What are Meebits? The Voxel Avatars Acquired by Yuga Labs
by corporate trash
5/16/2022
Meebits NFTs were originally created by Larva Labs as a follow-up collection to CryptoPunks, but were part of the IP acquisition by Bored Ape Yacht Club founder Yuga Labs. Meebits are 3D voxel characters that were wildly popular at launch, but later cooled down, partially drowned out by the hype of newer NFTs.
However, they have recently once again caught the eye of NFT collectors, especially after BAYC founder GordonGoner tweeted about their potential future utility.
The Meebits volume has since picked up, as collectors continue to seek a somewhat affordable entry point to the Yuga Labs ecosystem. Although the specifics of the future of Meebits is still not fully known, this tweet has reinvigorated excitement around the project right around its one-year anniversary.
What are Meebits?
This project on Ethereum consists of 20,000 generative 3D characters initially created by Larva Labs. They can serve as avatars for the metaverse, games, and virtual reality. Meebits are the third project from Larva Labs, following CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs.
After the epic success of their historic 2017 project CryptoPunks, Larva Labs was looking to expand their collection with something that can be used in virtual worlds. The NFTs are built in a similar pixelated art style to Punks, but with voxels, which are 3D versions of pixels.
They come with a T-pose OBJ file, which allows collectors to import their Meebits into 3D animation software and also be 3D-printed. In addition, the NFTs can be rendered down to 2D pixel art, so they can be used for profile pictures.
Just like CryptoPunks, Meebits has its own decentralized marketplace, which takes no royalties on sales — making it one of the most well-known NFT collections to have no royalties. Although collectors can also buy and sell them on platforms like OpenSea and LooksRare, the Meebits marketplace allows for gas-fee Meebit-to-Meebit trading and trade offers.
The Meebits Launch
Meebits dropped on May 4, 2021, a few days after Bored Ape Yacht Club minted out on the night of April 30, 2021. The public drop for 9,000 Meebits was Dutch-auction style, starting at 2.5 Ethereum and lowering to a cost of zero over the course of a week.
These sold out within around eight hours of the start of the auction, making Larva Labs about $79 million in Ethereum. The remaining 11,000 NFTs from the 20,000 supply were available for CryptoPunks and Autoglyph holders to claim for free plus gas fees.
During the minting process, there was an exploit that allowed a user to mint one of the remaining rare Meebits. This garnered a lot of attention from the NFT community and Larva Labs paused the original minting process.
MeebitsDAO was soon founded in order to secure metaverse land, take community proposals, and provide a roadmap and accountability for the Meebits community. The DAO is still active today, as the Meebits holders aim to build from within the community, with no royalties from secondary sales.
Meebits Traits
There are 21 available types of traits, from beards to jersey numbers to tattoo motifs. The most recognizable is “Type”, which defines what the skin and head of the Meebit looks like. Human is by far the most common type of Meebit, with 18,881. The rest are broken down into Pig (711), Elephant (256), Robot (72), Skeleton (57), Visitor (18), and Dissected (5).
The Meebits are available with female and male-presenting traits, and a variety of skin tones. Punk Shirts and Glyph Shirts are amongst the rarest, as an ode to the prior Larva Labs projects, with jerseys also being common across the collection.
Rare Meebits Sales
Christie’s auction house sold two rare Meebits in September of 2021, alongside blue chip NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. One was a rare skeleton type Meebit, which sold for about $560,000 USD
The highest ever Meebit sale at the time of this post was for pig trait #17522 on July 11, 2021 for 1,000 Ethereum. This was about $2.1 million (in Ethereum at the time) for the NFT.
The Meebits floor at the time of this post is currently 4.7 Ethereum.
Yuga Labs Acquires Meebits IP
The NFT Twitter rumor mill was moving fast, but this time, the rumors were true: Yuga Labs, of Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs on March 11, 2022. They also gave holders full commercial rights — which Larva Labs previously reserved, and Yuga Labs kept the decentralized marketplaces up for each collection.
While there were many feelings from NFT communities about the transaction, many ultimately were happy that development and innovation would continue in the hands of a company that has delivered consistent value to their holders. This came after months of little to no news from Larva Labs, and some collectors were growing impatient.
“While we will work to bring additional utility to both the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections, we intend to do so as thoughtful stewards,” Yuga Labs said in their announcement. “We’re not in a rush here. We’ll be listening to the community before we decide what comes next.”
Meebits in Otherside?
In early 2022, everyone in the NFT world’s attention was on the Otherside trailer from Yuga Labs. The trailer showed many other NFT collections in a spaceship. People speculated that these collections would be a part of the Otherside game and virtual world. Meebits appeared in the trailer as well.
On the Otherside official website, it states that all BAYC, MAYC, and CryptoPunks holders will receive Otherside-ready 3D models of their NFTs that will be playable. But Meebits are coming, too, with an announcement about their utility in the game forthcoming.
TL;DR Meebits NFTs
The collection of 20,000 NFTs from Larva Labs was originally a follow-up to CryptoPunks, but it has its own unique community of holders. After being acquired by Yuga Labs and finally allowed commercial rights to their NFTs, Meebits collectors are excited for what the future holds, including eventual utility in Otherside.
Whether you choose to animate your Meebit, print it out for the physical world, or use it to wander the metaverse, there are many ways to utilize it. With its ties to the mystical Otherside universe, community members seem bullish on the possibilities ahead.