Cats: Are They Cool? Do We Still Like Them?

A Cool Cats Project Breakdown

Author

subvert 😸
February 15, 2023

An Oral History of Cool Cats

Intro

GM! You’re reading a project breakdown about the Cool Cats NFT project, written by a Cool Cat holder. My name’s subvert, and I’ll be responsible for walking you through everything you need to know about this iconic project’s past, present and future.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Wait, won’t your identity as a Cool Cat holder make this a subjective puff piece about the project?” Au contraire, frens — the counter-argument is that because of my history, familiarity and ties to the widespread Cool Cats community, this piece will provide depth and perspective unlike any other out there.

Because while any outsider can pull up OpenSea sales charts and trawl through Twitter announcements, few can report what happens in our group chats, at our gatherings and gauge holder sentiment like I will. And hey, I’ll try my best to stay fair and objective.

Throughout this project breakdown, I’ll be illustrating key events and milestones, comparing Cool Cats to other OG/blue chip NFT avatar projects and splashing in some stories and personal experiences for good measure. It’s going to be a loooong ride, so strap in tight. Or just skip to the parts you’re interested in after browsing the Contents section.

Who’s ready for a trip to Cooltopia? Let’s dive in…

Contents

Blue Cat OriginsJPEG Summer MintChugging AlongSpilt $MILKCooltopia NYCPivoting & PartnershipsCorporate CatsThe RelaunchFinal Words

Blue Cat Origins

Any talk about Cool Cats undoubtedly has to start with the story of Colin Egan aka clon (@cloncast on Twitter) — the artist and creator of the iconic Blue Cat character (whose official name is Blue). Unlike a lot of NFT collections launched during the same period that featured shoddily pieced together generative Fiverr art, Cool Cats stood out due to its immediately recognizable art style and depth of the character — which in fact has been almost 10 years in the making.

The story of Blue Cat is closely intertwined with clon’s career as an artist and illustrator; after all, Blue Cat is a representation of his personality (and red bird companion Jo represents his wife Geeg). The character was created in 2013 and has undergone multiple iterations before evolving to the form it has taken today; paralleling the arduous journey that clon has also undertaken in the same time period. He’s gone from a struggling freelancer selling sketches and comic prints to millions in sales, growing a global audience and being the faces of one of the most recognizable NFTs on the market.

This tweet from November 2021 (coinciding with NFT NYC 2021) really sums up the journey — how Blue Cat has journeyed from a small illustrator fair in Atlanta, Georgia to the bright lights of Times Square, New York; a true Cinderella story that undoubtedly have inspired many in the space to never give up on their dreams as well.

JPEG Summer Mint // July 2021

Ahh, the summer of 2021; it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. More specifically, it was a hotbed for NFT mints, with anywhere from 10 to 20 new projects minting on a given day, and it was on July 1, 2021 that the world got to officially meet Cool Cats.

Back in the day, there were only a few ways you could evaluate an NFT project properly before mint, since every mint seemed to be rushed to launch within a few days and rarely were founders’ identities fully doxxed — and Cool Cats stood out from the pack by every measure of those criteria.

First off, there was the art — clean, simple, colorful and with a large number of unique traits on a distinctly recognizable character (which as mentioned, had years of development behind and a compelling artist story behind). To this day, there are people that will insist that “Cool Cats is the Disney/Sanrio of NFTs” and while that may be a stretch, I think judged purely off IP alone, Cool Cats is among the top projects in the space because of its own art style niche and mass appeal.

Next was the impressive website, which showcased the technical capabilities of the team (standards back then were very low). With its own custom domain, clearly presented segments of information and custom graphics/animations that decorated the website in a friendly and welcoming fashion, it not only built up a sense of competence for the project but also conveyed the vibe of the community it was trying to build.

Lastly (and probably most importantly) was the community, which probably has a different meaning back then as it does now. Whereas newer communities need to have their distinct niches or retention points, back in the day people were just trying to find a Discord server to call home; the most important parts in building up that would be attention, activity and word-of-mouth reputation, which Cool Cats successfully captured. So with a large group of avid supporters and a rapidly growing following, Cool Cats proceeded to the mint.

