Art Gobblers recently busted through the bear market with thousands of ETH in trading volume the first day after its launch and has a higher floor price than some blue chip NFTs.
But, what are Art Gobblers and why is the project pumping so hard? Is it really the next blue chip NFT or is it just another get-rich-quick gimmick adding to the already poor reputation of NFTs? We take a look at what Art Gobblers is, who created it, why it’s pumping, and why it might dip quicker than it mooned.
Art Gobblers is a self-sustaining decentralized art factory launched as 2,000 Gobbler NFTs. Gobblers produce Goo tokens which are used to make blank pages that can be used to create art. This art can be fed to Gobblers to add it to its “belly gallery” or sold individually as 1-of-1 NFTs.
Gobblers exist mainly to gobble art. Basically, Gobblers eat art that artists create using the draw tool and can be transformed into unique ERC721 NFTs using an in-game process known as gamification.
The draw tool records the entire creation process so that users can playback the creation of the artwork. All artwork consumed by Gobblers belongs to the Gobbler on-chain and is displayed in its belly gallery permanently.
Notably, at the time of mint, the mechanisms that make up the Art Gobblers factory were set in stone. The mechanism was created with the intention of powering a self-sustaining ecosystem that can create and collect culturally relevant art without the need for human intervention.
So, how does this work?
Essentially, as artists continue to craft cool art, the cultural relevance of Art Gobblers will grow. As the relevance of the project grows, so will the demand from collectors. As the demand grows, artists will be incentivized to continue creating their best work.
Initially, only 2,000 Gobblers were available to mint for free (300 of which were set aside for the team and contributors). Then, over the next 10 years, players will spend Goo to mint the remaining 8,000 Gobblers using the VRGDA mechanism, which raises prices when sales are ahead of schedule and lowers prices when sales are behind schedule.
To increase scalability, issuance in the beginning phases of the project is somewhat fast, however, over time it slows and eventually stops completely to preserve exclusivity.
Art Gobblers was created by Rick and Morty co-founder Justin Roiland and Web3 investment firm Paradigm. Additionally, various designers, developers, animators, illustrators, community builders, strategists, actors, and others teamed up to help create Art Gobblers. You can view who contributed here.
There are numerous mechanics involved in the Art Gobblers ecosystem. All of which work together to create a self-sustaining art factory. Let's break down each aspect of the system.
Goo is an ERC20 token produced by Art Gobblers NFTs. It’s required to create new Blank Pages and also determines the type of art which enters the Gobbler’s ecosystem. Moreover, Goo can be used to create new Gobblers. Hence, there are numerous strategies players can use to gain an advantage.
The more Goo a Gobbler possesses, the quicker it generates Goo. Hence, the total Goo supply will increase more rapidly every day.
You can learn more about how Goo is distributed and the total supply via Art Gobbler’s Green Paper.
Producing art Pages is the main point of Art Gobblers. To glaminate your artwork onto a Page, you first need a Blank Page NFT which can be produced using Goo.
The number of Pages that can be produced is limited by the project’s VRGDA mechanism.
Art that is glaminated onto a Page instantly benefits from both the cultural relevance of Art Gobblers along with attention from the Art Gobblers’ community.
Gobblers are fully animated ERC721 NFTs that act as the backbone of the project. In addition to producing Goo, Gobblers gobble art. Once you feed a Gobbler a Page of art, the ownership of the Page transfers on-chain to the Art Gobblers contract, which then specifies the precise Gobbler to which the art now belongs.
Once gobbled, the Page is permanently displayed in that Gobbler’s belly gallery and can be viewed through the Art Gobblers app. That said, if you transfer or sell your Gobbler NFT all of the gobbled art Pages are transferred with it.
As a result, Gobbler holders can curate their Gobbler’s belly gallery however they please. This means some Gobblers may be valued higher than others depending on the type of art a collector chooses to gobble.
Legendary Gobblers are the rarest of all Gobblers. With only ten in existence, they will appear at predestined times over the next ten years. To get your hands on a Legendary Gobbler you have to burn an insane number of normal Gobblers. This encourages the Gobbler community to work together to afford a Legendary Gobbler.
The first Legendary Gobbler can be obtained for 69 Gobblers. The price of Legendary Gobblers continues to decline using a standard Dutch Autction mechanism until its purchased.
Each Legendary Gobbler thereafter will be priced in ordinary Gobbler and will be equal to twice what the last Legendary Gobbler sold for. For example, if the first Legendary Gobbler sold for 60 Gobblers, then the second Legendary Gobbler will have a beginning auction price of 120 Gobblers.
The next Legendary Gobbler appears each time an additional 10% of the total supply of Gobblers is issued by the VRGDA mechanism. Furthermore, each Legendary Auction is scheduled to end before the next Legendary Gobbler appears.
