Basic info
Last updated: Sep 21, 2023
DeGods is an NFT collection launched originally on the Solana blockchain, consisting of 10,000 deflationary tokens consisting of images of “degenerates, punks, and misfits”. The project integrates the DUST token protocol and allows its users to stake their NFTs, as well as burn them in exchange for DUST tokens. Moreover, the project runs a DAO named DeDAO which collects funds from trades with NFTs from the collection and manages the development of the whole DeGods ecosystem. Each holder of an NFT from the collection has access to the DeDAO after verifying their ownership.
On April 1, 2023, DeGods began migrating to the Ethereum blockchain in a rather controversial move after receiving a $3 million grant from Polygon, while also moving its sister project y00ts to Polygon. This was meant to remove around $200 million in market capitalization from the Solana network and boost the collection’s market value. Less than half a year later the DeGods team is about to return the Polygon grant and migrate its sister collection – y00ts to Ethereum from Polygon.
DeGods was released in October 2021 in a 7500 NFTs public sale lasting only seven seconds due to massive investors’ interest, with a mint price of each DeGods NFT of 3 SOL (roughly $450 at the time). Before the public sale, the DeGods team held a private sale in which 2500 NFTs were sold to whitelisted addresses for the same mint price of 3 SOL. During the launch of the collection, the DeGods team also released its own marketplace, which was the only place where DeGods NFTs were available for resale at the time.
During the minting of DeGods, whitelisting was made possible for users who took part in various activities promoting the project and its culture. These included having people film themselves doing physical activities, or discussing the collection with family members and friends. However, thousands of the whitelisted addresses were unable to mint as the project sold out in seven seconds, being flooded by bots. This made the wider crypto community label the project as a rug pull. Nevertheless, by developing and growing the number of features and utilities available to DeGods NFT holders in the coming months, the DeGods team managed to change this perspective. Furthermore, later DeGods became one of the most popular NFT collections on the Solana blockchain in terms of the total value of its trades.
To disincentivize investors with “paper hands” (paper hands is a term describing investors who sell their assets at the slightest sign of market unrest), the DeGods team introduced a “Paper Hands Bitch Tax” (PBHT) that was a 33.33% fee imposed on each DeGods NFT trade bellow mint price or bellow whatever price the investor had bought their NFT for. The funds generated from the taxation were stored in the DeGods treasury and used for purchasing and burning floor price DeGods NFTs. The initiative resulted in 535 NFTs purchased and burned. Nevertheless, in January 2022, PBHT was discontinued as it was seen as flawed by the DeGods team. According to a statement released by them, the PBHT was an experiment that failed to achieve its goal since after 100 days of testing it became clear that it only incentivized a lot of investors to either list underneath the threshold of the tax to increase the likelihood of burn, thus attempting to raise the floor price of the collection, or listing just above the threshold to not get taxed – which was seen by the project’s team as still being a “paper hands” trading.
Although the DeGods NFT collection consists of 10,000 tokens, due to it being deflationary and employing different burn mechanics to incentivize rarity, there are currently 9,465 DeGods NFTs in circulation. After discontinuing the PBHT tax, the project’s creators decided to apply a 9.99% royalty fee. 6.66% of the fee used to go to the DeDAO, while the remaining 3.33% was kept by the DeGods core team. Nevertheless, due to the ongoing creator royalties debate, as of October 2022, the DeGods royalties fee is set to 0% by the team behind the project.
The artwork of the collection portrays various “degenerates, punks, and misfits” which the creators of the project envision to be “Gods of the metaverse & masters of our own universe”. DeGods NFTs have eight different attributes: clothes, eyes, head, mouth, neck, skin, and specialty. Each attribute has various DeGods traits, which may be included in an NFT from the collection.
Furthermore, DeGods owners can update their NFTs and turn them into DeadGods which although changing the images visually, does not affect the rarity of the tokens.
Endorsing community-built projects, the DeGods NFT collection website links a project made solely by one of the core DeGods team members – 0xChill as the official DeGods rarity ranking tool.
The collection was created by a pseudonymous person going under the name Frank. Although keeping his identity private, the DeGods founder has previously appeared on various podcasts with a mask, stating he protects his identity for security reasons, and also being anonymous allows him to be “a lot more clearheaded” as he can separate his real-life identity from his work persona. With the community's growth, the Frank pseudonym was adopted en masse by the collection’s loyal supporters, therefore now they all refer to themselves as Frank and take part in the growth of the project.
The team behind DeGods consists of numerous pseudonymous members led by founder “Frank”. Currently, there are three artists working on the collection - Taylor, Finn, and Delilah who is also the author of the original artwork of the collection. There is a webpage on which the team logs in on all work conducted by it each day, it is public and available for anyone to check.
Although there are a few artists working on the project, the main artwork was done by a pseudonymous DeGods artist named Delilah. Later the team was joined by three more artists, one of whom quit working for DeGods in October 2022. According to a Twitter post made by them – the main reasons for that were personal and had nothing to do with the DeGods project. Nevertheless, that affected the floor price of the collection and it dropped from over 350 SOL to around 250 SOL in the following days. Furthermore, there was a substantial increase in the amount of NFTs listed for sale on marketplaces, these grew from around 90 to over 230 in the same amount of time.
