Update on Pak’s Cube/ASH Economy and Some Speculative Pak Theories on the Drop
Read: Very Speculative
First, what is happening in the cube market?
A lot of cube NFTs are being burned and price has gone up considerably:
Source: Artcentral.io
Why have Cubes and ASH been going up?
A few possible reasons
Historical - The Fungible is the first major drop on major auction platform
Blue chip OG creator Pak (Fvckrender, Xcopy saw big spikes recently)
scarcity
Ownership - people aren’t selling and a ton of large cube accounts aren’t either while there are Whales buying
Only way to get large amount of ASH now
People aren’t realizing this – A Cube is still half a Gutter Cat
NFT overall market has been rising, lifting all boats
Pak was under appreciated and under recognized when cubes were $2k and there are plenty of distractions each day with dozens of 10k profile pic drops of which exactly 99.99% of them will be worth less in a year.
Which brings us back to the upcoming drops…
Pak has been planning three drops, not one, and the first drop will be a “collectible” which will be unlike anything we have witnessed before. While a lot of the details are unknown, here is what we know:
Three (3) drops total (exact timing uncertain on the 2nd and 3rd drops):
1. ETH and (likely) ASH denominated drop: Pak “collectible” (more below)
2. ASH-Exclusive Drop: Pak NFTs
3. ASH-Exclusive Drop: Pak x Top NFT Artists.
Pak has introduced many artists to NFTs, including Beeple (9:20 mark):
Beeple is a friend of Pak, after all both have been in the design space for more than a decade. Fvckrender, as noted in the previous post, has tweeted about offering a 1/1 piece to be sold in ASH. Pak has also collaborated with Trevor Jones before on Extrusion\Fusion\Sense in 2020. So it will be exciting to see the artists Pak work with on the ASH exclusive and the chemistry that brings.
Other interesting details (Albeit vague) about the upcoming (first) collectible drops
1. It will be extraordinary and unique:
2. You can purchase as many as you want but it won’t be an open edition, and it will look very different than other collectibles:
3. Hint: a detour into the Library of Babel
Pak has teased that there is a connection between the concepts in Library of Babel and the upcoming collectible:
The Library of Babel (1941) was imagined to contain every book that ever was, or ever could be, written. Its writer, the renowned Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, saw the universe as a vast information bank in the form of a library (Google and the internet are good modern day analogies).
A Summary for Borges’ Library of Babel
Comprises a gigantic collection of books, each having 410 pages, with 40 lines on each page and 80 characters on each line
Contains every possible book of this form: one book with each of the possible orderings of the characters
Borges used an alphabet of 25 letters, so the total number of books is 25 raised to the power 1,312,000. This corresponds approximately to two followed by 1.8 million zeros (source)
The Library is divided into hexagonal galleries, in each of which four walls are lined with books. Borges writes that the library is a sphere whose exact center is any hexagon. There are a few themes or revelations in the book:
For every book and every word that is gibberish, there is a book that decodes it to provide meaning
The library is infinite but periodic: if one were to walk far enough (or infinitely far), one would eventually get back to where they started
“The Library is unlimited but periodic. If an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder–which, repeated, becomes order: the Order. my solitude is cheered by that elegant hope…”
-Jorge Luis Borges
So how exactly could that look like? Borges’ short stories hold many mathematical elements and concepts. Pak, who has studied physics, and loves geometric and mathematical concepts. Yet, Pak has said it isn’t “geometric,” or less geometric and “something else.”
Pak has also noted that this tweet may be the most revealing of what is to come:
A wormhole is a hypothetical structure connecting two points with different locations or different times (or both). So, one possibility is a tube or surface of constant time, a set of points that all have the same time coordinate. “Touching the texture of time” is very interesting.
The Library of Babel with its seemingly endless number of books and hexagons is an infinite “surface” of constant time, like how we are all on earth in different places but at an identical Coordinated Universal Time.
So what does this all mean in relation to the upcoming first drop?
Remember this collectible will be unique 1/1 NFTs that will be unlike any other collectible and will not look like any of Pak’s previous work. The following are likely wrong and highly speculative, but it’s fun to speculate on the potentialities of NFTs and especially what Pak creates:
Pak Theory #1: Each NFT could be like the hexagons or books in the Library of Babel, each unique yet containing important information or properties. We will need to navigate and find what is valuable and what isn’t. The entire collection could be 1 large hexagonal surface “NFT” and each 1/1 we can purchase is a “book” in it
Pak Theory #2: How the NFTs relate to each other and what their properties are will be extremely interesting: some NFTs may “decode” other NFTs and be oriented on a single surface like a mobius strip, that makes it periodic. NFTs may have an interaction to or some relationship with a broader “thing” which could be the surface/geometry/world that all these NFTs live in
Pak Theory #3: Pak can control this surface or perhaps users can influence it, and therefore affect certain properties of each NFT or the combined “Library.” This could be one interpretation of the “Texture of time”
Pak Theory #4: In the Library of Babel, a Crimson Hexagon, a room containing a perfect index of every other book in the library, exists. This index can be used as a guide to extract meaning from all of the unstructured information in books. Some NFTs will be extraordinarily more valuable and will allow others NFTs to be decoded and understood
Pak Theory #5: The NFT will look conceptually simple on the outside as Pak chooses simplicity over complexity, but aspects of the NFT or its smart contract will be sophisticated. The NFT could change based on how much ASH is in the wallet it is held in, the wallet address, transaction ID, etc. Will it be generative?
The Library of Babel is a universe of information at the end of the day, with more information and details, there are more questions. I don’t have any real answers and again, none of this could be right.
…And what will happen to ASH after the drop?
I believe the ASH Economy Will Grow and ASH Will Become Even More Valuable
Pak has always favored collectors and holders, and has specifically tweeted to Hodl ASH/Cubes.
While the ASH-Exclusive drops are forthcoming, it is possible that the first drop is available to also be purchased in ASH. Pak has said the drop will be inclusive, so 1) drop price won’t be extremely high and 2) it will support the ASH economy and get ASH into more wallets, somehow.
Let’s say the first drop could be purchased with ASH, at a reasonable price of 50 ASH to buy. Then it would be hundreds of people trying to buy 50 ASH (again that's a placeholder for a "small amount" needed to purchase).
Lets assume 1000 people want to buy 50 ASH -> 50,000 ash demand.
All the ASH that can be bought on the market? 5,000 (entire size of the liquidity pool)
ASH in circulation: 2.3 million
ASH in the liquidity pool (max amount that can be purchased): 4,700
ASH minted per Cube NFT burned: 730
So those who have ASH, are holding ASH, will really benefit from having and CONTINUING TO HODL ASH.
The thing is, those who collect Pak are great at buying, but aren’t so quick (or will never) sell. Illestrater is a huge Whale and the largest ASH holder. The top owners of ASH I know will not be selling even though some of them may have burned ASH and taken it out of circulation.
Additionally, there are projects in the works to possibly reward those who deposit ASH into the liquidity pool or stake it, thereby locking that ASH supply away. Developing a DeFi project that is ASH centric as Silver Surfer is doing with the above could drive greater use cases for ASH and further integrate NFTs with the much larger world of DeFi lending/fractionalization/collateralization.
In conclusion, announcement of the drop should be coming soon, and the best thing I can recommend is to have some ASH and…
And lastly…