Solana Monkey Business
About Solana Monkey Business
SMB launched “Gen1” of its collection in June 2021 consisting of 205 initial pixel collectibles showing a monkey in space. It then released “Gen2” in August 2021 which is its largest collection consisting of 5,000 NFTs.
Official rarity can be found here: https://raritysniper.com/solana-monkey-business
Since then, decentralized Solana trading protocol Hadeswap acquired SMB from its original founders and transferred ownership to HadesDAO.
Recently, HadesDAO passed a proposal that would allow MonkeDAO to purchase the SMB intellectual property for $2 Million USDC. While this has not been confirmed at time of writing, it is looking as though the deal is going to go ahead. The announcement was received favorably on Twitter, with some calling the purchase ‘historic’.
What is MonkeDAO?
MonkeDAO began in 2021 as a small, decentralized community that shared a love for Solana Monkey Business. Since then, they have attracted early builders, investors, and influencers of Web3, and have evolved into a premier community on Solana. Exclusive to SMB holders, in order to join MonkeDAO, you must own an SMB NFT.
MonkeDAO’s legal counsel, Ariel Givner, stated that SOLBigBrain, an active MonkeDAO community member, gave the organization a $1 million USDC loan at 0% interest to facilitate the acquisition. She added that MonkeDAO will soon launch its own NFT collection titled The Monkes in order to supplement funding.
No Utility apart from access to the community ran – MonkeDAO.
| Team Members | Role |
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The current owner is HGE.SOL – https://twitter.com/HGESOL / HadesDAO, founder of Hadeswap & ABC.
I will list the team of MonkeDAO below in case the proposal is a success.
Nom – https://twitter.com/theonlynom – MonkeDAO CEO and Co-Founder, Original Smoothbrain, focused on delivering value to the community and proving value for the community to the world.
Jemmy – https://twitter.com/jemmmyjemm – Founding Monke of MonkeDAO, excited to be at the forefront of a social revolution where communities and organizations are constantly redefined. Love all things digital media entertainment.
Nano – https://twitter.com/nanospoon – In crypto since 2013, in NFTs since 2017. Focused on Governance, workflows, and everything else that can deliver value to Monkes.
Supersimon – https://twitter.com/supersimon77 – Geophysicist, following crypto since 2010, into NFTs since early 2020. Learning as much as he can, exploring as much as he can, focused on building and maintaining the community in the MonkeDAO.
Other members of MonkeDAO team include:
Flman – https://twitter.com/cryptoFLman
J5 – https://twitter.com/j5trades
Undee – https://twitter.com/undeenft
Maurice – https://twitter.com/mauricedotxyz
Don’t discount SMB, it has proven itself to be a top tier community and was the 1st collection on Solana to reach over 1 Million SOL in sales. The Art is very similar to Ethereum project ‘Crypto Punks’.
They have showcased over 200 projects hosted on Monday Monke Spotlight, their weekly Twitter Space that aims to promote Monke builders on a public platform while also providing an opportunity to engage, learn and collaborate on new projects and ideas for the web3 ecosystem.
Since inception, they have supported projects like Magic Eden, Jupiter, Fractal, Elixer, AssetDash, Sharky, Exchange Art and many more. Their investment syndicate MonkeVentures – https://twitter.com/MonkeVentures – is only available to MonkeDAO members with a mission to democratize and redefine access to investments for Monkes and the extended ecosystem. This could be a great incentive for up and coming projects or founders to get involved in the SMB community.
They support the Solana ecosystem in many ways by providing support / investment to up and coming projects, speaking on panels, podcasts and spaces, being judges at Solana Hackathons and much more. This is great to see from a project as it shows their willingness to bolster the Solana ecosystem and the strength of the community. Many top projects in the space are holders of Solana Monkey Business.
MonkeDAO have also announced their latest collection The Monkes – https://twitter.com/The_Monkes – see below for a sneak peak of their art and mint process:
This brings the question to light “If they are creating their own NFT collection, what does that mean for SMB?”. Less exposure for SMB? More focus on Monke than SMB?
They made an announcement to their community of SMB holders that “If no agreement can be reached within 2 months (Saturday, May 27, 2023 5:00 PM in 2 months), then MonkeDAO will issue replacement NFTs to all SMB Gen2 holders which will serve as the new access and governance mechanism for MonkeDAO”. This sounds like they are trying to strong arm HadesDAO into selling SMB otherwise MonkeDAO will abandon the project and start their own.
But, if the acquisition goes ahead and MonkeDAO takes over, it will be interesting to see what their plans are for the future.
I personally want to see a whitepaper or roadmap from them outlining clear goals and direction for both projects particularly, because they are not the original founding team of SMB. While the team has been around since the start and have stayed true to the project (minus a disagreement with the original creators), acquiring and running a project as well as creating a whole new collection is a whole different ball game. They will need to really step up and show the community that they are the right people for the job.
If MonkeDAO acquires SMB then how are they going to generate revenue? They obviously couldn’t afford the $2 Million USDC payment as SOLBigBrain had to loan them $1 Million USDC. Recently they posted this announcement in their Discord:
If they cannot establish a consistent stream of revenue, the question arises “how will pay back their loan and sustain the project?”. They are aiming to sell out a new 15,000 piece collection at an average mint price of around 13 SOL which would value the ‘Monke’ collection at $3.3 Million (5000 NFTs will be auctioned off so if sold out would equal a lot more than $3.3M). I will be surprised if it mints out.
With all that being said, the way the team at MonkeDAO present themselves looks to be very professional but at the same time it is known that many holders can be quite ‘sour’ and ‘toxic’ on socials. Not a huge concern but worth noting.
At time of writing the floor price sits at 200 SOL which is considerably higher than the 2 SOL mint price. I think this is also a testament to the community as this will be the third time SMB has changed owners and the floor price still holds strong.
Apart from the obvious risks of a new team taking over, a second collection and concerns over funding, i feel Solana Monkey Business is a solid project but i am a little concerned about the new collection and will need further clarification on how both projects plan to move forward and generate revenue if i am to look for an entry.