Introducing SZNouns, an experiment in cc0 and governance

We are excited to announce SZNouns (pronounced ‘Season-Nouns’), a Nouns Project derivative with seasonal minting cadence made by the SZNS team for the community, as an experiment in cc0 and governance.

Over the last year, the SZNS team has been at the forefront of exploring DAO tooling for NFT communities via the SZNS protocol, where anyone can deploy Albums to manage NFT assets as a DAO in a governance model similar to the Nouns DAO. In an Album, proposals with an Ethereum transaction payload can be voted on off-chain and executed on-chain trustlessly.

It’s no surprise that we find the Nouns DAO to be the most interesting NFT project to date. By auctioning one Noun a day, the Nouns Project model allows for a community to be formed organically and progressively with proper incentives, as 100% of auction proceeds go into a treasury to be managed by the NFT holders themselves! It is a refreshing and innovative model that is demonstrating clear sustainability as the Nouns ecosystem continues to grow with many derivatives (check them all out here) and a breathtaking treasury of 25,000 ETH.

We believe the next generation of NFTs will use Nouns as a foundational model to create truly community-owned digital assets, with many more experiments around cc0s, governance, and incentive models to come. In other words, we believe that the future awaits many, many Nouns derivatives. At SZNS, we wanted to be the first web3 company in this wave by building a small collection of our own, and we hope it will be a positive force in the Nouns ecosystem.

⌐◨-◨ ❤️◐-◐¬

SZNouns will be characteristically defined by their circle glasses ◐-◐¬. Our circle glasses are stored directly on-chain, just as the OG Nouns. Read more about how we achieved it using a unique, custom SVG rendering algorithm here!.

We’re also experimenting with emissions, having them change according to the “SZNS”😉 There are 4 seasons of minting:
Winter, beginning 12/1: once a day auctions
Spring, beginning 3/1: twice a day, every 12 hours
Summer, beginning 6/1: four times a day, every 6 hours
Fall, beginning 9/1: twice a day, every 12 hours

We’re excited to be launching a cc0 collection: SZNS may be trademarked, but SZNouns are completely free for the community to do whatever they want.

Mission and Vision

First and foremost, we want to contribute positively to web3 governance, NFT communities, and the Nouns ecosystem. Aside from expanding Nouns by offering yet another lower price alternative, we hope to also contribute in continued research and governance mechanism design as builders who have been exploring the intersection of NFTs and DAOs for the past year.

Our first goal is to acquire multiple Nouns upon successfully building up the treasury via SZNoun auctions. We hope to participate meaningfully in Nouns governance as SZNouns, and allow SZNouns to become a proxy-ownership of Nouns. We also hope to take one Noun purchased by SZNouns and fractionalize it as an Album on SZNS as yet another interesting experiment. Our ultimate vision is that the SZNouns community becomes a vibrant, independent, yet close community for the SZNS team to work with (i.e. access to product beta <> participation). Find out more by reading the SZNouns Constitution.

We’re curious to learn, too. How can SZNS improve its own protocol governance model based on learnings we find from how SZNouns DAO operates using the Nouns governance contracts? Can SZNouns, with its distinct yet familiar circle glasses, not only derive from but also expand on the Nouns culture? These are just some of the questions we are asking.

Lastly but certainly not least, we want to have fun! Nouns embody the concept of freedom and experimentation, and we are excited to see how both projects grow.

What’s next?

SZNouns has launched at https://sznouns.wtf.It’s summer time so that means 4 auctions a day ☀️ Come participate in auctions, join the DAO, and let’s have some fun! It’s Nouns SZN ◐-◐¬