Gecko Awakenings and Rebirth

13 min readJan 17, 2022

If you’re here, you might be wondering what a lot of people are wondering. What happened to the Geckos? What is going to happen? I will try and answer the first and speculate on the second question in this article. Feel free to skip around. And be mindful that I usually write code, not articles. 🙂

Origins

One thing I hear time and time again is “Geckos were my first mint.” This was true for me as well. I caught wind of it on Twitter and immediately thought the gecko art, created by Gossip Goblin, was insanely cool. I was not alone. The 10k collection, despite being a 2 sol mint, sold out in minutes. Personally, I minted three. Draper was doxxed, the project seemed to have its legal ducks in a row, art was great and the lore was interesting. Everything looked promising.

The Community

Before I talk about the Gecko community, I should mention a couple of things.

Over a decade ago, I was actively involved in an online community of mountain bikers. We chatted via a message board, went on group rides together, hung out and a lot of us became close friends. Several people met their spouses through that community. I’m still close friends with many of them. For me, one of the most special aspects of that group was how incredibly diverse it was. We had people who were teenagers, seniors, wealthy, not-so-wealthy, straight, gay, tall, short, etc etc. Everybody came together under a common interest. We met wonderful people that we would have otherwise not met if it wasn’t for this unifying common interest.
I have been dabbling in crypto on the side since 2016. It had always been a lonely experience. None of my IRL friends could relate to the memes floating around on CT. They didn’t know the wild roller coaster of euphoria and deep pain. They couldn’t relate.

Back to the Gecko community. The garage, which is what we call our primary hangout channel in Discord, has been a frenzy of activity since the early days. The back and forth was intoxicating, especially during a pandemic when social interaction was in short supply.

I would see the same people in there day in and day out and we came to learn things about each other. People like Trap, DJ, Pace, Jecy, Jefefe, SafetyTrance, Sterrling, CSK, Giz,… the list goes on and on (sorry if I missed you here!). We learned what each other does for a living, which coins and mints we were aping into, which gecko traits we loved the most, created inside jokes, and so much more. The garage was entertaining, hilarious, informative, and everything in between. We came from all parts of the world, of all income levels, of all ages. It enrichened my life as I’m sure it enrichened countless other lives. Sound familiar?

The enthusiasm, fun, and excitement amongst the community are what truly make it special. Each person contributes to this dynamic in their own way. Whether they have one gecko or 50, everybody plays is a key part in this tapestry that we like to call the Gecko community.

Some people created special edits of our PFPs to rally around a common theme as we did with #geckmas. Some of us created dance videos. Antcee was personally responsible for easily hundreds of hilarious animated GIF memes. Somebody even created an iOS app.

The pool of talent, brainpower, and compassion that we have in this community is nothing short of remarkable. I love all my gecko brothers and sisters and will surely stay friends with many of them for a long long time.

“30 More Minutes”

Our first major clue to the mismanagement behind the scenes was the crystal and registry debacle. The idea was as follows: you build a team of geckos, one from each of the four factions. You then send your gecko team to go on an adventure to find and acquire an enigma crystal. The enigma crystal was described as the key to the geckoverse; it was an essential part of the adventure. There would be a registry that would keep track of which geckos had gone on the crystal mission. “Virgin” geckos would still be available to go on this mission and future missions would be revealed down the road that further leveraged this registry.

Oct 15th, a Friday, was the day we were told that the crystal mission would become available. I’ve never seen the garage so alive. Draper and the team held a Twitter Spaces to talk about the crystal mission and gave us a quick update. They said it would be ready later that same day. Game on!

I cannot overstate how much excitement there was in the garage. Several of us even prepped cocktails to celebrate the big day.

Then it started to get pushed back. Repeatedly. Many of us stayed up pretty late, hoping to be some of the first to go on the crystal mission. But alas, it didn’t happen that day.

Then came Saturday. More of the same. It became apparent that the thing they had promised us and set a date for wasn’t actually ready. Then came Sunday, and now, the blame started to be shifted towards their host, Digital Ocean. The team claimed Digital Ocean was being slow. This is when the phrase “30 More Minutes” became a thing. We only had to wait “30 more minutes”. Unsurprisingly, those 30 minutes came and went. Then Monday came and still nothing.

Ultimately, they scrapped the whole registry idea and did a simple snapshot for the enigma crystal drop. I’m no giga brain, but that definitely feels like a classic overpromise + underdeliver example to me.

Foreshadowing Leading to More Disappointment

The Gecko community was so strong that we mostly brushed off the registry debacle. In some ways, the strength of our community really masked a lot of the underlying problems plaguing the dev team and mismanagement going on behind the scenes.

Our next big clue was the steep drop-off in product quality. Now infamous, the lore art with the taxi was really the tip of the iceberg.

What did we do to deserve this? No offense to whoever drew it, but with a 20k sol mint and tons of royalties flowing to the team, why couldn’t Gossip himself or another top-tier artist be working on the product?

The lore itself wasn’t much better.

You notice one thing about her, though: she doesn’t fight dirty.
But you do. Within a minute you have her pinned up against a kapok tree. She smiles.
“Welcome, warrior,” she says.

Even though the relationship between Gossip Goblin, the original artist, and some on the founding team has apparently soured, he has indicated that he would love to continue to work on the Geckoverse in partnership with the DAO. There are some legalities to consider relating to this, but there is hope.