While Bored Ape Yacht Club had minted at a price of 0.08 ETH and many copycat projects had tried to price themselves similarly, early July 2021 was a time when people were starting to accumulate a decent collection of NFTs already and thus it required a lower entry price for some of the upcoming projects to launch at, ranging from 0.03 to 0.05 ETH. Cool Cats had picked 0.04 ETH (roughly $84 USD at the time) as their mint price, but with all that was going on around the space, got very slow momentum in the mint. At this point, the team had a crucial decision to make — would they let the mint go on and try to see if more people would come in, or would they make a move to either reduce the supply or cut the mint?

The team chose to do neither, and instead made a bold move: they reduced the mint price from 0.04 to 0.02 ETH, and sent an extra NFT to those who had minted at the price of 0.04 ETH. Prioritizing the building of their community even at the cost of reducing their treasury and profit margin showed the mettle of the team, and the reduced pricing and ‘airdropped’ extra tokens resulted in a rapid inflow of new community members either buying in to a low mint price or receiving free NFTs as gifts from friends who had suddenly double the amount of tokens they initially signed up for. And overnight, the full collection of 10,000 Cool Cats sold out, cementing it in history as one of the first wave NFT projects and launching a community like no other.

Soon enough, people who had missed out were rushing to pick up a Cat or two and among the chaos were some notable sales — such as one of the iconic 1/1 upside down cat to Andrew Wang. Here’s his story on how he emptied his bank account and scrapped together just over 5 ETH in order to make this high conviction purchase:

Early Cool Cat vibes were immaculate; a different crowd from Bored Ape holders but just as strong while kind, loving and caring to one another. This was exemplified by the Cool Cats version of #apefollowape — whenever a new holder announced their entry into the Cool Cats community on socials, they would be welcomed warmly with the battle cry of WLTC, standing for We Like The Cats (and we do, indeed, like the cats).

Chugging Along // October 2021

In the subsequent months, the community size continued to grow and more eyes landed on Cool Cats as the community created buzz on Twitter, the floor price rose and weekly Town Halls became a must-attend event for not only project updates, but a chance to interact with the 4 project founders — clon, elu, lynq and xtremetom.

Each of the four had their own role to play in building the project: clon was in charge of the art direction, elu helmed partnerships and outreach, lynq crafted the Cooltopia lore and puzzles, while xtremetom was the contract technician making the blockchain magic happen. While we can deep dive into the different early activations that were held in the Discord, I would say that this era is highlighted best by two events in October 2021; one offline and one online.

The offline activation was “CCLA”, a Los Angeles-based meetup organized by staunch supporters and community members @KevinF_WGMI, @0xbeignet and @alloutofeth. A community-led meetup 3 months after minting was rather representative, since that was the exact timeframe it took for the Bored Ape Yacht Club holders to have their first community-led event. It represented an evolution of the community and friendships, with a level of trust and camaraderie built with strangers on the internet to the point that you would be willing to meet them in real life.

In the lead-up to the event, it drew the attention of clon, who also showed up and interacted with community members, doing live sketches and drawings onto caps and other items. The event was a huge success, with members still pointing back towards that event when they reference early days within the community and the deep friendships that have formed as a result. Take a closer look at some of the pictures below and you may spot some familiar faces featured — some who would go on to become some of the most influential artists and voices in the NFT space.

The other major event that happened in October was the reaching of a 10 ETH floor price milestone, which resulted in a much-anticipated community celebration of chugging milk (since cats like drinking milk). A harmless, kid-friendly act that fit in line with the cute, family-friendly branding that also managed to gain a lot of attention on social media and in web3 media outlets. Take a look at these milk-chugging videos:

Over the same period, a number of celebrities and high-profile buyers also got on board the Cool Cats train, including names such as Steve Aoki, at-the-time President of TIME magazine Keith Grossman, Mike Tyson, influencer Farokh, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer, Lala Anthony and Reese Witherspoon.

