Ok, not my best title.

But, sometimes the pen is just screaming at you to write.

The recent Tiffany & co NFT project keeps making waves among the NFT community &, for me, it’s exposed some flaws.

Not in the project, but in the wider NFT community.

I’ll come to what those flaws are shortly, but first…

The Tiffany & Co project is a relatively simple affair, or so it would appear.

If you are a CryptoPunk holder, you buy one of their NFTs, & then you can redeem it for a custom pendant of your Punk.

It’s clear what it is, it has a “utility” (as we all like to throw THAT word around), & it is something people would want.

However…

When they announced the project, it had a price of 30 ETH.

Roughly $45k.

Even in the world of crypto, & particularly in the current bear market, that’s not a small number.

Well, a lot of the NFT community went a bit mental.

I know, most of us are already a bit “ahem” quirky, but this really pickled their eggs.

Lots of posts about how it was overpriced, it wasn’t inclusive, it was stupid in the bear market, & so on.

My favourite hot-take is “all NFTs should be free.”

More on why that’s a whole new level of stupid below.

But, one thing became very clear quickly.

Most people hadn’t bothered to do the most basic research possible & click on the “FAQ” on the nft.tiffany page.

It was literally a countdown timer, with an FAQ at the bottom, so why not I couldn’t say.

But they didn’t.

So, they didn’t understand what the NFT was, or what it gave you.

So much for “don’t trust, verify”.

Regardless, Twitter & LinkedIn were aflame with outrage.

Outrage that a luxury jewellery company didn’t sell a new product for an entry-level price.

Here’s the thing.

They were selling 250 nfts to CryptoPunk holders, redeemable for a custom piece of jewellery.

The first rule of sales is “know your audience”.

Linked to that, the first thing I always say to clients, mentees, & pretty much anyone who will listen, is that knowing your audience includes knowing if they can afford what you are selling.

The second is, that if they aren’t in your audience, their opinions don’t matter.

CryptoPunk holders are not like the vast majority of NFT holders.

Currently, none are listed for sale on OpenSea.

None.

And, when they do sell, they normally sell for over 70 ETH (around $130k).

Writing this, I can see one sold 3 days ago for 260 ETH (just over $445k).

According to OpenSea, there are around 3.6k wallets holding them.

So, it’s likely well within the financial ability of a lot of the audience to pay, and roughly only 1 in 5 wallets could end up with one.

Potentially fewer, as each wallet could “only” buy 3.

I didn’t see any punk holders complain about the price.

I did see several say how excited they were about it.

I had at least 1 Punk holder (& a couple of potentials who won’t admit it) ping me for my thoughts on it.

But, none of them were complaining.

Here’s the thing.

If you were complaining about the price, you weren’t in their target demographic.

If anything, complaining about it just helped them out by creating noise about the project on social.

Want to know how I know this?

Simple.

They sold out.

“Instantly”.

The proof is in the pudding & all that jazz.

Now for the next controversy.

In the new terms & conditions, there is a clause.

“By purchasing an NFTiff and linking it to your CryptoPunk, you grant Tiffany & Co., its affiliates, agents and others working for it or on its behalf, an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use your CryptoPunk and its underlying intellectual property, if any, to design, manufacture and sell the corresponding pendant including any and other Intellectual Property Rights.”

Well, at least people are reading the info this time.

The problem is that people assume this means you are handing over the IP for your CryptoPunk to Tiffanys.

I’m no lawyer but, to me, it reads that they are ensuring they are legally able to create the pendant (which isn’t shipping until “early 2023”), even if, for example, you sell your CryptoPunk in the meantime & the new owner objects to a derivative work (ie the pendant).

As I said, not a lawyer though.

There is, however, an issue on the legal side that I haven’t seen mentioned yet.

“lf a NFTiff holder sells their NFTiff prior to shipment of the pendant, such pendant will no longer be shipped to the client and the order shall automatically be voided.”

So, you buy the NFTiff, you hold your punk, you redeem it, all good & proper.

At some point, you decide to sell your NFTiff, that you paid for & used correctly.

Suddenly, you are no longer eligible for the pendant.

I wouldn’t see a problem with this if that option went back into a pool or something.

So the next person could, instead, claim the pendant.

Ok, I would, but it’d be better at least.

But, you can only redeem your NFTiff until August 12th.

After then they become, well, useless.

For me, that’s more of a concern.

Maybe they have a reason, after all, they are clearly a web2 company leveraging a web3 audience.

The cutoff on its own is fine.

After all, they don’t want this hanging over their necks indefinitely.

But, cancelling an order just because you sold the voucher for it after it was used?

That seems, unnecessary.

So, that’s really it for the NFTiff project.

They minted some NFTs, sold them to an audience who wanted them & were happy to pay, & have a few terms & conditions as part of it.

