- Born in October 2021, Botto is already a landmark project in Web 3 and AI art, selling $2.3M worth art and becoming a top-15 all-time artist on SuperRare
- The DAO recently approved a new economic and artistic model for its second period that distributes ETH revenue directly to voters
- Botto’s art engine has incorporated Stable Diffusion into its creative process, and will continue to add new models and themes in the coming months
- The DAO has created a new set of economic and social incentives, better aligned with the purpose of training the AI for breakthrough artistic production
Genesis Period: A Year of Co-Creation
In October 2021, Botto launched an exploratory adventure into the frontier of AI art and human collaboration thanks to the mechanisms available in Web 3: community coordination through token-centered DAOs.
Throughout its Genesis Period, Botto’s art engine produced +4000 provisional artworks each week, dubbed fragments, through a unique recipe of VQGAN+CLIP prepared by artist Mario Klingemann. It then selected 350 of those fragments and delivered them to the community of $BOTTO token holders for their consideration. By the end of every 7 day period, Bottonians would have voted their favorite fragment, which would then be minted and auctioned on SuperRare.
Fifty-two weekly auctions later, Botto can say that it is now a landmark project in digital art. It has become a top-15 all time best selling artist on SuperRare with over $2.3M in sales, with many to illustrious collectors such as Cozomo de Medici, 6529, AC the Collector, Moderats and BeautifulNFTs, as well as art collecting DAOs like Flamingo DAO, Hashes DAO, or CyborgDAO.
Botto has also managed to make a name for itself in the offline art world, with 12 IRL exhibitions in cities such as New York (where it was awarded with the NFT.NYC Annual Awards 2021 for the Best Use of Artificial Intelligence), Miami, LA, Venice, Paris, Madrid, and most recently London, where it celebrated its anniversary with a special exhibition called “Botto: One Year of Co-Creation”.
Botto’s new creative process
On October 24th BottoDAO unanimously voted in favor of BIP-14, an iteration of the project that sets the foundations for a new art engine and economic model. Botto has thus begun its Second Period, titled “Fragmentation”. This Period is loaded with innovations in its artistic process, incentive mechanisms and community access to the voting experience.
The new Art Engine will incorporate one of the most exciting models in generative AI, Stable Diffusion, to generate fragments alongside VQGAN+CLIP, and compete with it for the votes of the community.
Botto’s new periods will now be shorter in time. The DAO will have the opportunity to decide on a new artistic course every 12 weeks, by suggesting and voting on themes. The art engine is also open to new generative methods, should the community suggest so.
The voting mechanics and sales process remain the same, with community members providing their input through weekly votes that will decide what fragment finally gets minted and sold on SuperRare.
Botto’s new economy
The project has also revamped its rewards mechanism to further incentivize community participation through monetary, social and artistic rewards. Art curation, expressed through Voting Point expenditure, is the way the community transmits its taste to the AI and trains the algorithm to evolve artistically. To date, over 5000 individuals have used over 1.5M voting points in Botto’s app. It is the most important contribution from Bottonians, and the new model realigns the incentives to encourage it.
The new economic model puts a stronger focus on these most constructive behaviors. It redirects 50% of sales to the community: 25% to reward voting efforts, and another 25% for future retroactive rewards for the community to assign according to community approved and generated KPIs that prove individual contribution to the common purpose.
Streamlined way of participating in Botto
The project has also created a new way of accessing the Botto experience, through the launch of Access Passes. Access Passes are mintable assets that provide regenerating Voting Points to its owners. They are designed to become the first point of entry for new users attracted by the artistic and technical breakthroughs of the Decentralized Autonomous Artist.
$BOTTO holders and stakers will retain full membership benefits: they hold governance power and priority for rewards. With Access Passes, owners can also become $BOTTO holders through incentivized onboarding bounties, and can therefore earn their way to becoming community members with full rights.
In short, Access Passes create a streamlined process into full ownership and participation through individual contribution.
Access Passes are already available on Botto.com, and the token is available on Uniswap with the token address 0x9dfad1b7102d46b1b197b90095b5c4e9f5845bba. For an easy walk through on getting the token, head to https://docs.botto.com/users/quickstart.
Botto’s new art engine and economy will be effective on November 1st, with the first artwork of the new era being put to auction on the 16th of November.
