FlamingoDAO’s NFT Portfolio Is Now Worth $1B

One of the most exclusive decentralized autonomous organizations, FlamingoDAO, has shed light on the parabolic returns in the non-fungible token (NFT) space.

FlamingoDAO’s massive NFT portfolio, which boasts 215 CryptoPunks and 22 Bored Apes, is now worth an estimated $1 billion according to CoinDesk’s conversations with FlamingoDAO members and reporting from Forbes.

At inception in October 2020, Flamingo collected 60 ETH from each member (approximately $23,000 at the time).

Now, new members are buying in at 3,000 ETH or about $8 million. That’s a nearly 350-fold increase in dollar terms over 15 months.

Whale collective

FlamingoDAO aims to “give its Members the ability to develop and deploy NFT-focused investment strategies,” according to its site.

The DAO has so far amassed 7,920 ETH to date in its treasury, using the capital to purchase some of the rarest and most valuable NFTs.

In addition to CryptoPunks and Bored Apes, popular profile picture projects, the DAO owns 246 Chromie Squiggles, 371 Cryptoblots, five Autoglyphs and several other bespoke NFTs, known as 1/1s (“one of ones”). These NFTs can be cross-checked using blockchain data that traces back to FlamingoDAO wallet addresses. In total, the collection includes NFTs numbering into the thousands.

Aaron Wright, a FlamingoDAO founding member and founder of DAO tooling company Tribute Labs, told CoinDesk that Flamingo’s members are primarily crypto-native individuals who have been in the space for a long time.

Members frequently signal their membership via a flamingo emoji on their Twitter profile or a mention of @FlamingoDAO in their bio; they include crypto-industry heavyweights such as Aave founder Stani Kulechov and Artblocks founder Erick “Snowfro” Calderon, among others.

“First, membership was first come, first served,” Wright told CoinDesk. Now, prospective members have to get invited in by an existing member or gain entry through involvement with one of Flamingo’s sister DAOs, which includes The LAO, the DeFi-focused NeptuneDAO, music-focused NoiseDAO or metaverse-focused NeonDAO.

“The whales are all together,” said Wright, who describes Flamingo’s members as a mix of traders, developers, artists and builders. “That’s what makes these things so powerful. They’re horizontally organized.”

At any one time, membership is capped at 100 members, according to the FlamingoDAO site.

As Flamingo’s success sends its buy-in price skyrocketing, membership has increasingly attracted the attention of investment funds, said Wright.

NFT boom

As NFTs have seen soaring adoption among major consumer brands, Wright said he could see a future where NFTs make up the majority of crypto.

“I think a lot of people on Twitter are DeFi-focused, but I see it becoming a smaller part of crypto. Other segments are growing faster,” said Wright.

Even as crypto markets shed nearly half of their total market capitalization in a January sell-off, NFT marketplace OpenSea notched nearly $5 billion in sales volume that same month, an all-time high, according to data from Dune Analytics.

Derek Schloss, who heads crypto venture firm Collab+Currency’s NFT investments and is another co-founder of FlamingoDAO, is similarly bullish on the future of NFTs.

“NFTs are going to wrap all scarce non-fungible goods,” Schloss told CoinDesk. “Every major brand is thinking about NFTs and their Web 3 strategy.”