BTC Flower: Generative NFTs on the Internet Computer Bloom Into DAO
The NFT series adapts to external signals, is developing a Flower Power DAO for governance, and is about to airdrop ETH Flowers.
When Satoshi Nakamoto developed Bitcoin following the 2008 financial crisis, he created a trustless digital currency that fostered an alternative economic system. In early 2018, this revolutionary vision led the Paris-based street artist Ludo to paint the artwork “R.I.P. Banking System,” an iconic image of a Bitcoin sunflower blooming above a set of gravestones marked with the symbols of major global currencies: the pound sterling, the dollar, the yen and yuan, and the euro.
Thus was born BTC Flower, a pioneering global crypto artwork that is now tokenized as a series of generative NFTs that demonstrate the possibilities of what an NFT project on the Internet Computer blockchain can achieve.
BTC Flowers, which grew from an initial assortment of NFT seeds, are the first NFTs running on the Internet Computer that adapt to external signals. The 20 front petals of each BTC Flower animate dynamically in a variety of patterns according to the price of bitcoin, giving the illusion of motion. The animations move faster if the price is up, and slower when it is down.
The project will also soon become the first Internet Computer NFT that gives holders voting rights in a DAO — the Flower Power DAO — to help guide the project’s direction. And the team’s developers are preparing the launch of a second installment series — ETH Flower — in the near future (details further below).
Dynamic NFTs
BTC Flower debuted for public sale on January 23, and all 2,009 flowers sold out on the Entrepot marketplace within 30 seconds. The project’s launch benefited from minimal gas fees for the developers and speedy transactions for purchasers.
“The launch went exactly as planned,” the BTC Flower team later wrote in a blog post. “No display or purchase errors, no bot attacks, and generally no hiccups. The sale did not cause a gas war on transaction fees. Hosting this gasless experience cost us only a few dollars in cycles.”
Buyers received an identical seed in their crypto wallet, each of which bloomed into a unique BTC Flower with a random mix of characteristics and varying rates of rarity. Within three weeks, the floor price jumped from 16 ICP tokens to 275 ICP. The project is currently ranked first among Internet Computer NFT projects by market cap, according to Avocado Research.
Each NFT’s combination of characteristics regarding tombstone, symbol, petals, and bitcoin texture differs from the others. BTC Flowers might be gold plated with a diamond tombstone and a silver-colored bitcoin pistil, while another might be shaded entirely in green. The random animations track the price of bitcoin via a price oracle supplied to the asset canister smart contract.
“We wanted a more fun and beautiful way of checking bitcoin prices than blockfolio,” explains Andrew Phillips, one of the founders behind the project with Ludo. “The NFT is loaded by your browser. Your browser then makes a call to a price oracle API, and the petals move accordingly.”
“We’re entirely hosted on the Internet Computer, which means we have zero reliance on Big Tech,” he adds. “No other blockchain can handle what we wanted to do with respect to petal movements and animations and remaining entirely on-chain.”
A 2021 Moonstream report highlighted that only 17% of Ethereum wallets hold 81% of Ethereum NFTs, representing a high concentration among NFT whales. BTC Flower, in contrast, currently has 764 individual accounts holding 2,009 BTC Flower tokens, with 452 holders possessing just one of the NFTs. “We are very fortunate to have such a distributed and strong community,” Phillips says.
“The Internet Computer (IC), for all intents and purposes, is the best technological embodiment of the Web3 dream we have,” writes Evan McFarland, the project’s technical writer and governance expert. “Being such a young and foundationally different type of blockchain, the IC has no set precedent.”
Flower Power DAO: Decentralized Governance
The Flower Power DAO will embody the decentralized philosophy underpinning BTC Flower. Voting rights will empower BTC Flower holders to become essential stakeholders in the project by participating in decentralized governance. Each BTC Flower holder will have equal voting rights in the DAO, irrespective of a given flower’s characteristics.
Incentivized voting will promote active participation from BTC Flower holders through a proportionate rewards mechanism. “For instance, we might have five potential projects to collaborate with,” Phillips offers by way of example. “We would put up for a community vote. All votes would be calculated blindly, so no one knows who is voting for what. Then at the end of the voting period, the results will be revealed. Those who voted with the majority would get a free airdrop.”
Flower Power DAO members will help determine new artistic collaborations involving independent artists. The BTC Flower team has already begun onboarding digital artists and musicians, such as DJ White Shadow for the DJWS Flower collection. White Shadow, Phillips explains, “will be supplying dozens of individual beats, and we’re working on designs of petal movements moving to the respective soundtracks.” The collection is expected to drop in May. (Here’s a sneak peek.)
“The Flower Power DAO vision is to create a curated place where the community can sponsor artists selected by the team,” notes Phillips. “Flower holders participating in the DAO will be involved in the production of the works, and will be rewarded as well from the sale of the editions.”
While development work on the DAO is ongoing, BTC Flower is already implementing decentralized democracy via Discord poll results. The project’s community voted on how to conduct the ETH Flower airdrop, and suggested tombstone symbols for the ETH Flowers that Ludo is creating. Although Ludo exercises complete creative freedom in the design of the NFTs, community input and guidance strengthens the project.
ETH Flower: The Second Installment
ETH Flower will consist of 2,015 unique NFTs with fresh designs from Ludo and dynamic, animated petals linked to the price of ether. Newly incorporated features will include marble and acrylic drips for flower materials as well as different tombstone signs. The team plans to airdrop 2,009 ETH Flowers to existing BTC Flower holders while auctioning the remaining six ETH Flowers on Entrepot.
Following a Discord poll result, the team conducted a random snapshot for airdropping ETH Flowers, which recorded the balance of each NFT holder during a random one-week time period between Feb 23 to March 2. BTC Flower holders will receive a random ETH Flower in a 1:1 ratio to their BTC Flower on March 23, precisely two months after the launch of BTC Flower.
The team has similar plans for launching an ICP Flower collection as the third crypto installment in Q4 2022.
In the meanwhile, the BTC Flower team is preparing an upcoming exhibition with Musee Dezentral, a decentralized NFT Museum in the metaverse, that will take place in May. The team was also invited to showcase BTC Flower at Art Basel this fall.
Ultimately, the BTC Flower community will decide what the future holds for the project.
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