When your brand’s and web3 cultures align - 9GAG

gm everyone. ??

We just returned from the most awaited European web3 event in Paris last week.

It’s been a blast, and it was great to see 10K+ people show up to build and strengthen the community.

Web3 behemoths and multinationals went at it during passionate talks about the disruptive power of the blockchain.

In this week’s issue, we take a closer look at 9GAG . ??

The web2 entertainment champion is going full speed toward web3.

Without further ado, let’s dive right into how they intend to use blockchain to change the content economy as we know it. ??

When your brand’s and web3 cultures align - 9GAG

WHAT

Web2 entertainment giant 9GAG is building its web3 venture studio: Memeland. The company is on a mission to “bring ownership to every community in the world.”

And it’s a massive success.

So far, they have launched three NFT collections - "The Potatoz", "The Captainz", and "You the real MVP", which floor price sits at ETH56 - USD90K+ at the time of writing.

All their collections sold out, and their combined trading volume (coming from people buying and selling these passes on the secondary market) is around USD65 million.

WHO

They targeted their fans - mainly young male geeks -and web3 enthusiasts.

Conveniently the two significantly overlap, creating a solid fit between Memeland’s mission and the 9GAG community.

HOW

They haven’t disclosed precisely how they will execute their vision yet, but their endeavor was very well received and did the work just right.

The strategy was articulated around the timely release of three collections of entry passes which grant their holders specific benefits.

1. "You the real MVP" - is 9GAG's most premium collection. It consists of 420 NFTs that generated around USD1.5 million in 7 days amid poor market conditions.
2. For people who did not get a hold of the above collection, 9,999 NFTs of "The Captainz" collection were released. On the release day, the floor price sat at 1.069 ETH - around USD1,300 then. So far, there has been USD20 million in trading volume.
3. Finally, "The Potatoz" grants more standard benefits to its holders. The collection was a free mint of 9,999 NFTs that registered USD38 million - ETH23,000 - of trading volume.

WHY

9GAG sticks to its primary mission: to create the biggest, most-empowered community of creators.

By designing a whole virtual economy - aka tokenomics - around content, they want to create a virtuous circle between content creators, brands and sponsors, and their audience.

Here the digital collectibles - NFT PFPs (Profile Pictures) - are but the vehicle to a more structured and profoundly disruptive scheme for the content economy.

It's no wonder that the likes of Kevin Rose and Gary Vaynerchuk got involved in the project very early on.

Let's remember that 9GAG was backed by prestigious startup incubators and VCs and wasn't born yesterday. They boast a vast and highly-engaged audience to the point that they heavily contributed to shaping today's digital culture and codes.

This first launch is part of a broader long-term web3 roadmap that 9GAG has clearly in mind.

They will add up utilities thanks to their very own web3 venture studio that they launched with a higher purpose at stake.

As they wrote themselves on memeland.com:

"We are building and investing in social products for community, with community. We are connecting creators and communities together through creativity, $MEME, and NFTs."

They want to diversify their blockchain-powered projects and already have many products in the works.

Closing thoughts

The meme culture perfectly fits the NFT enthusiasts' mindset.

Most NFT projects were initially a product of the meme culture itself that 9GAG participated in creating back in 2008.

It made much sense that 9GAG got involved in the blockchain space this way, and they perfectly understood the importance of involving people who knew it inside and out.

9GAG Memeland is an excellent example of a company that fully embraced the degen mindset and understood what web3 has to offer to engage with fans in brand new ways.

The company leveraged its massive audience of 200 million across different social platforms to launch not one but three very successful NFT collections, which brought in immediate additional revenues and which fans fully embraced.

There is a long road ahead, and we must pay attention to how they develop their ambitious roadmap.

But like they wrote on their web3 venture studio homepage:

"As with all things 9GAG, we like to under-promise and over-deliver. We don't know how big Memeland will become, but we promise we will give our best."

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