NYX Beauty under L’Oreal launched a digital membership program that issued 1,000 digital membership passes on February 2, 2023. The DAO, called GORJS, was created with the goal to become an incubator for funding 3D artists. Many interesting stories have been told about it in just a few days. Some are speculaters, while others are looking forward to what the future holds in the digital age. It has had a good start, but it also made some mistakes. It all comes together to create a brand and a community that explores the unknown. People often refer to DAOs as Internet-native organizations that are based on a shared culture, hobby, or vision. DAOs are different from ordinary Internet communities. They have clear goals and specific funds. They rely on blockchain technology to provide financial and governance constraints and coordination to help them achieve their goals. L’Oreal is creating such a DAO. Who is singing?NYX- L’Oreal’s cosmetics company. This brand is young and adept at Internet operations, which is something that L’Oreal is doing. It only accounts for 1% of the L’Oreal Group’s annual sales of 450m euros, but it has 14.5m followers on Instagram (an international social network similar to Xiaohongshu). GORJS DAO’s founding members are NYX Cosmetics executives. The company’s future operations will also be closely related to NYX. This plan was launched as a sub-brand under L’Oreal. It received the support of L’Oreal’s top management. The team will support the artists and continue to be onboard advisors as needed. GORJS is an acronym for Gorgeous in English and is a digital art incubator. It adopts DAO as its organizational structure. GORJS DAO will fund 3D artists in specific fields to explore “beauty” in the digital virtual universe. The brand will provide financial support to the artists, as well as support through other resources. Some of the artworks will be given to DAO members after the artist has completed the creation. The remaining artworks will be sold on the market. Both the artist and DAO will share the proceeds. This model allows community members to continue to receive digital artwork. If the market accepts the creation, it will bring in income to DAO, allowing the funding to continue. This membership pass is highly sought-after, just like most of the major brands that have entered the Web3 space. The 1,000 passes were quickly sold out, bringing in approximately $300,000. What is the definition and meaning of beauty in the virtual universe? What is the definition of beauty in this virtual world? NYX hopes to be a pioneer in exploring this unknown world. This is NYX’s attempt to continue and deepen its exploration of the digital world using a more Web3 approach. NYX chose to be an artist incubator because it has done a lot to support creators and artists ever since its inception. However, this time it has become more DAO-shaped support plans. NYX is not trying to make extra sales to the Web3 circles. The team confirmed that membership passes were not enough to pay for external partners and sold for $300,000. Let’s take a closer at the DAO operating rules. It doesn’t matter if the initial pass sales are followed by subsequent sales of artworks. All funds will go into the treasury that is controlled by the community. It is up to everyone to decide how they use it. The team answered the question, “Why create such a DAO?”
Web3 is all about culture. People are looking for more immersive experiences, ownership, and the opportunity to be creators. Brands that understand culture and where it goes will be successful. It’s not about short-term profit, it’s about being at forefront of culture. Because they understand the power and potential of culture, great labels and artists like Universal and Andy Warhol have managed to remain in our collective memories. We are super excited about this.
This can be seen in many places. The team hopes to get in touch with all DAO members to learn more about them, their motivations, what support they need and what they can do together. This is why this offering only has a thousand passes. There is so much to talk about, it is very difficult to find intimacy among members. GORJS’ core business is to nominate artists through proposals, then vote to determine who gets funding. While anyone can submit proposals, only community members have the ability to vote on who gets funded. The funding and the corresponding creations will go out on a quarterly basis. This is in contrast to some projects that are promoted and built momentum months ahead of time. GORJS membership passes were only launched two weeks before they went on sale. This is a very rushed process. It could be that the plan was temporarily changed, or that the total number of 1,000 is not enough and that there is no reason to be concerned about it not selling out. The team sent only a few tweets and did a question and answer. The blockchain network issues membership passes in the form NFT. This makes it very easy to do secondary transactions in market. More than one million requests were received in the first minute of whitelist sale. This is a huge profit opportunity that is beyond the reach of ordinary buyers. The server crashed immediately and the release was delayed until the next day. Only a few accounts that were controlled by code robots could be purchased successfully the first day. The remaining passes were quickly swept away after restarting the next day. Evidently, arbitrageurs with technical advantage bought large portions of the pass. It is ironic that many people who express their dissatisfaction in the chat channel are actually speculators. The brand was not disgraced and all passes were sold. DAO also received the initial funding it required. This launch was not very successful, judging by the purpose of DAO. Too many passes are in the hands speculators who don’t care much about art and creation and don’t know what the project’s about. It is sufficient that the thing has a small amount, a good reputation, and should be able make money. However, such a distribution of holders will undoubtedly present great difficulties in starting a DAO. The pass was traded 400 times in the first 3 days following its issue. 40% of the buyers then left the market. This caused great dissatisfaction within the community. Everyone believes that an NFT project should immediately release good news, act quickly and arrange for peripheral funds to support market operations. GROJS didn’t intend to do this. Speculators selling off caused prices to fall from their highs, and eventually fell below the issue cost. This led to more conflicts. Many people who had lost money due to orders from high-ranking positions suggested that DAO use treasury to protect the market. This was clearly rejected by the team. The treasury funds were used to support artists. This was made clear before the launch. The community’s intense reaction prompted the team to quickly respond. They held a meeting to discuss the technical issues in the sale, the future plan, and why the first project should be launched at March’s end. The team also announced that members who purchased passes through secondary market rights or interests will be adjusted. This was in response to the community’s intense reaction. This design rewards community members who have been a part of the DAO since its inception. The team now realizes that many of them are just speculators. Many of the people who purchased passes on the secondary market are actually members who are willing to be part of this community. These friends should be treated fairly. The proposal and voting system has not yet been implemented so this adjustment was made without contacting the community or voting for approval. This is a violation of DAO’s spirit and has led to the community scolding the NYX team. Many members of the NYX Team, including the NYX staff, worked hard to answer various questions in real-time via the chat channel.
