Yesterday, OpenSea's official Twitter account suddenly changed its name to "OpepenSea". Not only that, but the account also changed its profile picture to a homemade "Opepen OpenSea" version posted by @_0ND1 in the comments section of a tweet.

The English NFT community has gone crazy for Opepen, which is like dropping a bomb in the quiet NFT market.

Ledger has released its self-made Open Ledger version

Beeple supports Opepen in his tweet

This "Open whirlwind" trend, how did it come about?

"For the Culture" Movement

On July 12th, the largest holder of Opepen (holding 725 Opepen), @BoredOpepen, sent an "Offer" to NFT KOL @notthreadguy, proposing to exchange one Opepen 001 series that they hold for MAYC, which @notthreadguy uses as their Twitter avatar.

According to @BoredOpepen's tweet, this "Offer" comes with additional conditions. @BoredOpepen requires @notthreadguy to hold at least 3 months of Opepen 001 series, while he himself will hold the corresponding MAYC for at least 1 year.

Opepen 001 series may not look impressive, but using OpenSea Pro reveals that its floor price is currently above 25 ETH, far exceeding the floor price of MAYC.

On July 14th, a soon-to-be-launched Web3 lottery platform, Trust Way, made a marketing move by "bidding" for itself. Trust Way offered 42.69 ETH to @notthreadguy for their MAYC.

@notthreadguy remains unmoved, stating that the "Offer" of 42.69 ETH for his MAYC is a form of "Fud".

However, on the same day, @notthreadguy posted a tweet with an unofficial fan-made image of "Opepen x MAYC".

At this point, "Open Father" Jack Butcher appeared and threw out a tailored Open for @notthreadguy in the comments section, causing a stir.

Starting from this day, many NFT players have changed their Twitter avatars to the same style as "@notthreadguy Opepen". At the same time, many art creations based on "@notthreadguy Opepen" have started to emerge:

@notthreadguy was moved. On July 16th, he changed his Twitter profile picture to the Opepen designed by Jack Butcher in the above picture, and held a Twitter Space event with 3700 listeners.

On this day, Jack Butcher launched "Opepen Threadition", which is the series that you may have recently heard of and was minted on Zora. Each "Opepen Threadition" is priced at 0.001 ETH (about $2), and all proceeds from the series will go to @notthreadguy as a thank you for their contributions to the NFT community.

Currently, "Open Threadition" has sold 44646 copies, which means @notthreadguy will receive approximately 44.6 ETH as a reward. On July 17th, Jack Butcher's colleague @jalil_eth created 8 additional series of derivative art based on Open, which has also raised nearly 8 ETH in rewards for @notthreadguy.

「Opepen Threadition」

@jalil_eth's "ThreadGuy Opepen 009"

(Note: The content contains HTML tags and English characters, so they are not translated and returned as is.)

The whole thing has made the slogan "For the Culture" popular:

The English NFT community has a feeling of "returning to the original intention":

"Collect, entertain, and support your favorite creators. This is a good choice for us to move forward and also a more attractive way to reward."

Here, the basic story of "Opepen Tornado" is basically clear. However, you may still have some confusion, such as, what is the Opepen 001 series mentioned earlier? Why is it so much more expensive than the floor price of the series (about 0.8 ETH)?

Opepen's unique way of opening maps: voting, drawing lots, and 200 series

Opepen is a Free Mint "Open Edition" project launched by Jack Butcher in early January this year. You may be familiar with Jack Butcher, who also created the popular "Twitter Blue Check" Checks (recommended reading: "Twitter Verification Badge" Checks that surged 3000%: gamifying market behavior to shape art itself).

Like Checks, Opepen is not a "Open Edition" project that ends after it is released. Jack Butcher has played it to the fullest.

First, let's take a look at an Opepen that is still in the "blind box" stage:

This is an Opepen with the lowest rarity level.

You can see that there is a rectangle in the upper right corner that is divided into 6 parts, which represents the rarity of the Opepen "blind box". The smaller the highlighted area of the rectangle, the higher the rarity:

Opepen's rarity is called "Edition Size".

