Doodles’ Solana token fails to impress

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.

As most of you probably know by now, Doodles — the rainbow-barfing Ethereum $NFT collection of 10,000 PFPs of the 2021 $NFT boom — is launching a token on Solana.

Response so far has been pretty mixed. A lot of Crypto Twitter loves a token, especially one from an established brand, but there’s also been some criticism. First, there’s the token allocation. As one poster has pointed out, the Doodles team may receive up to 57% of the DOOD tokens, once you combine the parts of the pie that goes to the team plus the other pieces that could go to the team. That doesn’t look too cute, considering how tokens are often marketed as a way to “give back to the community.”

And then there’s the issue of timing. Is launching a token now, on a different chain than the $NFT collection, too little, too late? Will DOOD serve any functional purpose, besides offering exit liquidity, a memecoin, and a way to get a bit more attention?

The market has been rough out there for art- and gaming-related tokens lately. PENGU, the Pudgy Penguins’ token, is still down 67% in the past month. PIXELS, the token behind the Ronin-based game of the same name, is also still down 50% in the past month. Apecoin, the once-hyped token behind the Yuga Labs world, remains down 50% in the past year.

The Doodles team has tried other brand plays to generate interest in its IP, from striking a deal with rapper-producer Pharrell to join as their chief brand officer in 2023 to partnering with McDonald’s to release cups in November. Despite those high-profile deals, however, Doodles NFTs haven’t soared above the rest.

The DOOD announcement hasn’t really rejuvenated excitement around the $NFT collection either, when we look at sales and volume traded. In the past week, Doodles sales volume is down 32%, according to CryptoSlam data.

Launching a token seems to be the latest way for crypto projects to monetize their IP. While I do think the Doodles’ art and aesthetic is cool in a minimalist way, I’m not sure their token will have a different fate than so many of the others currently out there. Time and time again, we’ve seen an initial pump and then a selloff, followed by flatlining or slowly declining price action.