Spilt $MILK // February 2022

Yuga Labs and the Bored Ape Yacht Club had kicked off a ‘companion/mutation’ collection trend in late 2021 and as with most of the projects in the space at the time, “airdrops” were all the rage (because it meant free money if holders sold these secondary assets). Over the course of a few months towards the end of 2021, Cool Cats had also been building towards its take on the meta and building out Cooltopia — a game which would involve hatching Cool Cat companion Cool Pets, questing and adventures as well as future plans for battling and housing.

In addition to the gaming element, the $MILK token (passively generated by holding a Cool Cat) had been teased for months and many holders were anticipating recurring passive income simply by holding a Cool Cat. To facilitate the project’s ambitious ventures, as well as the day-to-day operations in an increasingly active Discord server, the Cool Cats team hired software engineers, community managers and moderators. Everything was trending towards an upward trajectory… until suddenly it wasn’t.

Delays are commonplace in the early stages of NFTs and the web3 space, but while it doesn’t necessarily signal a mistake, it can very often halt momentum. So when Cooltopia understandably ran into technical issues (since it was an innovative, fully on-chain hatching system which straddled both Ethereum and Polygon blockchains) and ran into multiple delays, the public sentiment on Cool Cats began to shift. As the floor price slowly crept up to an all-time high of close to 16 ETH, seeds of doubt were sown in the minds of the collectors as they wondered “what if… it didn’t work out?”

Post-Cool Pets mint, after $MILK generation started and when Cooltopia opened its doors, many collectors were disappointed by the end product. Expectations had been set high for a game that would stimulate holders and bring in more attention, more eyes on the project and more liquidity, and yet… questing with Cool Pets simply wasn’t fun to the casual holder, as well-designed as the system on the backend was.

This marked the first major blunder that Cool Cats had on its resumé; not one that was caused with any malicious intent and one that had taken a lot of labor and love to create, but a mismanagement of expectations that quickly led to an exodus of holders who believed that it was not worth holding anymore since there were no longer any catalysts to stimulate the floor price.

The Cool Cats team had played all the cards they held, and they had held similar expectations to the public in that what they had created (which in all fairness, was unprecedented, extremely innovative and very high quality for a grassroots project) would impress and make its holders happy. And while the team sat back to regather and try to work out a solution, the floor price of both Cool Cats and Cool Pets plummeted, as did the token price of $MILK.

Thus began a dark period in the history of Cool Cats, where not only was there a lack of optimism due to unclear communication between the core team and holders, but there was also a lack of purpose and direction within the team itself. Holders started selling off their Cool Cats, switching digital identities into ‘cooler’ projects like CloneX and Doodles. Sentiment was at its all-time low, even from staunch supporters of the brand.

Up until this point, the positive and energetic team had been riding a tailwind of good vibes up the charts and sentiment of the public. But suddenly, it found itself sucked into a backdraft of angry degenerates complaining about a dropping floor price and demanding more production through relentless tweets. The founders didn’t know what to do — some had to take a step back while others tried to explain everything that was going on; the team brainstormed and teased more ideas in the works, but it did not stop a seemingly endless tirade of complaints. Until…

Cooltopia NYC // June 2022

Everyone loves a good comeback story, and Cooltopia NYC signaled a shot at redemption for both Cooltopia and the Cool Cats brand. On the heels of the $LUNA crash in May and at the biggest NFT event of the year (NFT NYC), the team focused its efforts on not only the NFT native crowd, but also on bringing in the eyes of the public (and boy, did it pay off — more on that later).

Leasing out a 30-thousand-square-foot space at Center415, Cool Cats transformed it into a physical, theme park-like experience featuring multiple zones and activations that brought the Cool Cats lore to life and also rewarded participants with Milk Points that could be redeemed for exclusive merchandise at the Shopify-powered Milk Bar.