The rarity levels, from high to low, are "One", "Four", "Five", "Ten", "Twenty", and "Forty", totaling 6 types:

Opepen will periodically release new series on its official website. Whether these series will be used for "opening graphics" depends on the "voting results" of the holders. The expensive 001 series mentioned earlier is the first series released by Opepen for "opening graphics". The "voting results" of the 001 series are used as an example:

First of all, the "Demand" must exceed 200% for this series to be used for "opening graphics". There will be a total of 200 such series, each with 80 cards opened, completing a total of 16,000 Opepen "opening graphics". And if the "Demand" exceeds 200%, it means that each series needs at least 160 Opepen to choose this series for "opening graphics".

Only Opepens with corresponding rarity can choose to open images with corresponding rarity. As you can see, there are 136 "One" level Opepens in the 001 series that have chosen to "open images", but since only 80 Opepens in this series will be opened, only 1 of the 136 "One" level Opepens participating in the "opening images" will be lucky enough to win and open the corresponding image. Therefore, the "Demand" for "One" level is 136 * 100% = 13600%. Similarly, out of the 430 "Four" level Opepens participating in the "opening images", only 4 will be lucky enough to win and open the corresponding image. Therefore, the "Demand" for "Four" level is 430 / 4 * 100% = 10750%.

This gameplay is quite innovative. In the past, there were also projects that handed over the "opening" rights to the holders, but basically limited to continuously selecting from a given number of images until the user selected their favorite image. Opepen not only allows the holder to have the right to choose "opening", but also provides 200 series with different styles for the holder to choose from. The holder can keep observing until their favorite series appears, and then take their Opepen to "vote and draw lots". This makes a big difference in the original rarity level - if a series has a lot of people participating in the lottery, pray to be the lucky one, and the price of this series will inevitably widen the gap with other series.

This "open mapping" method does not require burning or minting new NFTs for the original ones. Each time you participate in the "voting lottery", you only need to sign your wallet once. If you are "drawn", the metadata will be automatically updated to complete the "open mapping".

Currently, Opepen has released 9 different series and has 191 series in the pipeline. This has both advantages and disadvantages for operations. The good side is that holders need to pay attention to the project in order not to miss the "voting lottery" for their favorite series. The downside is that with 200 series, it's hard to keep up with them all. However, with Jack Butcher's "For the Culture" campaign and past marketing skills, the disadvantages have been temporarily eliminated...

Conclusion

Returning to the "For the Culture" movement, I believe this is a warm and successful marketing case, but ultimately the "top stream" with influence in this circle is the one who benefits...

This reminds me of the last time "crying during live streaming" caused $TURBO to skyrocket. I'm not saying we shouldn't support people in similar situations, or that "top streamers" shouldn't receive tips. It's just that there are too many small and medium-sized creators, including builders, who are struggling or quietly pursuing their ideals. Without connections, they are like invisible people in this industry. Will anyone see their tears and sweat? Will anyone care?

I hope that the "For the Culture" movement will not be a short-lived hype, but can continue to develop and allow more "grassroots" individuals to be seen and recognized, as they deserve.

At the same time, this may also be a sign that OpenSea is distinguishing itself from Blur in the "cultural" route. Since it cannot compete with Blur's positioning as a "Trader's Paradise", embracing creators and "culture" and attracting another group of "cultural" NFT players may also be a way out.

Opepen also shows us that there can still be many creative ideas when combining NFTs and art. Setting aside the hype, we can still have many fun and interesting ideas. This makes me excited to see how much more fun and creative ideas there can be for "gamifying art". (Recommended reading: NFT's "gamification of art": Burn-Redeem and Lottery Tickets)

Is NFT dead? Objectively, NFT technology will have many, many applications, so it will definitely not die. Subjectively, does the life or death of NFT also depend on whether we can return to the "happy old home" and enjoy the fun brought to us by Opepen?

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