ETH Flower seeds will drop on March 23rd and bloom into randomized flower combinations of eight textures and nine tombstones as detailed in our last release — but the rationale for the characteristics has been left unsaid until now.
The main theme is that ETH Flower will have more diversity across flowers, and a steeper hierarchy of rarity than its predecessor BTC Flower, mirroring the differences between each ecosystem.
Bitcoin is digital money. Its goal is simple. Its systematic threat is singular — applying to legacy currencies and payment providers. Its place in the cryptosphere’s hierarchy of value is crystal clear — second to none… as digital gold.
Ethereum is more flexible in its future, which leaves more room for interpretation insofar as what it means to replace, as per the tombstones. With a wider variety of involved projects, less clarity around their hierarchy of value, and a relatively small number of ETH defining winners, the spread of flower textures embodies this same perspective.
For 20+ years, Ludo’s art has specialized on the merging of the biological and technological, expressing to the world and artistic representation of the future we’re all heading towards.
ETH Flower is no different, a Ludo piece offering a glimpse into an ETH-centric future. The generative aspect of the art is an extension of his biotechnological chimera style, where collection-wide characteristic and rarity breakdown adds yet another element of artistic expression, symbolic of his interpretation of Ethereum’s ecosystem. The details are as follows:
Tombstone Symbol:
- Banking System — 3%
- Control — 5%
- Web 2.0–7%
- NASDAQ — 9%
- Wall Street — 11%
- Finance — 13%
- Oligarchy — 16%
- Maximalism — 16%
- Inflation — 20%
Background Color:
- White — 40%
- Grey — 35%
- Black — 25%
Grave, Flower, & Bitcoin Textures:
- Acrylic Drips — 9%
- Gold — 10%
- Diamond — 11%
- Silver — 12%
- Bronze — 13%
- Marble — 14%
- Black Chrome — 15%
- Ceramic White — 16%
***Note that the actual mint will not contain these exact percentages, as there won’t be whole numbers with a mint of 2015. These percentages will be used as parameters for the mint, but the outcome will have variance as Entrepot calculates rarity based on the percentages present in the finalized mint.***
Tombstones
In BTC Flower, the rarest tombstone symbol is the dollar sign, but since other fiat currencies and payment channels share a comparable role and fate in the eyes of Bitcoiners, their rarities are close. The same can’t be said of Ethereum which is more ambiguous about the systems it means to put in the ground.
Of the nine possible tombstones, the top three relate to Ethereum’s grandest ambitions. As DeFi’s settlement layer, Banking System is the holy grail of an ETH Flower tombstone, twice as rare as the dollar sign in BTC. Close to follow are the even grander ambitions of R.I.P Control and Web 2.0, second only because they became periphery goals as ETH branched into the larger crypto space to garner help in that fight.
The next three traits by rarity are NASDAQ, Wall Street, and Finance — each sub-goals that compose the parts of banking with which Ethereum is so intent on replacing. And the last three by rarity, Oligarchy, Maximalism, and Inflation: The distant ripples of ETH’s decentralized movement. They are common, as is the deep-rooted intuition of their downfall is us, the most of which in inflation, as it’s felt everywhere.
Textures
BTC Flower textures had a classical rarity breakdown and value assignment that was quite intuitive: Gold, Diamond, Silver, etc. ETH Flower is of another class, carving it’s own artistic path where value assignment is more subjective, just like it is across ETH projects.
Ludo used eight different textures, chosen on the basis of their artistic merits. The rarest is his signature style, Ludo green Acrylic Drips. The rarity of each thereafter decreases only slightly, adding 1% more cases across the collection with each step.
About 2/3rds of the collection will have unmatched textures for the coin, flower, and tombstone, making each texture more pronounced and the way they combine more important than what they are individually. Since every texture will have its fair share across the collection, we anticipate a circumstance where the majority of sales will be on the basis of individual preference moreso than rarity.
The diversity of ETH Flower textures comes at the cost of excess pairing combinations. With more textures to be had, there will be fewer two and three-of-a-kind combinations. The number of double and triple pairings in ETH Flower will be less than half that of BTC Flower, making those parings far more rare by comparison.
Of the thousands of projects on Ethereum, we all have an allure to that humble project from some little-known corner of the ecosystem because it falls into a niche that strikes a chord with us, and there are those small few projects we all agree on as ETH’s champions, as much responsible for molding blockchain technology’s future as any other. ETH Flowers are spread across the collection in the same fashion, with most in the hands of collectors for reasons of their unique preference, and some hyper-rare collection-defining combinations — all of them sharing fates that are forever intertwined with the larger ecosystem.
Statistical Rarity
ETH Flower rarities will be calculated based on the statistical rarity method adopted by Entrepot, which is simply calculated by multiplying the rarity of each given trait.
For the purposes of NRI, the most influential lone characteristic is the tombstone symbol because it has the largest spread of trait rarities, with chances ranging from 3% to 20%. For reference, one Banking System tombstone being so rare is enough to guarantee an NRI greater than 50%.
The trait with the most overall influence is the pairing factor, and about 2/3rds of the collection will have one. For reference, the most common double (Ceramic White) will occur about 6.5% of the time, while the least common double (Acrylic Drips) will occur in about 2% of the collection. The same textures in triple form will occur 0.37% and 0.08% of the time, respectively. That means in all likelihood there will be only one or two Acrylic Triples to ever exist. The distribution of pairing factors in relation to one anothers rarity is represented graphically below, and for those interested, see our completed estimates on pairing occurrences.
In total, there will be an estimated 35 triples in the entire collection of 2015, though there is high variance given a pseudorandom mint.
With the high differences in rarity between tombstones, there is still quite a lot of overlap in NRI between the doubles and triples so as to keep any single characteristic from being too influential.
For those more interested in the ETH Flower rarity outcomes, you can have a look at our 100,000 example flowers which are sorted by rarity based on the above parameters. It’s the results pulled from the best of many simulations used to find the ideal outcome, and there you can find the anticipated standing of whatever flower you’d like (or at least a similar flower).
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One undisclosed reason we feel comfortable taking the approach of a diverse collection with a few super-rare pieces has to do with the existing distribution. Doing this launch airdrop style, with an already sufficiently decentralized project, using the world’s best randomness to select flowers — we don’t have to worry about gaming at all.
This way, everyone who wants membership in the Flower Power DAO can get it with the flower matching their preferences, without paying a huge premium while in the bottom half of rarity distribution. For those lucky enough to get a super rare flower, we couldn’t be happier for you and are just grateful for your early contribution to this community.
See you in just over a week when those seeds make their debut. Follow our updates @btcflower, as this is only the beginning ;)
