The First Epic: A tribute to Ethereum

London became the first epic created by Pob Studio in a series of works highlighting the evolution of the Ethereum blockchain. Epics are a chronicle of blockchain history.

Before the Time of London

This project had several names and changed forms many times before it became known as London. In the start, there was no intention of developing an ERC-20 token, the project lacked historical relevance, and there was no plan for a DAO. An idea was forming around a token minting mechanism inspired by the gas wars plaguing Ethereum.

As talk of the London Hard Fork picked up, the token minting idea began to take on new meaning, inspired by the coming changes to Ethereum’s gas fee mechanics. This monumental upgrade to the network created the perfect event to explore minting tokens around gas fees and the opportunity to highlight gas prices as an integral part of the NFT art experience.

London, the social token and minting experience

London technically started as a minting experience around a social token leading up to the London Hard Fork event. $LONDON tokens could be minted in a fun experience based on the gas price at the time of minting.

As $LONDON was a fair launch, the only way to get these tokens was by minting them along a bonding curve that determined the amount of tokens according to the gas price.

If timed correctly, a maximum output of 1559 $LONDON tokens could be minted for the price of 15.59 gwei.

With the buzz of the coming upgrades to Ethereum, a community formed around the minting experiment, and a whopping total supply of 45,557,739.812 $LONDON tokens were minted in the lead up to the London Hard Fork.

The Hard Fork, London Gift Collection, and London DAO

This was an exciting moment for Pob Studio. With the London Hard Fork approaching, the studio collaborated with the passionate community of $LONDON token minters to create the London Gift collectio: a generative art collection of NFTs created for the holders of $LONDON that would create a foundation for forming a DAO.

On August 4, 2021, the London Hard Fork was completed on Ethereum, and the London Gift Collection was minted in a matter of minutes, officially forming the London DAO in a first-of-its kind experience. As the project was designed, upon minting all 8,888 NFTs in the collection, the proceeds were directed to a new wallet controlled by London DAO, and 15.59% of the proceeds were burned.

Members of the London DAO could utilize their tokens and London Gifts as governance tokens to enact and vote on community proposals. DAO members were quick to organize themselves around efforts that expanded the mission of the DAO to be a champion of Ethereum’s community and history.

In its time of operation, London DAO provided grant support to three up-and-coming blockchain projects on Ethereum and collaborated with Pob Studio to release a project celebrating the “Ethereum 2.0” upgrades. The project became the London Embers Collection.

London Embers Collection

London Embers are a generative art collection created by burning London Gift tokens in a homage to the new upgrade to burn ETH on Ethereum. The London Embers collection was created for the holders of London Gift NFTs and released through a community airdrop.

The main way to mint London Embers was to burn London Gift NFT’s. The number of London Gift’s that were burned determined the output of how many London Embers would be minted.

Alongside the community airdrop, 500 London Embers were made available in a public sale, and Embers could be purchased for 1559 $LONDON tokens. London Embers could only be minted by burning London Gift NFTs until “the merge” of the Ethereum mainnet to “ETH 2.”

Each project created under the London moniker is a reflection of a deep passion for blockchain developments and Ethereum’s history. This epic marks a special time for Pob Studio and celebrates some of the biggest moments on Ethereum to date.