Creators can pledge their own NFT works or the entire smart contract to obtain WHALE tokens. The pledged NFT is sold at the WHALE price, thereby increasing the use of WHALE.
Written by: Mason Nystrom, Messari Analyst Compiler: Leo Young
The development of crypto asset primitives is changing with each passing day. Fundamental tokens such as liquid mining and community currency represent the increasing popularity of personal and human capital, and they are now becoming more integrated. The community token WHALE is backed by a non-homogeneous token (NFT) with a value of one million U.S. dollars, and its current market value is 26 million U.S. dollars.
WHALE has entered the liquid mining market as an NFT, and creators can tokenize their talents.
The story of the WHALE token
The $WHALE token was created by WhaleShark, one of the largest individual NFT buyers in the crypto asset market. WHALE tokens are indirectly backed by WhaleShark’s NFT assets. These assets are stored in an address called “Vault” (Vault), which is mainly controlled by WhaleShark.
The Nonfungible team’s latest audit of WhaleShark’s “Vault” announced that the “Vault” currently has more than 3,200 NFT assets in 45 projects, with a total value of approximately US$1 million. Even more striking is that the total value of treasury assets has increased by 26% in the past month.
Although WHALE has not publicly stated the ownership of the NFTs in the “Vault”, most of the NFTs are deposited in the vault by WhaleShark. WhaleShark has the motivation to add value to WHALE. In addition, WhaleShark has added some new features to its personal tokens, with the goal of bringing more features and gradually decentralizing token ownership.
WHALE token has the following functions:
- Purchasing NFT works of WHALE partners (such as artists, games, collections, etc.)
- Specially rent real estate or artwork on the chain in the “treasury” portfolio
- WHALE can be paid at the price of 1 WHALE per minute in exchange for WhaleShark business consulting and other services
- To publish proposals or vote in WHALE DAO
The founder of the WHALE token is also considering adding other functional mechanisms in the future, and plans to use all the “treasury” asset sales income or rent to purchase more NFTs to add value to the “treasury”.
Detailed explanation of “whale vault”
The main asset supporting the function of the WHALE token is the “NFT Treasury”, which will eventually be managed by Whale DAO. The August audit report showed that “Whale Treasury” holds 3,212 NFT assets with a total value of US$949,683.
The Sandbox ‘s NFT accounted for nearly 50% of the total assets of the “Vault”, while SuperRare and Gods Unchained accounted for 15% and 9% of the total assets, respectively. KnownOrigin, MakersPlace and CryptoVoxels all account for at least 5%.
In-depth analysis of the “Vault” found that the NFT assets of the four projects SuperRare, Gods Unchained, CryptoVoxels and The Sandbox accounted for more than 80% of the total investment portfolio value. In addition to Sandbox, the other three projects have received high attention in the early stages.
It is worth noting that projects such as Avastars and MakersPlace that are not of high interest account for 5% of the total value of the “Vault” portfolio.
Interestingly, there is no Decentraland in the “Vault” portfolio. It may indicate that WhaleShark is not optimistic about this project, or that it is currently overvalued. As the “treasury” grows, it is worth paying attention to which new projects have gradually received unanimous attention from the community, and more importantly, WHALE DAO’s funds.
Although “treasury” assets have increased by 25% in the past month, half of the growth is due to new assets, not asset appreciation.
A few months later, the room for appreciation of total assets in ETH is the real test. It is worth noting that the NFT is still very early, and the success or failure of the “whale vault” is enough time for five to ten years.
“Whale Decentralized Autonomous Organization” and “Whale Community”
Recently, in order to actively promote the decentralization of the “Whale Community”, the founder of WHALE initiated WHALE DAO.
Supply
The following token supply details are determined in WHALE’s white paper:
- $WHALE is a hard cap of 10 million, of which one million is reserved for partners and management teams, which may include Roll, a platform that sells personal tokens, and Nonfungible, which is responsible for monthly audits of the vault.
- The next four million WHALE will be distributed at a rate of 50,000 WHALE per month. The use of the remaining funds is not yet clear and is expected to be used in charitable trusts or distributed to the community in the future.
Detailed explanation of non-homogeneous token liquidity mining
Since the WHALE token was launched in May this year, it has risen from $0.2 to the highest point of $6.69. As of press time, the price is approximately US$7 and the market value is approximately US$2600 million.
In order to encourage the growth of “Whale Treasury”, the WHALE community initiated a liquid mining project. Creators can pledge their own NFT works or the entire smart contract to get more WHALE tokens. Ten $WHALE creators will be rewarded with 2000 WHALE every month for the first three months of the NFT liquidity mining plan. The pledged NFTs are sold exclusively at WHALE price, so as to increase the use of WHALE.
The potential of NFT liquidity mining is that the community is more viscous than standard DeFi liquidity mining. The project does not need to pursue profit-seeking funds with high annual returns. The creator’s NFT is exclusive and cannot flow into other similar NFT projects. Each additional NFT will increase the value of the “treasury”. NFT also does not have high liquidity, unless someone buys it, which will increase the value of WHALE tokens.
More importantly, creators have a higher degree of integration with the “whale vault”, because the energy invested in transferring assets is greater than just investing capital, and capital investment only needs to consider the opportunity cost. Followers and fans of individual creators such as artists will also bring more value to the community. The value of NFT’s additional liquidity is higher than that of stablecoins or DeFi food tokens.
The “treasury” will play a role in absorbing NFTs and linking creators, rather than attracting profit-seeking capital.
In the short and medium term, NFT liquidity mining may prove to be a more efficient growth mechanism. As for whether the “whale treasury” will produce a virtuous circle, it is currently unknown, because the assets of the “treasury” have not yet been sold. In addition, OpenSea, Rarible or other NFT liquidity projects may be more successful than WHALE DAO. Brand new community tokens with unique value capture capabilities are under development. Perhaps, a certain person or team will eventually create a community token that matches the market. Perhaps, community tokens have always been a mirror image of water and moon.
