VeeFriends has become one of the most influential and unique NFT collections on the market. Linked to Gary Vaynerchuk‘s personal and professional brand, VeeFriends was launched at a time when similar NFT PFP such as Bored Ape Yacht Club were just beginning to take off.
However, perhaps due to the still nascent state of the NFT market, Vaynerchuk (known professionally as GaryVee) has taken a unique approach to his large-scale venture that has continued to influence the broader NFT ecosystem. Created as a way to bring to life his ambitions of building a community around his creative and business passions through NFT, GaryVee’s VeeFriends has continued to thrive, providing one of the most successful NFT membership use cases in existence.
Table of Contents
- What is VeeFriends?
- Who created VeeFriends?
- What is the purpose and usefulness of VeeFriends NFTs?
- The VeeFriends Roadmap
- Book Games
- VeeFriends mini-drops
- VeeCon
- VeeFriends Series 2
- Where to buy Gary Vee’s NFTs?
- VeeFriends Project Reception
1. What is VeeFriends?
VeeFriends is the general name of GaryVee’s NFT collection that launched on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. The VeeFriends brand includes mini-tokens, book setsand an upcoming large-scale “Series 2” collection, all derived from the inaugural 10,255 token VeeFriends drop.
Within the inaugural collection, or “Series 1,” is a special set of tokens called GOO (Gary Originally Owned). These 1242 tokens (over 12% of the supply) were reserved by GaryVee for his own collection, meaning that only 9013 NFT were originally available as part of the Series 1 release.
Each token within the Series 1 collection is based on one of the 268 characters originally hand-drawn by Vaynerchuk as representations of the human traits he most admires. Gary Vee NFTs also grant their owners a wide variety of incentives.
2. Who created VeeFriends?
There are few names as influential in the NFT ecosystem as Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as GaryVee. First known as a wine critic turned social media mogul, Vaynerchuk is now president of New York-based communications company VaynerX. CEO of VaynerMedia, VaynerSports and four-time New York Times best-selling author, Gary Vee’s net worth is estimated at $200 million.
In the last year or so, GaryVee has gone from NFT collector to creator, even launching Vayner NFT to help celebrities and brands with their NFT efforts.
Now seen as one of the most prolific voices in the NFT space, Vaynerchuk’s influence expands throughout the NFT ecosystem. He is considered one of the most important figures in NFT and continues to solidify his position with each expansion of his VeeFriends ecosystem.
Vaynerchuk, a trend forecasting expert, believes that NFT will be here for the rest of its life and that VeeFriends will be the blueprint for history.
The project is powered by Gary Vaynerchuk but also in collaboration with Nameless – an NFT minting platform by nft42.
3. What is the purpose and utility of VeeFriends NFTs?
To date, the inaugural VeeFriends collection has generated approximately 57,200 ETH in sales volume through OpenSea. However, since the launch of the first 10,255 VeeFriends, GaryVee was adamant that VeeFriends Series 1 was just the beginning.
In August 2021, the VeeFriends community got its first taste of what they meant with the Book Games announcement. Then, just two months later, the VeeFriends roster expanded once again with Mini Drops.
4. The VeeFriends Roadmap
Gary touts the VeeFriends NFT project as a 40-year project which he plans to oversee for the rest of his life. This means continued utility for the foreseeable future. However, exactly how this will play out will only be unveiled over time.
What’s clear right now is that the project will continue to provide access to Gary via the VeeCon, Virtual Conferences, and one-on-one annual meetings for the next three years (2022, 2023, and 2024) – depending on the token you own.
In August 2021, Gary announced a Pre-Launch Program (PLP) for NFT holders. This program enables new projects reach the VeeFriends NFT holders and Gary’s social media followers.
To enjoy this access, new projects will be required to donate 555 of their project tokens to VeeFriends. These tokens will then be randomly distributed to existing NFT holders. In turn, the project owners gain access to the vibrant VeeFriends community which should help improve the project’s value.
The VeeFriends team has also announced a VeeFriends Series 2 phase launched in April 2022. According to Gary, this series will see the addition of 15 new characters to the collection.
Series 2 is designed to offer new entrants into the VeeFriends community a more affordable route in. The project is expected to cost under $1,000 for buyers. Holders of ‘Book Games’ token will enjoy early access to the project.
That said, there’s no announcement pertaining to what comes next after Series 2, or what the utility of the token will look like beyond 2024.
5. Book Games
Book Games grew out of the announcement of GaryVee’s book, Twelve and a Half: Harnessing the Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Entrepreneurial Success. Even before the announcement, Vaynerchuk had mapped the book’s utility on an NFT scale. With Book Games, he was able to tie his book into the VeeFriends ecosystem, while cementing it as an integral part of the collection.
Book Games, is a Level 2 NFT project with 125,000 burnable tokens in a game that is played, as GaryVee says, “forever.” The game worked by incentivizing Vaynerchuk’s NFT fan base to buy as many copies of his new book as possible to receive NFT prizes across the board.
First, a bit on “level 2.”
In a nutshell, tier 2 refers to any blockchain solution designed to help scale applications by routing transactions outside of Ethereum Mainnet (tier 1). These solutions still benefit from Mainnet’s decentralized security model, but work to increase transaction speeds and reduce gas fees.