Honestly, not that bad.

If anything, it will show more web2 projects that they can move into the space while maintaining their existing brand, but reaching new audiences.

But, what does it say about the state of the web3 community, how they have responded & continue to respond to the drop?

Frankly, it’s not a good look.

To begin with, it shows the community as only being interested in price.

There was an awful lot of noise made by people who just had no idea what the project was about, & had made zero effort to find out before commenting, purely due to the price.

This shows a lack of understanding around both business, financial models, & sales from people in an ecosystem where the vast majority of movement is around trading.

It also shines a light on a deeper issue.

People are still treating NFTs as a single type of product, rather than being part of a technology stack.

Talking about adding utility to the NFT, rather than creating products.

NFTs aren’t some magical thing.

They are just a form of technology that proves ownership of themselves.

We can’t treat all NFTs as equal, which means the idea of pricing anything that happens to use NFTs the same is just idiocy.

It’s like saying everything you buy that happens to be on paper should be treated as & priced the same, or free as more than one person suggested.

Your phone bill, a concert ticket, & a copy of a book signed by your favourite author are all very different, should they be lumped together & treated the same?

Of course not.

So why would a piece of jewellery from a world-recognised luxury jewellery store be priced the same as a piece of art created & issued under a CC0 licence that anyone can use exactly the same, regardless of NFT ownership?

Sure, they both use the same type of technology, but they are very different products.

As the space continues to develop we’ll start to see (hopefully) more products utilising NFTs.

Gaming assets, real-world items, identity management, & other uses we can’t imagine yet.

But, they will all be different products, for different people, doing very different things.

This is the biggest issue the web3 “community” needs to overcome.

The understanding that NFTs are not a single product type that can be lumped together.

They are a type of technology products & services might use.

That’s it.

Until people can get their heads around this, can understand that lumping them together is actively harming the entire ecosystem & preventing the adoption everyone is seeking, & lashing out at companies moving into the space because it just doesn’t fit them, we’re going to stay stagnate.

Web3 should be a people focussed technology but, until the people in web3 are prepared to make the effort to understand it properly, web3 can’t progress.

Dan “The Archit3ct” Thomas

https://www.linkedin.com/in/archit3ctdan/

Founder at Archit3ct | Solution Architect | Direct Response Copywriter | DLT, Web3, Metaverse, DeFi

Archit3ct Ltd

Ok, not my best title.

But, sometimes the pen is just screaming at you to write.

The recent Tiffany & co NFT project keeps making waves among the NFT community &, for me, it’s exposed some flaws.

Not in the project, but in the wider NFT community.

I’ll come to what those flaws are shortly, but first…

The Tiffany & Co project is a relatively simple affair, or so it would appear.

If you are a CryptoPunk holder, you buy one of their NFTs, & then you can redeem it for a custom pendant of your Punk.

It’s clear what it is, it has a “utility” (as we all like to throw THAT word around), & it is something people would want.

However…

When they announced the project, it had a price of 30 ETH.

Roughly $45k.

Even in the world of crypto, & particularly in the current bear market, that’s not a small number.

Well, a lot of the NFT community went a bit mental.

I know, most of us are already a bit “ahem” quirky, but this really pickled their eggs.

Lots of posts about how it was overpriced, it wasn’t inclusive, it was stupid in the bear market, & so on.

My favourite hot-take is “all NFTs should be free.”

More on why that’s a whole new level of stupid below.

But, one thing became very clear quickly.

Most people hadn’t bothered to do the most basic research possible & click on the “FAQ” on the nft.tiffany page.

It was literally a countdown timer, with an FAQ at the bottom, so why not I couldn’t say.

But they didn’t.

So, they didn’t understand what the NFT was, or what it gave you.

So much for “don’t trust, verify”.

Regardless, Twitter & LinkedIn were aflame with outrage.

Outrage that a luxury jewellery company didn’t sell a new product for an entry-level price.

Here’s the thing.

They were selling 250 nfts to CryptoPunk holders, redeemable for a custom piece of jewellery.

The first rule of sales is “know your audience”.

Linked to that, the first thing I always say to clients, mentees, & pretty much anyone who will listen, is that knowing your audience includes knowing if they can afford what you are selling.

The second is, that if they aren’t in your audience, their opinions don’t matter.

CryptoPunk holders are not like the vast majority of NFT holders.

Currently, none are listed for sale on OpenSea.

None.

And, when they do sell, they normally sell for over 70 ETH (around $130k).

Writing this, I can see one sold 3 days ago for 260 ETH (just over $445k).

According to OpenSea, there are around 3.6k wallets holding them.

So, it’s likely well within the financial ability of a lot of the audience to pay, and roughly only 1 in 5 wallets could end up with one.

