DeGods

What Is the DeGods NFT Collection?

DeGods is a collection of 10,000 pfpNFTs featuring ‘degenerate’ ancient deities dressed in modern streetwear. The project originally launched on the Solana chain but later announced the migration of the DeGods NFT collection to Ethereum in December 2022. This decision was amidst the problems that the Solana chain was facing in 2022. The DeGods project only officially migrated to the Ethereum chain in 2023.

Launched on 8 October 2021, the DeGods collection sold out within 7 seconds and had a mint price of 3 SOL. 11 months later, a DeGods NFT sold for 7033.3 SOL. Widely known for the acquisition of a professional basketball team named the ‘Killer 3s’, the DeGods NFT project is one of the more notable projects in the NFT space. Celebrities like David Beckham and Shaquille O’Neal were also among the holders of the DeGods collection.

The project is also well known for the implementation of a ‘Paper Hand Bitch Tax’ (PHBT), a tax meant to punish paper hands, which are known as investors who sell their investment at the first sign of financial turmoil in fear of potential losses. The tax meant there would be a 33.3% tax on the sale if a seller sold their NFT below the mint price of 3 SOL. The idea of a tax was the first of its kind, and it quickly gained visibility and popularity among investors. Despite its popularity, the tax system did not fare well, and on the 1st of January 2022, the team abolished the PHBT system. 

Who Is the Team Behind DeGods?

The NFT collection is managed by Dust Labs, which is also the same team behind the y00ts NFT collection on Polygon. The team is led by Rohun Vora, who went by the pseudonym Frank DeGods before he doxxed himself in November 2022. Rohun is a serial entrepreneur in web3, who was previously pursuing a degree in Film at UCLA but dropped out. Likewise, the CEO of Dust Labs, Kevin DeGods, also doxxed himself and revealed his identity as tech entrepreneur Kevin Henrikson.

What Is the Utility of the DeGods Collection?

The DeGods NFT collection is known to have one of the strongest NFT communities, with many investors using their DeGods NFTs as profile pictures on social media. 

Holders of the DeGods collection are also able to generate DUST tokens by staking their NFTs. DUST is the native token of the DeDAO, which is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that governs the DeGods ecosystem. This allows holders of the DeGods collection to generate some passive income while holding their NFTs. 

The DUST earned can then be spent on its native marketplace, where investors are able to buy exclusive whitelist spots for upcoming projects, merchandise, courtside tickets, blue-chip NFTs, and even V-Bucks for Fortnite.

Holders of the DeGod collection are also given exclusive access to a Discord group, which allows holders of the collection to interact with one another. 

DeadGods

With the DUST generated from staking their DeGods, DeGods holders were also able to “transcend” their NFT to a DeadGod. The DeadGods are not a separate collection, as it still contains the metadata of the original DeGods. This essentially means that DeGods and DeadGods are two different versions of the same NFT. By transcending your DeGod to DeadGods, holders can mine more dust when staking their NFTs. 

Holders of DeadGods were also given an exclusive whitelist to mint Dust Lab’s other NFT project, y00ts. 

DeGods on Bitcoin 

In March 2023, 535 DeGods NFTs were burnt and minted on Bitcoin. This was after the Ordinals protocol was introduced in February 2023, allowing users to hold NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. Of the 535 NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, 500 of the NFTs were minted with BTC, while the remaining 34 were auctioned or raffled off in DUST.