This is the first project I've wrote about that I'm not financially invested in but with the level of hype surrounding it I felt like I had to watch it carefully.
From everything I have seen the art looks great, unique style, good team, and loads of physical art to give to holders. It looks like it's potentially the project of the year and that's quite a statement considering some of the projects we've seen in the last 10 months, some big names have promoted Boonji including former Chelsea and Ivory Coast legend Dider Drogba.
Incase you weren't aware the original launch had to be postponed due to attacks on the website and a flood of bots spamming the discord with fake links, after all the chaos and potential scams the decision was made, rightly, to delay launch until October 21.
One point I'll quickly mention which annoys me about some projects on Discord is that they have top tier security on their servers although I do understand the need for high level verification especially when the project is attracting as many bad players as this one. The reason this annoys me is that I don't like giving out my details such as a phone number if I don't have to, I try and keep myself as private as realistically possible in this increasingly public world we live in. Due to this I was never actually in the server.
The re-scheduled launch came around quickly and I set the alarm on my phone so I could watch how it played out, I was never going to take part as even the lowest price of 0.3 ETH was a bit out of my price range and to say I've overspent on NFTs this month is an understatement. The drop wasn't your conventional NFT drop, it was a Dutch Auction. This style of auction starts at the highest price and reduces in increments until it reaches a resting price, in this case 3.3 ETH was the starting price and 0.3 ETH was the final price. The whole collection is 11,111 individual pieces but the launch yesterday saw 7,444 up for grabs and from the perspective of the seller a dutch auction is fantastic, it plays on FOMO and pretty much guarantees some people will overpay.
Surprisingly the resting price was reached but I don't believe the team behind Boonji thought the auction would hit 0.3 ETH, I personally thought around 1 ETH would be the bottom but I guess with ETH currently pumping and NFT sales really taking a hit there was always going to be more hesitancy to splash out as people looked to get the most from their money.
Buyers remorse didn't take long to appear, once people realised the auction price was dropping below what most people expected a sense of entitlement and the reality of a dutch auction swept over them, with painful consequences like this
This is where my problem with Boonji comes in. My experience of NFTs so far has been excellent, in general people are warm, welcoming, and helpful. It is an accessible place, which goes against the grain of the modern world, too often in everyday life the average person is priced out of opportunities and the phrase "money goes to money" holds much weight.
In my opinion this drop and the project as a whole is about as corporate as anything I have seen in the NFT space so far, nothing really compares to it. For starters the team includes a Chief Financial Officer, now there is nothing wrong with this but the setup is not that of an independent artist's project instead it's more like an established company. Couple this with the starting price and style of auction, starting at 3.3 ETH there was an extremely high probability that some people would overpay and lose a substantial amount of money. This is where the "company" side really becomes apparent, yes of course people want to make money and they clearly had a huge marketing budget which they need to recoup but from the start this was a cash cow primed for milking.
Maybe it's short sighted and romantic of me to hold on to this view, currently I'm really enjoying the close knit community and the emergence of new and brilliant artists that are able to put their own work out and gain both financially and in reputation. It's as easy as it has ever been for an artist to create and get paid from their bedroom, you really don't need to get out of bed. I know that looking to the long-term corporations will start flooding in and everything that makes this space wonderful at the moment will be diluted and replaced with the same mindless corporate crap we see on TV all day every day. Watching the Boonji project, for me, was the first taste of what's to come in this space, big money coming in and washing away Joe Public working out of their studio apartment. Of course there will always be a space for Joe Public but it will become smaller and smaller and eventually be reduced to an obscure platform while the corporate giants occupy our field of vision every time we check in on the world of NFTs.
I'm aware that this comes across as Boonji Bashing™ but it's not meant to be, as I said before I think the art is great, I'd consider it one of the biggest projects to drop this year and I wish them luck with the whole thing.
Now spare a thought for the collectors that paid 3.3 ETH (around $14,000) per piece as the floor currently sits at 0.5 ETH (around $2,100).
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