Doodles took its next major step forward Friday after switching CEOs in January, launching its ecosystem token—DOOD—on Solana with an airdrop for NFT holders. The initiative is the first critical launch since Scott Martin, better known as Burnt Toast, assumed the project’s chief executive role, beginning an era in which he planned to introduce more risk while doing away with its previously “extractive corpo” initiatives. Martin, who is also the artist behind the Doodles brand, previously spoke about the struggle the collection had in simultaneously pleasing its crypto-native holders while growing a consumer brand for everyone to love. Doodles has previously collaborated with giants like McDonald’s and Adidas.
“DOOD is our answer to that exact tension,” he told Decrypt. “Web3 is the infrastructure powering what we do, but we’re building experiences that resonate far beyond the typical crypto crowd. We’ve always believed you can build something that earns respect from the Web3 community and also feels culturally relevant to someone who’s never touched a wallet before.”
Alongside its token launch, the project is also unveiling DreamNet, a decentralized storytelling platform that’s powered by artificial intelligence. With DreamNet, community members can create worlds and characters inside an “evolving shared universe,” and if those creations are used in other media, then creators earn DOOD rewards. According to Martin, there will be other utilities for the DOOD token in the future. “We’re being intentional about how we roll things out, but rest assured DOOD will be at the heart of our growing brand in more ways than one,” he said, mentioning gaming as a way to “create culture and break into everyday people’s lives.”
Though Doodles got its start as an Ethereum NFT collection, its native ecosystem token launched on Solana thanks to its speed and accessibility, Martin said. Solana has become the epicenter of the meme coin universe over the last year-plus. “Doodles is chain-agnostic,” said Martin. “We build wherever it makes the most sense.” Holders of Doodles NFTs have been allocated 30% of the DOOD token supply via an airdrop claim, with an additional 13% allocated to other Web3 communities.
By dropping DOOD, Doodles joins a growing list of Ethereum NFT projects that went on to release tokens, including recent launches by Pudgy Penguins and Azuki with PENGU and ANIME, respectively. And while both those tokens launched to substantial initial excitement, they now sit 78% and 88% off their respective all-time price highs. DOOD, which is now trading on exchanges like Bybit and KuCoin, is currently down about 12% on the day to a price of $0.007, per data from CoinGecko—though newly launched tokens are typically volatile and may swing wildly as more and more traders enter the market.
How will Doodles reassure its community if DOOD falls as sharply as some of its contemporaries? “We launched DOOD not to follow trends but because we believe in building real, long term, value for our community,” said Martin, “and we’ve already started that with DreamNet and with many more activations coming soon.” “Most importantly,” he concluded, “DOOD is at the center of our brand in every single way.”
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