On September 23rd, 2022, we launched nounlets.wtf, our take on collective ownership and governance over an individual Noun and the flagship Nounlets auction of Noun 315 has officially come to a close. We’ve been blown away by the reception and are delighted to continue experimentation in the design space of the collective ownership and governance of a Noun.
Here’s a look back at the experiment we call Nounlets and what the fuck the future holds.
What the fuck are Nounlets?
Since their launch over a year ago, the Nouns project has garnered significant mindshare in the web3 community for their novel distribution, treasury-building, and funding mechanisms — however, most web3 collectors remain unable to participate in NounsDAO with Nouns routinely auctioning off for 50+ ETH… This is where Nounlets come in.
Nounlets are our approach in democratizing access to the NounsDAO community. Nounlets are created when a Noun is deposited into the Tessera Nounlets vault contract. Upon deposit, 100 Nounlets are sequentially auctioned off.
Rather than purchase a Noun, a collector can instead purchase a Nounlet. With this Nounlet, they are given a delegate vote that they can allocate towards any wallet address of their choosing. The wallet address with the most delegate votes is the official representative to the NounsDAO on behalf of the underlying Noun.
In addition to participating in governance, all Nounlet owners are invited to join the Nounlets community on our Discord.
How did it go?
The first auction started off strong with Nounlet 1 closing out for the very fair and reasonable price of 4.2069 ETH… a historic price for a historic NFT sale. Upon the close of the final Nounlet auction, Noun 315 sold for a cumulative price of 94 ETH.
On the governance side, Noun 315 has had a total of three different delegates. 0xspicymarg.eth quickly took a surmountable lead with numerous delegate votes.
This lead was short-lived as nounlet315.eth purchased a total of 13 Nounlets and at the time of this writing secured another 7 votes, giving them Noun 315’s governance power. In total, 32% of Noun 315’s Nounlets have delegated their votes, so there is still potential for shifts in the delegate standings as participation increases.
What did people think?
We’re delighted to see that the community response has been overwhelmingly positive. Above and beyond community participation in the auctions themselves, we’ve seen substantial public discussion and private outreach regarding the merit of our implementation and requests for future Nounlet expansion.
What’s next?
Okay, enough preamble. We know you’re wondering… what the fuck is the future of Nounlets?
To the Nouners asking for more Nounlets….we hear you. Noun 315 was just the beginning. We’re thrilled to announce that we will continue to build and expand upon the experiment we call Nounlets.
We’re already working on a number of exciting new features before unveiling the next vaulted Noun. Features we’re exploring include a transparent system for Nouns owners to submit their Nouns as tribute to be the next vaulted Noun and a significantly reduced auction timer so auctions complete much faster.
In the meantime, we encourage all Nounlet owners to join the Nounlets channel in our Discord for updates, governance discussions, and maybe a little something from the Tessera team every now and then 📦🧱
We can’t thank you enough for your participation in this exploration of collective ownership and governance of a Noun — we’re thrilled to continue building for the Nouns community.
Stay tuned, more Nounlets shipping soon 🚢💚🫡
Team Tessera