Here’s the short recap video of the event:

The best part? Though Cool Cats and Cool Pets holders could RSVP for priority access (and an exclusive VIP holders purrty), it was both free and open to the public as well, meaning that it got the attention of NFT holders from other collections, media outlets like Forbes and even people who didn’t know about NFTs at all, and was one of the most impressive and memorable events at NFT NYC.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the reactions on social:

Cooltopia NYC was the project’s biggest success to date (and arguably, still is) and restored faith in the project from holders and non-holders alike with the floor price reflecting that in its run-up from 3.6 ETH to 6.6 ETH over the course of a week. The public got a taste of what the brand could possibly offer in the future, and the team had gotten a much-needed win and confidence booster to keep them going in its efforts.

Cool Cats themselves put together a 24-minute-long mini-documentary on the event with in-depth interviews with founders elu and clon. Check that out at:

Pivoting & Partnerships // August 2022

Off the success of Cooltopia NYC, it was becoming clearer and clearer that the strengths of Cool Cats lay with its brand and IP, which did not necessarily align with what the typical demographics of the NFT native crowd were interested in. So the project leaned into it even more, announcing a double-down on building out a brand that would stand out not only in web3, but in the outside world as well.

This meant making more hires, including a VP of Community, a Product Manager, a new Chief Marketing Officer and a Social Media Manager and Copywriter to round out the Marketing team while searching for a new CEO. While Cool Pets were undoubtedly extremely cute and a part of the Cooltopia world, the relative lack of interest made the team committed to building out the story of Blue Cat instead, with the promise of an introduction to a whole cast of characters.

In parallel, with the assistance of agency CAA and advisor Ken Cron (former Chairman and CEO of Vivendi Universal Games, famous for Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft and Diablo acclaim), doors were opening for partnerships with multiple established businesses such as Toikido (who had manufactured the plushes for NFT NYC), streetwear brand The Hundreds, Animoca-owned mobile gaming app ARC8 and online game Habbo Hotel.

The team also showed a strong sense of connection with its community, not only supporting community-led initiatives (such as the $MILK-burning JPIGs mint by CODENAME and hamm, Cool Cats Cheese by dilldoteth, Cool Cats Map by Nobu and even a children’s book), but also become one of the first projects in the space to establish an official Community Council to advise the team on community sentiment and give feedback.

Though they had strayed from the standard operation model of NFT projects in general, things in Cooltopia were looking brighter than ever.

Corporate Cats // September 2022

Q4 of 2022 was a pivotal time for Cool Cats which saw a lot of changes in the project’s focus, operations and personnel, for better or worse.

One of the biggest changes for Cool Cats was the hire of their new CEO Stephen Teglas in September, who brought experience and leadership to a founding team that had outperformed all expectations, but was starting to struggle in the big leagues of entrepreneurship and managing a global business brand. Stephen’s first exposure to Cool Cats was at Cooltopia NYC, and in addition to being impressed with what Cool Cats had accomplished with the activation, he immediately saw the potential of the IP as well. It wasn’t that he was new to NFTs either; in addition to 25 years at Disney licensing the likes of Minnie Mouse and Disney princesses to retail, he also served as an advisor and briefly as President at RECUR, an NFT production company that launched collectibles for Nickelodeon and Hello Kitty to name a few.

September also marked the release of Cool Comics, an NFT drop that was priced in $MILK and allowed NFT holders access to a physical redemption of the Comic as well as token-gated merchandise. Different rarity tiers of the comic corresponded to different covers, with holographic foil and even graded copies for hardcore collectors. On the day of the reveal, there was also a surprise animated video drop which had high production value and showcased the seriousness of the team in its creation of the comic.

More surprises were right around the corner; in the first week of October, Cool Cats shocked everyone with an announcement that it had received a strategic investment from Animoca Brands, tapping into deep pockets and a large network of portfolio companies that could help expand the project’s capabilities. On a Twitter Spaces, Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu explained the potential for expansion in Asia as well as different web3 partnerships as a result.

The announcement of the partnership saw instant dividends in the collaboration of a new World Cup-themed collection Cool Cats Football Club, giving Cool Cats holders and non-holders alike a chance to share in the festivities while also chances to win exclusive Cool Cats-branded rewards like clon-signed merchandise, apparel and even an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy.