“The team and myself have been closely following the launch process, being fully aware of everything that is happening, listening to everyone’s opinions, and solving various problems in real-time. These complex issues will be discussed in community meetings. We will share our knowledge with you. This is what this community is all about, and this is what the DAO is all about. We are humble and learn by doing. It takes time to transfer the Web2 brain to Web3 world.
The speech by Matthieu Guerin, NYX Global Vice President. Some friends who want to take part in DAO now have the chance to purchase a pass at a lower price than originally. Someone said:
“I am glad to see that there have been some changes made. I’ve seen others come up with great ideas and hope that the team will consider them. This is how web3 users can be engaged, keep it fun, and still keep it serious. People will believe in what you do and will want to keep it. This mission is what I love, artists are NYX’s DNA. Keep your passion alive and let it grow into something that excites everyone on the web3.
They also stated:
“The plan is good, but you need to consider the time factor. Otherwise, the effort will be in vain. Price is important, especially early on in a project. Pass prices are similar to stock prices on web2. Other efforts won’t make a difference if the stock price of the company plummets, even if it is well below its IPO price. Everyone is concerned about falling prices. No one talks about what to do. The price of an item is an indicator of its credibility and value to other people.
It is obvious that even rational supporters are reminding the team that “price” is part of the brand. GORJS is initiated by the company. It will be inextricably connected with the company during the operation. This is unlike most community DAOs. This seems to be contrary to DAO’s pursuit of decentralization.However, we should also see that technically speaking, no matter whether L’Oreal, NYX, or the founding team, they are not the controller of GORJS DAO, but only the operation team. When the pass sale is completed, control is transferred to the community. Voting is an option for the community to decide how it wants to develop. The current community has not created a working system. GORJS relied for a long time on L’Oreal’s team to promote the affairs. Community members were only responsible the most important thing, which was voting for their favorite artists. The current community has the highest consensus on mutual support and joint development. DAO can leave the brand if this consensus changes. They can also break away from DAO in the future. If there are enough enthusiastic participants, they can eventually replace the founding team in DAO and begin a gradual decentralization process. The brand will then no longer directly participate in the DAO’s daily operations and will instead use the resources of a large organization to help the community with empowerment, distribution, and business cooperation. GORJS will be an example of a symbiotic relationship between communities and commercial companies. The company supports the community and people come together because they share a common culture. And the innovations born in the community will, in turn, drive the company’s business.ConclusionThrough GORJS DAO, NYX is embarking on a Web3 exploration that is different from most brands, and it is an attempt worth encouraging, in my opinion. However, there are always setbacks when exploring the unknown. The sale is not the end. Everything has just begun. The current pass holders are still speculators. Even if they leave, it will be difficult to get real supporters and create a community that is trusting, trustworthy, and connected. It’s a fascinating story, but it’s not all about stories. We will soon be able to provide more details about the GORJS DAO’s operation mechanism, compliance governance, sale process, governance, and the proposal/voting system. Because most of my friends don’t care about these details, the information will not be included in the article. Instead, it will be put into slides and released separately in a few days. We encourage you to do your research before investing.Join us to keep track of news: https://linktr.ee/coincuHaroldCoincu NewsTags: DAOGORJS DAOL’OrealMetaverseNYX