WordPress, Wapuus and Web3

Yesterday morning, I woke up at a rainy Lake Murten in Switzerland’s canton of Fribourg remembering a dream discussing Web3 technologies with WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. It was just a brief dialogue, probably at a flagship WordCamp event, but I was really excited, since I never talked to him in person and he seemed to be open minded about it. Well, of course he is, since his company Automattic employed a Web3 lead in 2022, Dave Lockie, who spoke about WordPress and Web3 trends at WordCamp Europe last year.

Yesterday, I personally had the privilege to speak about WordPress, Wapuus and Web3 at the 3rd WordCamp Switzerland at Lake Murten. WordPress is the most popular content management system or website builder in the world. Web3 refers to the next generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on decentralization, blockchain technology, and the use of cryptocurrencies. Wapuu is the cartoon-like animal character and official/unofficial mascot of WordPress.

It’s been almost 20 years since I founded Openstream in Zürich and I started going to meetups where I discovered my passion for Open Source software. I’m involved in organizing the Zürich WordPress and WooCommerce meetups and I’m also a regular attendee of Crypto Mondays and other Web3 meetups in Zürich. When I asked for a show of hands at the beginning of my talk who owns crypto currency, around 1/4th of the room raised their hands and only one person in the room, master of ceremony Silvan Hagen, raised his hand when I asked who owned an NFT. This probably shows that Web3 technology has still not arrived in the mainstream.

I started my presentation with the question whether artists, content creators and brands can do anything useful with digital collectibles or if it’s just another hype?

If you ask Professor of Computer and Information Science Marcel Waldvogel who holds a Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, better known in Swiss German as ETH Zürich, his answer is that NFTs have no real value and that as a young artist you can also become visible without NFTs or Blockchain. According to him, all you need is a web page. He argues that visibility is not created by NFT technology, but through hype, PR, and celebrities. He also seems to be a critic of crypto currencies and Web3 technology in general.

I agree that a web page, which ideally is built with Open Source software like WordPress, is a great way for aspiring artists to showcase and sell physical art.

Nick Weisser talking about WordPress, Wapuus and Web3 in the Aula room. #WCCH pic.twitter.com/pAXIyPNQDq

— WordCamp Switzerland (@wcswitzerland) April 1, 2023

In 2023, this is not enough though, and we have to acknowledge that there is also digital-only art that digital non-natives have a hard time wrapping their heads around. Many young artists nowadays showcase their art on social media platforms like Instagram and Tiktok, because they can reach a much bigger audience much faster than with a traditional website.
Or if we take the art of musical expression, many smaller artists struggle to make a living from making their music available on Spotify and Apple Music, because the middlemen like record labels, distributors and streaming platforms profit the most. Professor Waldvogel is very critical about the hype around NFTs and also warns about the dangers of hyper capitalism.

On the other hand, in my opinion this new blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt many industries and cut out the middleman in favor of the artists and content creators themselves. Personally, I don’t think that Web2 will be replaced by Web3, but I can imagine that they will both evolve and overlap in many ways that we are going to be surprised about. Decentralized applications don’t make sense for all use cases, but when it comes to digital art I think that NFTs are a fascinating playground.

Quantum

«Quantum» is a digital-only piece of artwork created by Kevin McCoy. It consists of a series of algorithmically generated images that are stored as an NFT on Namecoin, a pre-Ethereum Bitcoin blockchain.

So one could argue that, like Picasso’s «Les Demoiselles d’Avignon» mark the beginning of the era of Cubism in July 1907, McCoy’s «Quantum», minted on the blockchain on the 2nd of May 2014 at 9:27 PM and 34 seconds marks the beginning of the era of «NFTism».

Quantum stands alone in the precision of its timestamp. Immutably, verifiably, trustlessly pure. Blockchain, when stripped to its bones, could be described as humanity’s latest innovation in the humble art of record keeping.

Crypto Punks

CryptoPunks are a series of 10,000 unique 8-bit style pixel art characters that were created and released as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain in 2017 and became one of the inspirations for the ERC-721 standard.

Each CryptoPunk has its own distinct combination of attributes, such as hairstyles, accessories, and facial expressions, which are randomly generated.
CryptoPunks quickly gained popularity within the cryptocurrency and blockchain communities, and have since become highly sought-after collectibles. Due to their limited number, unique characteristics, perceived value and the ability to verify ownership on the blockchain, some CryptoPunks have sold for millions of dollars at auction. Talking about hyper capitalism.

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Dropped in 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of unique digital art pieces in the form of 10,000 cartoon-style apes, each with its own distinct attributes and personalities. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has become a highly popular and valuable NFT collection, with some individual apes selling for millions of dollars. The club has also spawned a vibrant online community of collectors and enthusiasts, who create and share art, music, and other content inspired by the Bored Ape aesthetic. As a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT holder, you are also entitled to several perks and benefits.

Some of the most notable are:

1. Access to members-only events, merchandise, and community chat channels.
2. Occasional parties, gatherings and meetups.
3. Airdrops with additional tokens for existing NFT holders.
4. Exclusive partnerships and collaborations with other brands, artists and creators.
5. Participation in governance decisions to shape the future of the community.