However, with new oversight from leaders with experienced backgrounds came some corporate-like moves: the team saw unceremonious departures from Community Managers, illustrators, copywriters, the CMO who had just been brought on board a few months earlier and shockingly, even one of the founders.

This left a rather bittersweet taste for holders of this community-driven project. On one hand, there was experienced leadership with a proven track record that had been sorely needed for such a long time; and yet on the other, the first changes to be made were in restructuring the team and saying goodbye to many beloved team members.

A tumultuous few months eventually ended in some good news for Cool Cats: they had been selected as one of five NFT projects shortlisted for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 2023. All that needed to be done for a giant balloon at the parade was to win a popularity contest, and the community absolutely showed up.

While Supducks held an early lead, the community rallied around a campaign spearheaded by vocal Cool Cats holders Tasty_Snacks and The Good Knight to complete an epic comeback story, and secure a Blue Cat floating above New York City in November 2023.

The Relaunch // January 2023

That finally brings us to the present. After the Macy’s Parade campaign ended in early December and a rather quiet Christmas, January brought roadmap updates from all the other top tier projects in 2023. Bored Ape Yacht Club rolled out their Sewer Pass and Dookey Dash activation, Doodles rolled out the much anticipated Doodles2 collection on another blockchain, RTFKT addressed its direction in the upcoming year… and yet it seemed like there was either radio silence from the team, or that something big was brewing.

Spoilers: it was the latter. Community Council members FrogCat and The Good Knight came out of a meeting with the team excited and ecstatic, and the community held on to one word: relaunch.

Cool Cats holders were invited to a stream with clon on January 27, promised a possible chance at a free Cool Cat… only to see Blue Cat and Chugs disappear into what we now know is a Fracture and kicking off a #whereisblue campaign across all platforms and social media.

People funneled into Discord to ask what was going on. Community members changed their profile pictures to a blacked out missing Cat, or a blacked out version of their own Cool Cat. Over the next few days, there were puzzle and teasers that brought a sense of mystery and intrigue back to the community that it had sorely missed for almost a year; then came the announcement with a snazzy new video on February 1, inviting everyone to a first-of-its-kind Town Hall held not in Discord or Twitter Spaces, but on YouTube.

Something had changed — this wasn’t the Cool Cats that had minted at 0.02 ETH. It was a new, professional look that showcased a different image, different fonts and a different focus going forward. A bold new look, a clear new vision and a new ‘Be Cool’ campaign to tap into the power of its community. Later that day, those ideas were presented to the community along with not just future plans, but also things already in the works soon to be rolled out including a new Cool Cats website revamp and an airdrop to all Cool Cats and Cool Pets holders.

Among the highlights was a brand positioning pivot from family-friendly to something slightly more relatable to adults, an ambitious plan to bring 1 million members into the Cool Cats ecosystem, new storytelling activations, an admission of a misstep with Cooltopia and shutting off passive $MILK generation, partnerships with Ledger, Hologram and Macy’s as well as a mobile game built with an Animoca partner.

Under new leadership, Cool Cats had finally pivoted away from catering to a profit-hungry web3 audience, and reaching out into the wide world where it hoped to bring its holders and build out something for decades to come.

Final Words

It’s been a long journey with Cool Cats and just like clon’s illustrations, the project and its community have seen many iterations in its evolution to what it’s become today.

There are strengths and weaknesses to any project, and Cool Cats is no exception — while its IP is among the strongest in the NFT space, it was previously hurt by the lack of a strong, vocal leader who could balance both the business aspect of running a project with the web3-native aspect of reaching the project’s target audience as well as missteps created by being overly ambitious with web3-based gaming.

There are also opportunities and silver linings to be gleaned from all the history that the project has gone through, but it seems that the community has only grown stronger and more tight-knit at every turn. Over time, every project runs into setbacks; but I’d run through a wall for this warm and wonderful group of Cats.

How will the new changes drive value to holders? Will the floor price ever recover to its all-time highs? These are questions that may not be easily answered in the short term, but what we can know for sure is that there’s a plan in place, an eager, welcoming community and a hard-working, dedicated team committed to bringing the story of Blue Cat to the world.

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