#14 Ethlizards Newsletter, August — Building in the Bear Market
July Updates
July was one of the most dynamic months in the DAO’s history. There is a lot to share so grab some caffeine and strap in.
Pre-Seed Closed
Animositas and Kieran have been working behind the scenes for a couple months to finalize the individuals that are on our list to ensure we have an incredible base of support to build on for our seed round. Pre-seed investors have been confirmed. As was committed to the community, we have not partnered with any VCs for the pre-seed but instead targeted highly influential angel investors that we know can add tremendous value to the project. Keep your eyes out shortly for a formal announcement!
Core Contributors Ramp-up
The Lizard DAO has been ramping up hiring as we have scaled up to 18 Core Contributors. Many of you are understandably dying to meet them so we will roll these out in our Meet the Team series in Discord.
Each Core Contributor will have a short introduction and a chance to hear from them over time in town hall meetings. Please share any questions or topics you’d like to hear about from our newest lizards in the Underground Lounge!
Elemental Lizards and Community Competition
We’re working on the Elemental Lizard art concepts. Meta-data structures are set up in a heavily gamified way with the collection being structured as a combination of PFP collection, battle pass, and lite RPG elements. Generating a collection that pays homage to our Genesis and V2 collections while appealing to hard-core gamers is time-consuming and we’re exploring various concepts.
We are all in and fully committed to the concept of the Elemental Lizards. However, from a branding standpoint the label ‘Elemental Lizards’ is a bit of a mouthful. From now until midnight UTC on August 14th, we will be running a community competition for branding ideas for the new collection.
To participate, Ethlizards community members may submit 1 or 2 potential names for the collection in the following Elemental Lizard Competition thread.
Remember that the Elementals are the warrior lizards of our ecosystem. They will be descendants of a sort from the Genesis and V2 Lizards and are intended to appeal to gamers. The winning name will be selected by the admin team judging on brand memorability, identity, recognition, and collection positioning.
- For your submissions to be considered, please clearly label ideas with the word ‘Competition Submittal’ and your entry may NOT be edited.
- The first submission of a given name will be deemed the entrant for that idea.
- More than 2 potential submissions will disqualify the entrant entirely.
- The first and second runners-up will receive 150 Lizcoin.
- The winner for the competition will receive one complimentary Elemental Lizard, 500 Lizcoin (paid as $vLIZ), and inclusion into the Elemental Lore via an in-person discussion directly with Animositas.
May the best name win!
Battle in the Beyond Development
We could do an entire newsletter on the progress of Battle in the Beyond. July was the first full month of dev works and it started with a bang! We’ve successfully completed the development of the account and wallet integration functionality. Leaderboards are 90% done. Works for battle engine and D1sk integration are scheduled for upcoming sprints.
The design team has been crushing it as the wire frames are nearly done for the platform and we’re starting to turn our attention to the lore and art integration. Anyone wanting early insight into our lore will not want to miss Battle in the Beyond…
We completed a focus group comprised of a handful of notable content creators and top-tier players of Battle in the Beyond. Feedback was very positive about the platform with some great ideation for future features.
Marketing
From the outside our marketing has been quiet for July as much of our capacity was spent on brand strategy, evaluation of existing marketing activities, preparation for upcoming campaigns and branding materials to help guide the vision and continuity of the Ethlizards as we release new products.
We’ve been focused on staying consistent with Gamified and our X (Twitter) presence. This month, Ethlizards account hosted various AMAs and was a speaker on 10+ other Twitter Spaces. We’re being recognized and regularly invited to participate in other ecosystems.
Gamified maintains a strong viewership, alongside solid derivative content that is spawned from it each week. Not only does it get significant attention from external audiences, it also gives us a touchpoint to engage with some of Web3 Gaming’s most prominent influencers and project founders. Our branded content has continued to establish mindshare of the Ethlizards brand setting us up to expand the Ethlizards catalogue of offerings as we move forward.
The 4 episodes of Gamified in July featured some big players in web3 gaming:
- Jeremy Horn — Overworld
- Wild Paul and Katy Bettner — Wildcard
- Christopher Arrington — Skyborne Legacy
- Kohji — Parallel
- Kate Irving — Decrypt Media
- Gnoc — Magic Eden
- Paul — Carv
- Herman Narula — Improbable
- Michael O’Connor — Today the Game
Brand Positioning
Our vision is to be situated at the epicenter of Web3 gaming for decades to come. Toward that end, we are closely scrutinizing all aspects of our brand. This includes the usage of terms like Lizard Labs, Lizard DAO, Ethlizards, Genesis Lizards, V2 Lizards, sub-DAOs (Portfolio, Community, Partnership), etc. We have several ideas in this regard that we will unveil shortly to the community for feedback. This does not envision any fundamental changes to our structure but a focus to make our brand and project as accessible and understandable as possible for those wanting to join us. Additionally. the team is focusing on clarifying the brand positioning of each collection of NFTs.
Liaisons
For the month of July 2023, the Liaisons team secured 5 quality collabs with projects including Unioverse, Space Mavericks, The Machines Arena, Celeros, and Epoch. A total of 270 whitelist spots were distributed, and all Lizards who wanted an early access spot to The Machines Arena got one! The space is a lot quieter now as compared to Q1, 2023. That being said, the Liaisons team is still actively seeking out high quality collabs to bring to the DAO. All of the projects that were secured this month was through outreach by the Liaisons team or through existing partnerships. A lot of projects are building quietly in the background and we are noticing more gaming projects moving into the alpha/beta testing phase, which is exciting to see. We expect this trend to continue for Q3, 2023 and will be keeping our eyes peeled. If you have any recommendations or would like to see certain specific collabs, please feel free to reach out to any member of the Liaisons team in Discord!
