventually return to the DAO treasury.
How does Meebits make money?
Now, let’s get to the juicy part – how does Meebits make money?💰 (No, flipping and rug pulling are not the correct answers)
The answer to this question is strongly related to intellectual property.
Think of popular trademarks such as Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, or Coca-Cola. Every time you see movies, books merch, or posters with them, know that the owners of the IP get a share of the profits. The same thing goes for NFT holders, in theory.
When it comes to NFTs, it’s quite challenging to fit them into the traditional framework of copyright law. To give more context, owning an NFT doesn’t mean holders have automatic control over the creative work. This creative control needs to be granted by the creator.
As such, NFT holders should pay attention to what IP rights, if any, come with owning the NFT.
When Larva Labs created Meebits, holders had no IP rights for the NFT. Things changed after Yuga Labs had acquired the IP. As part of the acquisition, Yuga Labs has authorized the use of the IP of any individual's owned Meebits. This means NFT holders have full commercial rights to the art in their owned wallets. There are no monetary limits on earnings from merchandise, derivatives, or other commercial uses.
Another way of generating revenue is via royalties. As of 2023, Yuga Labs makes 5% royalty fees from secondary sales.
The mission of Meebits is to experiment with the concept of 3D avatars and turn it into a compelling experience for NFT holders and non-holders alike. After the acquisition, Yuga Labs went on to create a refreshed website for Meebits.
With the first iteration, people could create printable Meebits. This meant customizing the look of the Meebit and making it dance 🕺
The second iteration involves setting the mood for the Meebit. If you like the mood, you can even take a snap pic of it and use it as an avatar.
Where can I buy Meebits?
You can buy Meebits on OpenSea.