ALFA: Appreciation and Love for Fine Art
A DAF: Decentralised Art Fund and Ecosystem
TL:DR,
Just take me to the mint page:
Or you can copy paste the following URL in your browser:
https://app.manifold.xyz/c/alfa
ChatGPT did a summary of the article so I didn’t have to: (and its pretty accurate)
Complete Article:
Digital Art is having a moment, thanks to blockchain tech. For good reasons. (Other than the fact that we are leading increasingly digital lives and art mimics culture to an extent..) :
Provenance, proof of ownership
Trustless smart contracts allowing for decentralised 24x7 marketplaces
Global audience , bypassing red-tapism and high fees of trad auction houses
Artist royalties
On-chain data and transparency of supply
Low cost of maintenance.
And within digital art, a subset - generative art (GA) - simply put, art made/generated by code - has found an enthusiastic following and collector base because of the numerous possibilities that can only occur via the medium of the blockchain. While GA has been around for decades, the launch of projects like ArtBlocks and FX(hash) brought in a whole new cohort of crypto native collectors. Its use of randomness in the minting process involves participation from the collector and results in a process where you don’t quite know what you’re going to get and that makes it magical.
This process where a single code system can generate multiple artworks by just changing a random hash or variable has been (sometimes controversially) dubbed as Long Form Generative (LFG!) art. More on GA history by the legendary Artnome here and more on LFG art by the equally legendary TylerHobbs here.
The opportunity:
Bear market and all time lows in USD terms (in recent times) of ETH and XTZ makes entering the market at this time relatively inexpensive. The sad outcome of the many bankruptcies and the following liquidity crunch also means that some blue chip assets like 3AC’s NFT collection could be coming to the market pretty soon and those with liquidity could get access to historic NFT’s at huge discounts.
Great art is being made and released on the blockchain - bear market or not. Thats where ALFA comes in - truly allow anyone with even a single ETH to be able to collectively own pieces of huge historical importance - done in a decentralised web3 fashion. (If this sounds familiar, thats because something similar has been done before by Grailers DAO - where they came together to purchase multiple Incomplete Controls by Tyler Hobbs.) SEIZE THE MEMES!
The best art by the best artists at the right price - all together with the community. Thats the mission.
ROADMAP?! Other than collecting the best digital/gen art on the blockchain, we envision ALFA to become a huge ecosystem that will eventually
Have a gallery of its own in multiple cities around the world
Showcase digital first art in its native form while also focusing on physical prints of digital art
Support OG artists and introduce new artists in the space
Specific programs for underrepresented communities in art
Work collaboratively with other web3 partners and pioneers
Transition to a DAO structure with community members voted to a rotating council
Gen-art PFP?
Cool airdrops?!
IRL meetups and have crazy fun along the way. (this is key)
About me (Kylo) and why I’m convinced we can build something that will last:
Personally collected over 5000 works of art from 700+ artists on Ethereum and Tezos. Early collector on Artblocks (minted squiggle #3), Fx(hash) (went with full conviction early on what are today considered by many as important collections.) Fully involved in collector and artist circles and discord. Caught onto NBA TopShot and PFP’s early - bought 13 punks under 5ETH floor (sold too early - live and learn), minted 65 apes - didn’t sell early, created ApeDAO. Member of PROOF, Grailers, BrightMoments/BrightOpps, Fingerprints, KRPDM, Glimmer and many other art collector groups. Proud to be the top supporter of multiple artists. Parts of my collection and some curated galleries can be seen @kylo.tez (on objkt.com) or https://deca.art/Kylo/galleries
Creds: Founded ApeDAO with a 140ETH treasury on NIFTEX and eventually successfully liquidated it (community voted). At its top, the ApeDAO Gnosis Safe was controlling NFT assets (including many Art NFT’s) approximately worth $30m-$35m. The tokens were redeemed for ETH treasury to more than 1000 members, and the liquidation work was done entirely by volunteers from the community in a transparent manner. Everyone who invested in the fundraising round ended with a +EV. Those who got into the first round made around 7000% return in ETH terms, probably more in USD terms (if sold at the right time.) The cool part is though that we all learnt a lot of things on how communities can come together to build in web3 and we’re ready to leverage the knowledge from that experience.
There’s still a big arb to be had between art on tezos and ETH, even with minimal funds allocation in % terms. (Shhhh.. ALFA).
Funds and safety: this is important. We will use gnosis safe and cold wallets. We’re here for the long term so ETH only transfers out to hot wallets to buy art, and the NFT immediately gets send to cold store (probably for years or if someone [Ahem..MoMA..ahem] wants to pay 10x-100x our buy in price). Btw jokes aside the MoMA is actually selling millions of dollars worth of trad art to buy NFT’s. You know what that means? Degens gotta do their thing and front run them!
Other passionate collectors and curators I’ve spoken to are excited by this idea and we are super excited to bring them on to support ALFA in whatever way possible, so that ALFA has a good balance of advisors that understand both web3 ethos combined with traditional art history and aesthetics. We believe a balanced approach is optimal - keep your eyes open and don’t suffer from either availability or confirmation bias that we are so susceptible to in web3.
Key Metrics:
10,000 NFT’s - 90% for public mint over time, 10% for fund treasury (to be used, for example, to trade the NFT for art directly.)
Initial price for public mint: 1 ETH per NFT. (this can change in the future if the collection doesn’t mint out immediately and the art in the treasury appreciates over time.)
Royalties: 2.5% - optional and non-enforced. All royalties will be used to purchase art specifically from underrepresented communities and genesis pieces of new artists entering the web3 space.
Team compensation: Management fee 1% of AUM calculated annually. 10% interest carry with a 20% hurdle rate. (Meaning that if any NFT’s in the treasury are sold, as long as its sold for more than 20% of its initial purchase price, then the net profit made on the sale will be distributed as follows: 90% to ALFA DAF fund and 10% to the “team.” If it is sold for less than 20% net profit, 100% profit goes to the fund.)
To provide a comparison, other traditional funds and even those in the web3 space investing in NFT’s usually charge 2% Management fee and 20% interest carry (low or no hurdle rate.)
We are aware that raising funds in the bear market is hard, but it is also where the maximum opportunity exists to build and lay the foundations. We therefore do not expect the fund to sell out immediately, and even a starting treasury of just 100 ETH will go a long way in creating a curated collection of the best digital generative art out there.
With a clear focus and mission of collecting the most beautiful art, while supporting thriving community of our three main pillars: Creators, Collectors and Curators - we are confident that we will be able to “delight” the holders of the ALFA Fund members. We want to create stories and memories to relive forever. With the right intentions, lean and mean execution, we are confident of delivering it.
Also, the first gem is already in the bag: HINT HINT:
Join ALFA by minting from our Manifold contract:
https://app.manifold.xyz/c/alfa
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Thank you, Much love,
Kylo
Disclaimer:
ALFA is not a security, and to the extent it might be considered as one by laws of any country, its up to the person minting to do their full research on the applicable laws before minting. ALFA is a place where like minded people who love art come together to support artists and share experiences.