Since many Gobblers will be burned to obtain their Legendary counterparts, Legendary Gobblers produce Goo at twice the rate of the combined Gobblers that were burned to obtain it.
After only 12 hours of its initial launch on October 31, 2022, Art Gobblers had traded nearly 7,000 ETH on Opensea and pumped to a floor price of 13 ETH. At the time of writing this, the floor price has continued to climb even higher reaching just over 18 ETH and nearly 10,000 ETH in trading volume.
So, why is it that Art Gobblers—which seems to have appeared out of nowhere—is now pumping in the bearest of markets? Let's take a look at what we know so far.
Art Gobblers isn’t Justin’s first rodeo. Not only has he created one of the most successful TV shows on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Rick and Morty, but he has previously sold his NFT artworks on Nifty Gateway for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Most famously, his artwork titled “The Smintons”, which is a play on the Simpsons characters sold on Nifty Gateway for $290k. Not only that, but Justin was actually quite early to the NFT space considering this piece was minted on January 29, 2021.
Of course, Justin’s reputation as an artist and creator isn’t the only element that has helped Art Gobblers leap to instant success.
Paradigm is a Web3 investment firm that supports both small and massive companies and protocols, and Art Gobblers is one of these companies. Paradigm is known to get involved in the early phases of projects and support its portfolio with additional capital over time.
Some examples of companies backed by Paradigm include Blur, Coinbase, FTX, Magic Eden, and MoonPay among many others.
Considering Paradigm’s reputation in the Web3 industry, it makes sense that some might be bullish on projects they back such as Art Gobblers.
Although there is a lot of scrutiny surrounding Art Gobblers, which we’ll get to shortly, one thing is for certain, people who minted the project for free have already made life-changing amounts of money.
There were a number of people who were chosen for the whitelist spot and minted an Art Gobbler for free that have been able to pay down their debts, support their parents, and help ease the struggles of everyday life by selling their NFTs.
And those who are still holding their NFTs, well, they have the potential to make even more money.
Loopify even put together a nice Twitter thread showcasing some of the people who have had their lives changed simply by being early to this project. And to be fair, it wasn’t just influencers who made it on the whitelist. Many of these people are simply artists who just so happened to be a part of the community and thought it was a cool idea.
If you are just hearing about Art Gobblers for the first time after all the noise on Twitter, then it makes sense why you might think it appeared out of nowhere. But, that’s not the case. The Art Gobblers team has been working on this experiment for at the very least, months.
Art Gobbler's Twitter account was created in February 2022 and their first Tweet was posted on June 9, which is an animated clip that teases the Goo left behind by a Gobbler and the only human character we know of to date.
The account’s next Tweet was posted on June 30, which is a first-person view from the eyes of the human character who seems to have been abducted and taken to the Art Gobblers’ factory.
The last video clip posted on July 18, showcases two Gobblers having a conversation while one illustrates the other who’s squirting his Goo down a drain. This clip confirms that the human character is present and is still tied up by the alien Gobblers.
Although I’m not exactly sure where the storyline is headed, nonetheless, there’s a story and it has captured the attention of many artists and collectors alike.
From that point on, you can see that Art Gobbler’s Twitter has remained extremely active with multiple people sharing the artwork they created using the drawing tool leading up to the launch of the project.
Even though Art Gobblers has experienced great success days after its initial launch, there are a number of people on Twitter scrutinizing the project and questioning whether or not it’s actually legit. Let's take a look at some of these arguments.
One of the main concerns is that many whitelist spots were given to some of the largest influencers in the NFT space. Zeneca, Farokh, Claire Silver, and Andrew Wang are among the most notable influencers who obtained a whitelist spot and minted an Art Gobblers NFT for free.
Not only that, but they sold their Art Gobblers for a quick profit. So, was this just a brilliant marketing move or is there something greater to be uncovered?
Not only is there no roadmap, but the experiment was also launched as a finished project. That is, there’s no additional utility promised beyond what has already been stated in the project’s Green Paper.
Here is a quote regarding the Roadmap taken directly from the Green Paper.
“Neither Justin, nor Paradigm, nor the Art Gobblers team plan to build anything net new after the upcoming free mint. Art Gobblers is not stage one of the Gobblers metaverse. It is a whole and complete piece of alien technology that we will be unleashing upon an unsuspecting populace.”
Basically, you get what you get.
Beyond the two concerns listed above, there is an ongoing list of unanswered questions and accusations that have led many to further concern. Although I won’t mention those concerns here, I do believe it’s worth mentioning that there’s still much more to be uncovered regarding the Art Gobblers project and its creators.
Having said that, now more than ever it’s important to always do your own research and come to your own conclusions. The information is out there, you just have to look for it.
And lucky for us, social media and the blockchain both make it really simple to find such information.