Web3 WP Wapuus

So now, let’s get back to what all of this has to do with WordPress. In 2021, Web3 WP built a generative art project of 2,222 unique Wapuus that can be minted as an NFT, collected, and traded by the WordPress community on the Ethereum blockchain.

Collect your favorite Wapuu for fun. Or show off your collection to your friends in the WordPress community. Make your favorite your profile avatar, you are the provable owner so you get the bragging rights! And every time they are traded, half of all royalties go to the WordPress Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project which is to democratize publishing through Open Source software.

The first NFT that I personally minted in 2021 was Wapuu #693- Wapuusher – came with a secret one-time use code for a 1 year free WP Pusher membership. WP Pusher let’s you deploy your plugins and themes directly from GitHub, Bitbucket or GitLab and never again copy files over FTP.
Web3 WP collaborated with various companies from the WordPress ecosystem in order to generate brand excitement. Some Web3 WP Wapuus contain unlockable content, that only the owner of the Wapuu NFT is able to unlock by signing with their Web3 wallet.

So in 2021 Web3 WP set out to build a programmatic generator that creates completely unique Wapuu characters based on a random set of more than one hundred traits. Traits were weighted to have various rarities. This makes the rarer Wapuus highly collectable and more valuable. When you mint your Wapuu it is completely random, you may get one with a common or rare combination of traits. And if you are really lucky you might be the proud owner of a special edition Wapuu from one of their community sponsors.

Swiss Wapuu NFTs

Around Christmas 2021, inspired by the Web3 WP Wapuu project, I had the idea of creating a Swiss Wapuu NFT Collection. I started brainstorming ideas of various Swiss city Wapuus together with France, a designer from the Philippines and the Swiss WordPress community on Slack.

When we started organizing WordCamp Switzerland 2023, I volunteered to create a new conference Wapuu. Since it would be taking place at Lake Murten, we thought that it could be a fisher Wapuu holding a big fish. Then Michelle suggested that since it’s taking place on April 1st, it could be holding red herrings because in French you say Poisson d’Avril for April Fools› pranks.

We also thought about integrating Claudio’s Swiss Army Knife blades, but dropped that idea because it sort of was too «noisy». And this is the final version we agreed on that you can see on the WordCamp Switzerland flags, the t-shirt and the stickers.

The initial idea was to create a generative NFT art project with different Swiss items and traits to programmatically generate different combinations of Wapuus. Web3 WP published their trait generator and all the code they used for their project on Github, but since I’m not writing code on a day to day basis, I soon realized that I’m running out of time if I wanted to release something for WordCamp Switzerland on April 1st.

We had developed over 50 unique traits for the Swiss Wapuu collection, so we could easily have generated a couple hundred unique Wapuus. Instead, I decided to start out with a first collection of only 27 unique Wapuus, one holding the Swiss flag and the others holding the various canton flags. But we also have plans to finalize the city Wapuus with different combinations of attributes.

If you go to the detail page of any of these 27 Wapuus you will see that they contain unlockable content.
This means that if you make an offer with at least 10 Swiss Francs or 0.006 Ether for one of those Wapuus, you will receive a t-shirt in your size with that exact Wapuu printed on it. Since 10 Swiss Francs will actually not cover the full expenses, you can of course also make a bigger offer. But, you also have to consider that there will be so called gas fees, which depending on the day might add another 2-8 Swiss Francs to each transaction.

This NFT project is meant to inspire all who are curious to learn more about Web3, to make an offer for one of these 27 Swiss Wapuus. Another idea behind this project is to onboard WordPress users and developers to the Web3 universe. All attendees of WordCamp Switzerland will have priority for the next 7 days. After that, the collection will be opened up to the rest of the Swiss WordPress community and worldwide. I have no intention to enrich myself with this project, all the profits will be used for paying the art work, as well as the printing and shipping of the t-shirts. If there’s anything left, it will be used to support Swiss WordPress meetups.

If you have any questions about his project, please have a look at our FAQs, leave a comment below or join the Openstream Discord NFT channel.

WordCamp

WordCamp Switzerland 2023 started at 9:45 am with German opening remarks by lead organizer Michael Hörnlimann, as well as French and English opening remarks by marketing lead Michelle Bullock.

Starting at 10:00 am there were two tracks of a wide range of topics from nurturing your customers, to the new Swiss law on data protection and its impact on websites, how to survive against malicious hackers, you to automate your maintenance, WooCommerce, but faster, search engine optizimation and various other topics.

Probably the smartest, most interesting and diverse #WordCamp panel discussion that I’ve personally attended 🤯💙 you gonna wanna see this on @WordPressTV once it will be published: #WordPress in 2025 #WCCH pic.twitter.com/cyxadObpN7

— Nick Weisser (@nickweisser) April 1, 2023

Contributor Day

The day before WordCamp was reserved for contributing to WordPress. WordPress 6.2 Core Tech Lead Jean-Baptiste Audras from Cornas in France (in the dark clothes in the first tweet picture below, guided fresh and seasoned contributors through the day.

What a great 3rd WordCamp Switzerland this was! Thanks to all the other organizers, volunteers and sponsors who helped to make this such a great experience.

More Recaps

• WordCamp Switzerland 2023 by Designer & Maker of Things Claudio Rimann