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The 2021-era Ethereum NFT collection Doodles, which some have long considered to be a “blue chip” collection, launched its anticipated DOOD token on Solana this past Friday.
DOOD launched, briefly had a market cap of over $100 million, and then abruptly fell to a market cap of roughly $52 million. The token has since held around that point, and sits at a $54 million market cap across about 159,000 wallets as of this morning.
Doodles head of strategy and business development Austin Hurwitz told me in a message that the sudden price drop after launch was “expected” because the airdrop that occurred created “sell pressure on day 1.”
“We expect those tokens to rotate into the hands of people who want to hold for the long run. Would not judge the performance of the token based on launch. Every NFT launch that was given to the community at TGE has faced similar hurdles but we’d do it all over again to put our community first. Now that it’s out we can continue [to] focus on building for the future,” Hurwitz told me.
Here’s the thing: The Doodles team doesn’t want you to see DOOD as just a memecoin. Still, Hurwitz said the token is “memetic.”
In a post, he explained that DOOD is “the first universe token” of DreamNet. DreamNet is a content-focused protocol from Doodles that uses Coinbase’s Base chain. The Doodles team has plans to make DOOD usable across “collectibles, gaming, DeFi and beyond.”
The token is expected to become a usable currency in the Doodles shop in a few days.
Doodles’ broader brand vision these days sounds a lot like that of Pudgy Penguins, perhaps its most obvious comparison. The Penguins also have cutesy avatars and the goal of becoming a mainstream character brand (and have gained some traction with social media posts and Walmart toys).
Doodles, like Pudgy Penguins, is planning content, “shorts, brand collabs and merch drops,” but also wants to be powering a “decentralized storytelling movement.”
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