OnChainMonkey (OCM) has emerged as a historic staple of the NFT neighborhood that’s confirmed time and time once more to be effectively forward of the curve. The challenge is well-known for importing its whole 10,000 NFT assortment to Ethereum in a single transaction. And with the brand new Ordinals protocol, OCM turned one of many first 10,000 PFP tasks on Bitcoin.
Whereas OnChainMonkey has made its mark in Web3, its mother or father firm Metagood is probably much less well-known. With a mission to empower communities and be catalysts for optimistic collective motion, Metagood has spearheaded various impactful initiatives and is without doubt one of the many causes OCM is so profitable.
We spoke with the Metagood group to debate these initiatives, the transfer to Blockchain, and extra concerning the OnChainMonkey universe.
What’s OnChainMonkey?
The OnChainMonkey Genesis assortment consists of 10,000 colourful Ethereum NFT PFPs that depict — you guessed it — monkeys. Every monkey is made up of a mix of seven traits: fur, mouth, eyes, garments, hat, earring, and background. Launched through a free mint on September 11, 2021, the challenge was rapidly claimed in simply 4 hours.
A part of what made OCM profitable is its seminal standing because the first-ever on-chain PFP assortment, that means that every one metadata for every NFT is saved straight on the Ethereum blockchain. In distinction, different NFT collections require a 3rd occasion to retailer that knowledge, which comes with a stage of danger if the storage resolution fails.
One other advantage of being on-chain is value. According to the OCM team, a typical PFP assortment would take up an estimated 100 megabytes of cupboard space, costing over 5,000 ETH if saved on-chain. As compared, OCM solely used 0.798 ETH to deploy all the pieces on chain.
Who created OnChainMonkey?
OnChainMonkey was created by Metagood. The founding group contains Chairman Invoice Tai, the primary investor in Zoom and an early investor in Canva and Dapper labs; CEO Danny Yang, the creator of Maicoin, Taiwan’s largest crypto change; and COO Amanda Terry, a former govt with Twitter and NBC.
The Karma and Dessert collections
In 2022, the OnChainMonkey universe expanded with the launch of the Karma and Dessert collections — each one hundred pc on chain, in fact. Every Genesis NFT holder (as of February 1, 2022) was given a Dessert NFT, which their authentic OnChainMonkey may “eat” to supply a Karma NFT. There are 10,000 Dessert tokens and three forms of Desserts of various rarity: Unimaginable Ice Pop, Divine Donut, and Celestial Cake.
Karma NFTs have been created partly in response to criticism over the simplistic design of the Genesis assortment. They include a 3D monkey with extra element than the unique 2D OnChainMonkey NFTs. Notably, the Karma NFTs have been designed by OCM’s Academy Award-nominated art team and lead animators of movies together with “IceAge,” “Rio,” and extra.
The Karma assortment did extra than simply look good; it additionally provided holders membership to the Monkeyverse, votes within the DAO, entry to Missions (experiments and duties that earn holders rewards), and Banana tokens (off-chain tokens that dwell on Discord and Twitter).
The shift to Ordinals
In 2023, OCM made the shift to Bitcoin Ordinal inscriptions. Earlier than importing their OCM assortment to Bitcoin, although, the Metagood group wanted to reconcile their dedication to sustainability with the often-criticized environmental influence of Bitcoin and different proof-of-work blockchains.
They addressed this concern by importing their OCM assortment to Bitcoin in a single transaction, similar to they did with their authentic Ethereum assortment. As such, they used solely 20,000 bytes of knowledge. By doing so, Yang says Metagood and their neighborhood get “the advantages of a really safe retailer of worth on Bitcoin with out contributing to the bloat of the chain.”
So why Ordinals? Metagood didn’t shift to Ordinals to capitalize on a fad; they sensed a special type of alternative. “Folks nonetheless don’t perceive the worth of placing knowledge on Bitcoin,” says Yang. He explains that, as a protocol, Ordinals is incomplete. However when the protocol involves fruition, Yang and the remainder of the Metagood group imagine Ordinals could also be higher suited to NFT-type inscriptions than Ethereum.
“Ethereum’s good contracts are nice for NFTs, however Bitcoin is safer,” Yang says. “If you happen to assume one thing is effective, it must be on probably the most precious and most safe chain.”
OnChainMonkey’s give attention to influence
On the coronary heart of OnChainMonkey’s operations lies their perception within the energy of communities to result in optimistic change. That’s why Metagood set its roots in Web3; the group views NFTs as the simplest instruments to mobilize and incentivize these communities. “We created Metagood to unravel huge issues on the earth,” explains Yang. “And we would have liked huge communities to try this.”
To work towards fixing these issues, Metagood created a decentralized autonomous group (DAO) comprising OCM holders. Fifty % of buying and selling revenues generated by OCM are channeled again into the DAO, the place members have the ability to vote on how the funds are used.
The DAO has resulted in an extended listing of charitable tasks. In March 2022, the corporate launched the OCM Earth assortment, which raised almost $200,000 for Save the Children’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. It additionally partnered with Axie Infinity to carry a charity match that raised over $450,000 to assist rebuild typhoon-impacted properties within the Philippines. In December 2022, the neighborhood used a part of the DAO’s funds to host a Christmas party at a small Brazilian orphanage the place the youngsters got OnChainMonkey coloring books.
“It’s unimaginable the worldwide attain we’ve had. Nevertheless it’s additionally introduced change at a neighborhood scale.”
Amanda Terry, Metagood COO
Additional, the OCM neighborhood has additionally chosen to donate a few of their precious NFTs to assist tasks that the DAO selects. Shortly after the Genesis mint in 2021, a member donated their OCM NFT to Giga, a company that brings the web to colleges worldwide. In early 2022, one other member donated a Genesis NFT to boost funds to assist the United Nation’s Life Under Water initiative to advertise coral reef restoration, a trigger chosen by the OCM neighborhood’s DAO.
“It’s unimaginable the worldwide attain we’ve had,” says Terry. “Nevertheless it’s additionally introduced change at a neighborhood scale.” Group members have been in a position to leverage the DAO’s sources to hold out tasks in their very own communities, reminiscent of seashore cleanups in Belize, rehabilitating a skate park in Brazil, and creating customized gadgets to public sale for charity.
On the floor, OnChainMonkey could look like simply one other high-value NFT assortment with costly flooring costs and a reproduction assortment on Bitcoin. Nonetheless, from Metagood’s perspective, all the pieces they do is rooted of their core values: respect, integrity, sustainability, and experimentation.
“These values resonate with folks,” says Terry, “as a result of they notice that Web3 can be utilized to create important wealth for communities, however it may also be used to do good in the actual world.”