No Standing/What So Not/Oliver Tree Music Video & OpenSea Disputes
As many in the community know, we’ve been been working through two pain points for the community. We have some positive and some negative news in this regard. First, the bad news. Every effort we’ve made to attempt to even enter a discussion with OpenSea on the relisting of our collection has been ignored. We’ve worked through over two dozen leads to no avail including other projects who were successfully re-listed (the OS supporters have left the organization), other supportive OS leaders who don’t have influence with the department in charge of our situation, and many Ethlizards partners/supporters. At this time, we do not believe we will find a diplomatic solution. We are evaluating the potential costs and benefits of various legal and consumer protection options for next steps.
Second, the good news. While the funds that Ethlizards paid for our music video last year from the original team to Oliver Tree via No Standing are gone, we have had numerous productive meetings with the No Standing team and What So Not. They are committed to finding an appropriate solution that returns value back to the Ethlizards in terms of some of the funding lost as well as meaningful support for our upcoming topics. This includes merchandise development, brand support, and specialized marketing and audio support from What So Not directly involved with the Ethlizards next marketing campaigns and product launches. Our project is in a very different place than when work was ongoing last fall so we are actively working to identify the best ways to bring value back to the DAO in a way that makes sense with where are now heading. Be on the lookout for a more detailed announcement in August.
Design, Art and Lore
Concepts and art style re-imagining has been at center stage for the past month for our artists and we’re starting on Battle in the Beyond asset discussions and IP integration points with the Illuvium team.
Our website is in desperate need of an overhaul to be brought in-line with our updated vision and brand image. July saw the completion of the visitor personas, information architecture, community focus group survey and first design completed. Many of us who have been dying to get to Lizard Island may not have as long to wait as we thought… The Ethlizards hidden lore has long been a mystery, even for OG holders. July has provided significant progress in the search for our true origin story. Those wondering where the lizards came from and why they are here will have some questions answered soon.
Governance and Organizational Updates
This brings us to a short update on governance and organizational updates. We’ve been in evaluation with advisors, partners, and legal representatives for several months of potential organizational entity structures that will ensure both regulatory and legal compliance in all regards for our DAO structures. Recent court cases and legislation (particularly SEC vs. XRP and MiCA in the EU) provide a bit more clarity. We will share proposals for upcoming structural plans via LIP in the next couple of months.
Portfolio Council Updates
It’s been a fast-paced start for the Portfolio Council’s second epoch. New addition JP (aka missionpoole) hasn’t wasted any time and has been bringing a consistent flow of new opportunities to the table, with Lizident and Haitzu continuing to pass on interesting deals as they come up.
To date, this list of potential deals has been narrowed down to 15 gaming opportunities at varying stages of a detailed review and due diligence process. The visualization below shows you at a glance how the slate of opportunities has progressed::
- Did we request/receive a formal pitch deck?
- Did we accept the opportunity for further analysis?
- Have we connected with the team (e.g. Telegram group)?
- Have we had further detailed calls, such as specific discussions about tokenomics and deal parameters?
- Have we ultimately accepted or declined the opportunity, or is it still being worked through?
Epoch 2 Opportunity Flow: July 2023 Update
While we haven’t reached consensus on closing any deals yet, we have been able to filter the list and focus on those with the most promise. The Council has already faced some interesting decisions in these first 6 weeks. Are we only interested in games? What about other gaming-related projects, or even projects entirely outside of gaming that look like an attractive deal? For now we’re maintaining a strong (but not exclusive) focus on games, with a clear preference for token deals that aren’t accessible to the public.
As for what’s next, one of our biggest hurdles is establishing a formal entity that can enter into agreements. This is expected by the end of the year, but we’re exploring options to fast-track the initial steps as this would open up a significant new stream of opportunities. Danny’s experience in this area is invaluable and he has a number of potential partners on the sidelines, ready for when things are lining up on our side.
For now, we’re continuing to work through the process with the most promising ideas on the table and engaging in more detailed discussions with those teams as needed.
Ani’s Alpha
Many of you are touching grass while the NFT markets remain a dumpster fire, macro conditions face serious headwinds, and we’re deep in build mode at the Ethlizards. We appreciate your ongoing support and want to share some alpha with you:
In late August and early September, the Ethlizards will be partnering with some major Web3 gaming projects with a combined reach of well over a million players for an event you won’t want to miss — Mystery of the Nexus.
WTF is a Nexus? Stick around to find out.
About
The Ethlizards are positioned at the nexus of innovative projects within the Web3 gaming landscape. Ethlizards brings together an exceptional mix of avid gamers, visionary builders, and savvy investors, establishing itself as a highly esteemed partner in the GameFi ecosystem. Our unique position spans various verticals, encompassing Web3 game studios, infrastructure partners, venture capitalists, and gaming organizations. We seamlessly blend the best aspects of VCs and Web3 gaming guilds/DAOs while co-developing solutions with our partners.
Ethlizards is fostering a community that features successful investors, project founders, and a multitude of individuals actively committed to creating and contributing value. Our distinguished partners and advisors, including founders of major Web3 projects, remain actively involved at all protocol levels. At Ethlizards, we firmly believe that an exclusive focus on value extraction in Web3 is counterproductive. Through our early-stage GameFi portfolio activities, we ensure the long-term success of the DAO, while our short-term strategies prioritize gamification, product development, and extensive partnership growth. This holistic approach positions us to thrive amidst the industry’s rapid expansion in the coming years.