Potentially fewer, as each wallet could “only” buy 3.

I didn’t see any punk holders complain about the price.

I did see several say how excited they were about it.

I had at least 1 Punk holder (& a couple of potentials who won’t admit it) ping me for my thoughts on it.

But, none of them were complaining.

Here’s the thing.

If you were complaining about the price, you weren’t in their target demographic.

If anything, complaining about it just helped them out by creating noise about the project on social.

Want to know how I know this?

Simple.

They sold out.

“Instantly”.

The proof is in the pudding & all that jazz.

Now for the next controversy.

In the new terms & conditions, there is a clause.

“By purchasing an NFTiff and linking it to your CryptoPunk, you grant Tiffany & Co., its affiliates, agents and others working for it or on its behalf, an irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use your CryptoPunk and its underlying intellectual property, if any, to design, manufacture and sell the corresponding pendant including any and other Intellectual Property Rights.”

Well, at least people are reading the info this time.

The problem is that people assume this means you are handing over the IP for your CryptoPunk to Tiffanys.

I’m no lawyer but, to me, it reads that they are ensuring they are legally able to create the pendant (which isn’t shipping until “early 2023”), even if, for example, you sell your CryptoPunk in the meantime & the new owner objects to a derivative work (ie the pendant).

As I said, not a lawyer though.

There is, however, an issue on the legal side that I haven’t seen mentioned yet.

“lf a NFTiff holder sells their NFTiff prior to shipment of the pendant, such pendant will no longer be shipped to the client and the order shall automatically be voided.”

So, you buy the NFTiff, you hold your punk, you redeem it, all good & proper.

At some point, you decide to sell your NFTiff, that you paid for & used correctly.

Suddenly, you are no longer eligible for the pendant.

I wouldn’t see a problem with this if that option went back into a pool or something.

So the next person could, instead, claim the pendant.

Ok, I would, but it’d be better at least.

But, you can only redeem your NFTiff until August 12th.

After then they become, well, useless.

For me, that’s more of a concern.

Maybe they have a reason, after all, they are clearly a web2 company leveraging a web3 audience.

The cutoff on its own is fine.

After all, they don’t want this hanging over their necks indefinitely.

But, cancelling an order just because you sold the voucher for it after it was used?

That seems, unnecessary.

So, that’s really it for the NFTiff project.

They minted some NFTs, sold them to an audience who wanted them & were happy to pay, & have a few terms & conditions as part of it.

Honestly, not that bad.

If anything, it will show more web2 projects that they can move into the space while maintaining their existing brand, but reaching new audiences.

But, what does it say about the state of the web3 community, how they have responded & continue to respond to the drop?

Frankly, it’s not a good look.

To begin with, it shows the community as only being interested in price.

There was an awful lot of noise made by people who just had no idea what the project was about, & had made zero effort to find out before commenting, purely due to the price.

This shows a lack of understanding around both business, financial models, & sales from people in an ecosystem where the vast majority of movement is around trading.

It also shines a light on a deeper issue.

People are still treating NFTs as a single type of product, rather than being part of a technology stack.

Talking about adding utility to the NFT, rather than creating products.

NFTs aren’t some magical thing.

They are just a form of technology that proves ownership of themselves.

We can’t treat all NFTs as equal, which means the idea of pricing anything that happens to use NFTs the same is just idiocy.

It’s like saying everything you buy that happens to be on paper should be treated as & priced the same, or free as more than one person suggested.

Your phone bill, a concert ticket, & a copy of a book signed by your favourite author are all very different, should they be lumped together & treated the same?

Of course not.

So why would a piece of jewellery from a world-recognised luxury jewellery store be priced the same as a piece of art created & issued under a CC0 licence that anyone can use exactly the same, regardless of NFT ownership?

Sure, they both use the same type of technology, but they are very different products.

As the space continues to develop we’ll start to see (hopefully) more products utilising NFTs.

Gaming assets, real-world items, identity management, & other uses we can’t imagine yet.

But, they will all be different products, for different people, doing very different things.

This is the biggest issue the web3 “community” needs to overcome.

The understanding that NFTs are not a single product type that can be lumped together.

They are a type of technology products & services might use.

That’s it.

Until people can get their heads around this, can understand that lumping them together is actively harming the entire ecosystem & preventing the adoption everyone is seeking, & lashing out at companies moving into the space because it just doesn’t fit them, we’re going to stay stagnate.

Web3 should be a people focussed technology but, until the people in web3 are prepared to make the effort to understand it properly, web3 can’t progress.

Dan “The Archit3ct” Thomas

https://www.linkedin.com/in/archit3ctdan/

Founder at Archit3ct | Solution Architect | Direct Response Copywriter | DLT, Web3, Metaverse, DeFi

Archit3ct Ltd