The community of the project has been growing since its launch and currently consists of over 167,000 followers on Twitter, and over 23,000 Discord members.
One of the partnerships established by DeGods is with Exchange Art. The collaboration aims to provide introductory resources to navigating the 1/1 space (1/1 here refers to processes such as changing 1 DeGod NFT into 1 DeadGod NFT), as well as “create a stronger connection between PFP communities and 1/1 art”, and finally promote Solana NFT artists.
In April 2022, DeDAO acquired the basketball team Killer 3s, part of Ice Cube’s Big3 League by buying 25 NFTs worth around $625,000 which gained it a stake in the team’s ownership.
The DeGods website runs a calendar with events where holders from the collection can meet up and socialize in-real-life however, these events, at the time of writing this article, are only in New York and Los Angelis.
There are various use cases for DeGods NFTs. The artwork can be used by token holders for profile pictures on social media, and metaverse platforms, as well as for the creation and trading of real-life merchandise.
Nevertheless, staking of DeGods NFTs in exchange for the Solana-native DUST token is regarded as one of the biggest DeGods value bringers. Users can do so by visiting the staking links available on the official DeGods website. According to information provided publicly by DeGods, staked DeGods NFTs mint 1.25 DUST tokens per day regardless of rarity.
NFT token holders can spend 1000 DUST tokens to change the metadata of their NFTs and make the art transition to the “mutated forms of DeGods” named DeadGods. Once that is done, the images in the NFTs change visually, however rarity is not affected in the process. DeadGods earn their holders 3.75 DUST per day when staked.
DeGods NFT holders can also take part in the project’s DAO – DeDAO. DeDAO works on acquiring assets for auctions and raffles that DUST token holders can participate in, as well as the project’s expansion plans, funding of community events, and rewarding community-based talents for work done regarding the development of the DeGods ecosystem.
DeDAO is divided into four groups – The DAO Leads which consist of the collection’s founder and core team members, as well as Community Leaders of the project; The Divine Council consists of participants voted on by members of DeDAO – this group of DeDAO members is tasked with approving proposals from the community and team before the DeDAO members can vote on them; finally, the last group is called DeAlpha Team – it consists of participants “who are abreast of the markets and have a proven track record of understating and sharing consistently good Alpha in DeDAO”. The DeAlpha team works closely with the Divine Council on decisions regarding DAO acquisitions and other tasks requiring funding from DeDAO.
DeGods NFT holders can access a map platform where they can sign in with their wallet pinpoint their location on the map and include their social media or Discord profiles, as well as browse such information provided by other DeDust token holders, in order to find nearby community members for collaborations and meetings.
Each person who owns a DeGods NFT holds limited Intellectual Property rights, described in detail on the project’s webpage. These include a license to use, copy, and display the art of each NFT held by an NFT collector for their own personal non-commercial use. Nevertheless, the licensing agreement also allows DeGods NFT holders to use, copy, and display the art of their purchased NFTs for commercial purposes (such as merchandise) provided it doesn’t result in more than $100,000 in gross revenue each year.
In September 2023 DeGods unveiled its Season 3 collection featuring an "Art Downgrade" and a new ad-based reward system called Points Parlor. The downgrade is a response to previous criticisms and adopts a simpler, nostalgic aesthetic inspired by 1960s pop art. Users can opt into the new season for a fee in $DUST tokens, which will decrease over time. The season aims for more than just art—it signifies [de]labs' focus on long-term growth and steering away from speculative hype. Points Parlor is a gamification model that rewards NFT holders with loyalty points, enhancing community engagement and connecting brands with DeGods holders. The prize pool includes both $DUST fees and over $250,000 in brand-sponsored prizes. Additionally, DeGods plans to migrate its sister project, y00ts, from Polygon to Ethereum.
The DeGods roadmap is an art drawing depicted on an image, where users can find clues as to what the future holds for the project.
DUST is the token of the decentralized DUST protocol, launched on the Solana blockchain by the DeGods team. The token has a maximum supply of 33,300,000 (probably referencing the controversial PHBT tax imposed earlier by DeGods), however, the initial supply of DUST was 0. This was so, as the mechanics of the token follow an emission schedule with multiple halvings and mining rewards.
The token has had three halving periods, each of which reduced DUST rewards for staked DeGods NFTs by 50%. The first took place when 16,650,000 DUST tokens were mined, the second at 24,975,000 tokens mined, and the last at 29,137,500 tokens mined.
As any project is free to adopt the DUST token within their ecosystem, according to the official DUST token website documentation so far countless projects have independently adopted DUST on the Solana blockchain. Use cases of the token include, NFT upgrades, Raffles and Auctions, Marketing and Growth, User Onboarding, PvP, and P2E NFT Games, and it is accepted as a virtual currency in Marketplaces and e-commerce stores.
DeGods NFTs can be purchased on numerous marketplaces – OpenSea, Magic Eden, Solanart, and many others. At the time of writing this review, the DeGods floor price has been fluctuating around 3.57 ETH tokens, or about $5,912 for the cheapest DeGods NFT, at current market prices.
At the same time, the most expensive DeGods NFT sold yet is DeGod #3251 which fetched 99 ETH, it is followed by DeGod #4899 sold for 90 WETH.
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Last updated: Sep 21, 2023
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