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How Opepen Successfully Took Over Twitter

How Opepen Successfully Took Over Twitter

Breaking down how Opepen took over Twitter timelines...

Matt O'Brien
July 23, 2023

GM frens,

In today’s edition of The Ground Floor we are breaking down the strategy Opepen used to take over Twitter this week…

The $2 Twitter Takeover

It’s no secret I’m a fan of Openen

For the last 4 months, I’ve been lucky enough to rock a 1/1 Opepen created by the talented Vinnie Hager as my profile picture

This week, Opepen took over crypto Twitter.

How This Happened?

First, and foremost Opepen is built by one of the most talented teams in Web3: Jack Butcher, Jalil, Celia & Traf.

Together, this team created Checks ~ one of the most popular generative art projects in 2023 followed by Opepen, one of the most ambitious art projects.

With this track record comes very strong support from a growing group of collectors ~ one such collector is Bored Elon.

The Timeline

On Wednesday the 12th of July, Bored Elon offered Thread Guy an Opepen 001 worth $40,000.

All Thread Guy had to do to accept this offer was to wear this Opepen 001 as his profile picture for 3 months ~ $13,000 per month / $3,333 per week.

Why did Bored Elon offer this?

Bored Elon is the largest Opepen holder with a total of 725 Opepens which makes him heavily incentived to see Opepen succeed

Thread Guy has over 100,000 followers on Twitter, and is considered one of the most popular people here on crypto Twitter.

If Thread Guy were to adopt this Opepen as his profile picture this would bring a LOT of attention to Opepen ~ a win / win situation

Did Thread Guy accept this offer?

After much consideration, he didn’t ~ leaving a cool $40,000 on the table.

The Story Continues

Despite turning down this offer, Thread Guy would soon change his profile picture to the now iconic Thread Guy themed Opepen.

This Opepen is a custom 1/1 created by Jack Butcher ~ the creator of Opepen, based on Thread Guys original mutant ape PFP.

Why did Thread Guy make this decision?

Many people within the Opepen community began adopting this Thread Guy themed Opepen as their profile picture on Twitter which further enticed Thread Guy to join the community.

The next day, Thread Guy joined this growing group of collectors doing so with this 1/1 Opepen becoming his profile picture “for the culture”.

To celebrate this decision, Jack Butcher launched an open edition mint where collectors could mint this custom Opepen 1/1 for $2.

opepen threadition
for provenance purposes only, and to redirect some economic energy to a massive contributor to this ecosystem
0.001 (~$2)
all proceeds to @notthreadguy
↓
vv.run/tg
— Jack Butcher (@jackbutcher)
3:20 PM • Jul 16, 2023

Why Was This Successful?

1) Supporting A Creator

This moment marked a celebration of one of the top content creators in Web3, a person who spends hours each day contributing to our ecosystem with collectors from all around the world participating as a show of support.

Within 24 hours, collectors minted a whopping 27,000+ of these NFTs, with collectors coming close to doubling this number in the time since.

Beeple has also dedicated no less than 3 every days to capture this moment.

By Beeple

2) Free To Play

The very best games have a freemium model ~ Epic Games generated $6+ billion in revenue from Fortnite in 2022 ~ a free to play game.

Similarly, this social experience centered around Opepen was also free to play.

Yes, it cost $2 to support Thread Guy, however, the far majority of people that participated in this social experience of coverting their existing PFP to an Opepen and adopting this Opepen as their profile picture paid $0 to participate.

OpenSea, Rariable, Cozomo de’Medici and many others adopted Openen as their profile pictures as Opepen community members create custom Opepens for collectors both within and outside the Opepen eco-system for $0.

This free to play model comes in stark contrast to the thousand dollar price tags people commonly have to pay to participate in Web3 experiences, and in my eyes, this is the #1 reason why Opepen was so successful in taking over Twitter.

Looking Forward

There are many lessons to be learned from this success, however, lowering the barriers to participation is perhaps the most important one.

At their best, NFTs allow strangers to connect via shared experiences to have fun on the internet ~ the higher the price point, the lower the number of people a project can potentially connect to have these shared experiences.

The financial barriers to participate in these experiences remains a challenge for collections in 2023, however, the success of Opepen in taking over Twitter is a concrete example of the benefits of lowering the barriers to participation.