The two most popular Ethereum Tier 2 solutions are Polygon, which has been integrated into OpenSea, and Immutable X. GaryVee chose to host Book Games on Immutable X to minimize gas fees (transaction fees). And considering Book Games’ huge token offering, this decision will likely greatly benefit the VeeFriends community, especially if the games end up working… forever.
But how do you play?
On August 27, 2021, the VeeFriends patriarch announced that for every 12 books someone ordered during Book Games’ one-day promotion period, they would receive an NFT via airdrop. After a nearly 100-day waiting period, GV sold over one million copies and announced that the gamified portion of Book Games will launch on January 10, 2022.
The “gamified” part of Book Games comes from the numerous commercial possibilities enabled through Immutable X. Book Games owners can sell their NFTs or keep them to trade for other NFTs, sports cards, VeeCon tickets and other special rewards. Book Games can also act as an access whitelist for other VeeFirends projects, which we will discuss further in the Series 2 section.
6. VeeFriends Mini Drops
Two months after Book Games, GaryVee announced the release of VeeFriends Mini Drops – a limited sub-collection of VeeFriends that focuses on collaboration, scarcity, and what GaryVee calls the “cultural longevity” of VeeFriends characters.
These Mini Drops began with the release of Spooky Vees, a collection of 31 unique 1/1 pieces featuring Halloween-themed VeeFriends characters that, of course, were released on Halloween. These NFTs could be claimed on a first-come, first-served basis by those who have a Halloween VeeFriend.
Within the Mini Drops collection there are also Gift Goat NFTs. With the Gift Goat VeeFriends character in hand, collectors can expect to receive 18 exclusive gift experiences in total selected by GaryVee and the VeeFriends team. Each gift experience consists of a physical gift and an NFT of a 555 stash, to match the total stash of 555 goat gift tokens.
To date, Gift Goat holders have received NFT in partnership with Danny Cole (Creature World), Isaac “Drift” Wright (Where Do My Vans Go?), Wonder Popy more.
Now, with these two strong secondary VeeFriends efforts, Book Games and Mini Drops, each of which continue to rack up substantial amounts of ETH trading volume in the secondary market, GaryVee is ready to launch the largest expansion of the VeeFriends and VaynerNFT ecosystem to date. up to date with the VeeFriends 2 series.
7. VeeCon
By owning VeeFriends NFT, collectors can instantly join the VeeFriends community and gain access to VeeConVaynerchuk’s multi-day “superconference” will be held May 19-22, 2022. The conference is only accessible to those with a VeeCon NFT ticket (VeeFreinds + possibly more TBA) and will host a wide variety of speakers, including many of the most influential names in NFT such as Beeple, Steve Aoki and even Snoop Dogg.
However, for the vast majority of NFT enthusiasts in general, participating in VeeCon has become unattainable, as the low level of VeeFreinds in Q1 2022 consistently hovered around 16 ETH . But why would anyone spend that amount of cryptocurrency on a ticket to a “super conference” in Minneapolis, Minnesota? In short, because it’s directly related to Gary Vaynerchuk. But currently the Floor Price is not far from 6 ETH.
8. VeeFriends Series 2
After months of anticipating a new expansion of the VeeFriends universe, in early April 2022, Vaynerchuk revealed that the project’s ecosystem will grow by an additional 55,555 NFT.
With VeeFriends Series 2, each token will be priced at $995 USD in ETH and will act as a way for the average NFT enthusiast to join the VeeFriends ecosystem at a lower cost. However, things will be a little different this time around, as the full supply of the new series will be released on numerous different dates throughout April.
First, let’s go 12 Abrillos Book Games NFT owners who have been randomly selected to be included on the friends list (whitelist) will be able to mint Series 2 NFTs. The total supply reserved for Book Games owners is 32,000 NFT.
Also on April 12, those who have a VeeFriends Series 1 NFT will be able to claim Series 2 NFTs. The total supply for this allocation is similar to the total Series 1 supply of 10,255.
Then go April 25, the public sale will begin, with only 10,000 Series 2 NFTs available for purchase. This number may change as any un minted NFTs from the Friends List mintage period will go on sale on this date.
Finally, starting again April 27, 15 new characters (220 tokens per character) will be introduced into the VeeFriends ecosystem. One character will be available per day over the course of 15 days, and the only way to get one is by keeping it. specific set of book set tokens to participate in a daily lottery.
It is important to note that Series 2 NFTs will not give their owners access to VeeCon, but will grant holders other incentives within the VaynerNFT ecosystem. The upcoming release will also feature a variety of new token burning mechanics exclusive to Book Games and Series 2.
For more information and to prepare for the launch, visit the VeeFriends Blog for the most up-to-date information on the upcoming collection.
9. Where can Gary Vee’s NFTs be purchased?
Looking for a VeeFriend NFT to call your own? Gary Vee suggests that before you buy, be sure to do your “due diligence, your research, your 50 hours of homework.” VeeFriends collections can be purchased from OpenSea.
10. VeeFriends Project Reception
The VeeFriends project was generally well-received, particularly within Gary’s social media community. The community viewed it as an opportunity to show their support for Gary, while yearning to benefit from the access the project grants them.
There were the usual rumblings about the value of NFTs and the price of the tokens. However, the collection’s acceptance and prices have been driven by its inherent utility.
The highest-selling token was the “Empathy Elephant” token which sold for an eye-watering 130 ETH in January 2022.