Inscribed Monkee SPL420

Hybrid DeFi in Hindsight: - SPL20s were successful in the beginning because of the free & 100% public meta (like BRC20), enabling fair launch speculative assets that anyone around the world could participate in for a chance of a 100x or even 1000x (thanks to @LibrePlex), disrupting the insider "cabal" model that most memecoins at the time launched with (pre-pumpfun). They quadrupled NFT trading vol, onboarded a million new wallets and captured the attention of the degen Eastern / Chinese / Korean demo. - The western demo didn't catch on until it was too late, @SolsHybrid already had an epic run up to $300M and they missed it altogether. They also didn't get why the NFTs had no PFP art / rarity. So the west mostly faded the entire asset class. Combined with the drama around the original deployer + Gate io buying up the majority of supply, the leading project from this new asset class crashed and burned. So the core western Solana community (the incumbents) considered the entire asset class a failure. - This caused the eastern Inscription meta community (Solana "tourists") to leave the blockchain altogether as you can't create a second "first dragon", they were very upset with how the original deployer SolKek managed his role as he launched many cash grabs after SOLS. The narrative didn't stick as it did with ORDI & BRC20 so they moved on to different blockchains / narratives and took their liquidity with them. - Ethereum / @Pandora_ERC404 comes up with ERC404 which brings all new attention to the hybrid class, introducing NFT rarity while a few projects like @bozoHYBRID & @GH0STC0IN were pushing the SPL20 meta forward with small iterative innovations. All 3 of these projects become massively profitable for minters reaching 8-9 figure mcaps & BOZO becomes the #1 NFT by floor price (500 SOL). Leading the OG Solana community to be once again confused and blindsided so they fade for the second time despite some of the most notable memecoin traders like @blknoiz06 being bullish. - Enter pump fun, and now there's a new platform for fair launching memecoins which absolutely explodes in popularity putting the nail in the coffin for SPL20. - A small group of savvy OG Solana incumbents who were paying close attention since the early days of SPL20 see the value in Hybrids and decide to bring PFP art & rarity back into the equation as ERC404 did, creating SPL404 (@mutantmon_sol). The OG western Solana community loved this as it brought back the 2021 NFT vibes and nearly every Solana influencer became incredibly bullish that SPL404 would be THE thing that miraculously revives NFTs from the dead. - The Solana cool kids got a bit TOO bullish and many of them HAD NEVER PARTICIPATED IN SPL20s AT ALL, so they threw away the free & public mint model, opting for "2021 NFT as ICO" model and launched a series of roadmap based 404s that capitalized on the hype of the narrative and extracted as much SOL as humanly possible from the mints. This led to nearly every 404 project either massively crashing post-mint or at best just barely hovering below mint price. They left out the part that the community loved most, which is ASYMMETRIC UPSIDE POTENTIAL and once again the community was left with a bad taste in their mouth for hybrids & NFTs all together. Chalking up 404s to simply an influencer scam trying to force NFTs down our throats one more time. There isn't a SINGLE 404 project that even comes close to the price performance of the early day SPL20s, even many of the lowest effort "shitcoin" SPL20s outperformed all 404s due to the mint prices being far too high. - Now we are in the "trough of sorrow" phase, after the initial hype of 404s has come down and most of the community got burned. There has still yet to be the PERFECT hybrid project that not only has great PFP art, collectibility & viral branding but also the tokenomics of a fair launch memecoin. I still believe if a project were to have these two elements, it would be the formula for success. Memecoiners would see why locking up tokens in the form of a PFP and making it your digital idenity is the ultimate way to create supply shock. NFT projects would see why issuing a separate token introduces dilution & split buy pressure, tanking your floor. But for now, the community has yet to see a major proven use case, so the lack of demand becomes a negative feedback loop. The question is - will there be a breakout project that PERFECTS this model and checks off every box? Or will the asset class fade into distant memory as a short lived novelty? Only time will tell.