B.20 Tokenomics

Keeping it Simple

Note: This post does not reflect that there was an additional B20 sale (about one hour after the initial sale) where ~9% more B20s were made available for purchase from Metakovan’s personal allocation of 59%. The reason being, the initial sale was instantaneously bought up by bots. To make B20 accessible to a broader community, the additional 9% had a restriction that each address could only purchase $1,000 USD worth of B20s.


“How much of it is there and how do we get it?” These have been the two most frequently asked questions since the B.20 announcement last week. The response has been truly heartening. On the one hand, the avid interest tells us that this space is ready for a shared art project of the scale B.20 promises. On the other, it also tells us that we are going about it right. 

The intention of B.20 is to enable shared ownership of an open art project with iconic high-value assets on display. We decided the token B20 needed no additional reason or utility to exist (though holders might be in for some sweet surprises down the line). 

The Allocation

The total supply of B.20s is 10,000,000. There were discussions and more than a little thought on how much to open up for public sale and how much to keep. We finally decided that about 59% will remain with Metapurse. The rationale was simple. B.20 was never meant to be a token sale or an excuse for buyer’s remorse.  

Artist, collaborators, and investors. These are the broad heads for the B20 allocation.

Of the rest, 8% has been made available for private sale to some prospective partners and collaborators. A 4% allocation has been made to friends of Metapurse who have supported our efforts through the past year. 

It was important for us that the artist was taken care of beyond the sale proceeds, so Beeple gets an allocation of 2%. 

One allocation block we are proud of is the 11% we set aside for the amazing people that poured in time, creative energy, and honest effort to put this experiment together. This includes B20s set aside for MetaCast, GrowYourBase, WhaleStreet, and VoxelArchitects. These allocations bring the cost of the B.20 project to about $3.5 mn.  

And finally, on January 23, we will open up 16% for public sale at $0.36 per token. As you can now see, we have priced the B20s close to the cost of the whole enterprise.

Vesting and Drip Distribution

There is no vesting for the public sale of 1.6 mn B20 tokens. 

For everyone else - artist, collaborators, stakeholders, Metakovan - there is a three month vesting period. 

If you fall under one of these categories, 10% of your tokens become available instantly and the remaining 90% over the next three months. Over the next three months. Not after three months.

The B20 vesting smart contract does something smarter than just holding on and locking in the tokens. It ‘releases’ or makes accessible your tokens every second, until the end of the vesting period. So, 90% of your tokens over 90 days, which means with every passing day, you get access to an added 1% of your tokens. 

Day 0, you already have 10% of your allocation. From Day 1 onwards, you can withdraw whatever you have access to, whenever you want. Say you decide to withdraw after a week. You would be able to withdraw 7% and you would have a total of 17% with you. If you choose to withdraw after 60 days, you would have 70% with you. Drip Distribution.    

The Big Beeple Buyout

Yes, there is a buyout process too. If you wanted to, you could try to bid for the entire bundle and buy it out. The smart contract allows for anyone to come in with a minimum bid of somewhere between $12 mn to $15 mn (TBD) and get all of the NFTs. 

But do the token holders have a say? The buyout process is straightforward and rather binary. One can either buyout the entire bundle, or not. The token holders have the power to veto the process with a 25% vote. However, there is no DAO dictating the everyday experience of the NFTs by moving / changing some of them.

There are three ways in which someone could buyout B.20. 

1. 100% ownership of B20 tokens: Considering Metakovan will hold on to the majority of the tokens, this is practically impossible.

2. DAI hard: Someone could place a bid in DAI and buy it out.

3. DAI + B.20: Alternatively, they could place the bid in a combination of B20s and Dai.  

Once a bid is placed, it stands for 14 days, during which time the community either vetoes the bid, or someone else outbids the bundle. If there is a new bid in the last 24 hours, the auction is extended by another day. 

If a bid is successful, all of the B20 holders will receive the amount pro-rata, based on how many B20s they hold. All of this is managed autonomously by smart contracts. 

Quite often during the B.20 journey, we find ourselves in uncharted territory. The tokenomics was not one of those. What we really want to observe is the durability of the B.20 meme - a token that doesn’t promise the moon, just does what it’s meant to, and shares in a dream with someone who believed in it enough to put in $2.7 mn. Not unlike bitcoin, come to think of it.  

For more information, feel free to email contact@metapurse.fund, and be sure to RSVP to Metapalooza.