The DAO is also grateful for the support of other top-tier artists who have indicated support for the project and have even provided mockups of potential future designs.

And More…

The trend of overpromising and underdelivering didn't stop there. A whole article can be written about broken promises and changes in direction. Here are a few more:

For weeks, we were told a 4 faction set was needed for the crystal. While this was still true, they dropped Crystals to some lucky 1, 2, and 3 gecko holder wallets as well (and increased supply in the process). Messaging like this was confusing and largely never materialized:

The first utility which the Crystals provided was the Concordians. The hype for these was very real. Some dubbed them “baby gecks” before they were revealed. The Concordians had their own rankings and were listed. It soon became apparent that they wouldn’t have a valuable role in the geckoverse. Soon enough, the team announced that the Concordians were useless.

There was a LOT of hype surrounding the 8 perfect enigma crystals. As such, they were coveted and some exchanged hands for big money (upwards of ~$50k USD). Benefits to holding one have thus far been virtually nonexistent other than this fortune cookie collab. Most perfect crystal holders received this neat (but eventually worthless) gecko-themed cookie. Safetytrance, on the other hand…

Lastly… nothing was, nor has been planned for the faction leaders

Fast Forward to Spaceships

What would a galactic gecko be without his spaceship? Fire up the hype machine again for what will surely turn the tide. The concept was interesting enough…

three parts to a spaceship: a head, a body, and a tail
each part will be a separate NFT and can be combined at will to create a full spaceship
once constructed, a gecko can pilot the ship and race against other geckos

Sounds fun, right? Well, the hype machine loves sneak peeks and those started coming out.

An improvement over the taxi lore art, to be sure. However, still not the top-tier quality we had come to love and expect. Well, that’s disappointing, but we could live with it if it generated buzz and the game was fun. Right?

Then came the details:

10k total ship parts
33% of the ship parts would be airdropped. Full team -> ship part. Crystal + gecko combo -> ship part.
The remaining 66% of ship parts would be minted at 2.2 sol. PER PART.
Three random parts would be 6.6 sol. Mint three tails? Well then go sell two parts and buy two others. Sales volume and royalties go brrr.

20,000 sol for the original mint, around 15,000 sol in royalties, a recent history of underdelivering, and now they want to raise almost another 15,000 sol on the backs of the community?

A Cry For Transparency

This was when a lot of people took notice and said enough is enough. People were confused as to how this could happen. Questions were raised in the garage about how funds had been managed. The responses were jaw-dropping.

To paraphrase: “Don’t worry about it. Just mint the ships and give us more money”.

Prominent community leaders forcefully asked for more transparency behind the scenes. Bits of info was revealed about what had happened to the funds, which led to more questions and concerns. The biggest issue at hand is this:

Only 20% of royalties were being dedicated to the Gecko treasury fund.

We then realized why we had received subpar art and execution. The whole thing had been structured to squeeze $SOL out of the community while stringing us along. How could we build a bright future for the geckoverse when such a tiny slice of the pie is allocated towards the actual product?

Feedback Falls on Deaf Ears

A group of us mobilized to try and press the team into making changes. We pleaded for greater transparency, to rethink the ship mint, and to create more deflationary mechanisms to combat the upcoming increase in supply. They gave a couple of people “partner” roles in Discord without notifying them. Perhaps it was an effort to show that they were listening to the community. Those new “partners” tried to press them on the same things to no avail. They sacrificed large chunks of time to try and talk to the team via voice calls and DM’s. None of it was considered, and many of their communication attempts were simply ignored. Everything fell on deaf ears.

The Initial Proposal

We quickly realized that the only way that the project and community could survive and thrive is for the community to assume control. We drafted and sent them this proposal:

GGSG Team,
On behalf of GeckoDAO and the community as a whole, we want to thank you. Because of your vision, time, and energy, we are a part of an amazing community which wouldn’t exist if not for your efforts. It’s because of our love for the project and community, that we deem a transition of control to be beneficial for everybody involved. Our proposal is as follows:
Put simply, the Community takes control of the project. The Community would appoint 5 or 7 people to act as a Board of Directors that will make decisions going forward. This group will listen to feedback from all Gecko-holders and will also be in close communication with other appointed roles within the Discord. The exact governance details would still be worked out, but in essence, we’d have DAO-led Geckos.
In return, the original Gecko team can keep 10% of marketplace royalties going forward. It would be up to you to decide how those royalties are distributed. If there are any lingering contracts or debts, those would first be paid off from whatever is in the treasury. After that, the original team could keep everything else remaining in the treasury. The GeckoDAO would have all rights to the gecko art and images so that the DAO can pursue further partnerships — the team would send over those digital files as well so we can share them where necessary. The remaining 90% of marketplace royalties will go to the community and the use of these funds will be determined in a transparent way with the DAO’s board.
We see this as a win-win. The original team gets to continue profiting on the project’s future success, and will make even more if it rebounds, all without having to do anything. Meanwhile, the community can fully direct the future of the project in a way that’s both profitable and engaging for old and new holders.

The basic premise is simple: the greatest strength of the project, the community, forges a path forward and becomes responsible for its own destiny. The founding team would continue to be paid in perpetuity and bask in the royalties that will come as a result of the DAO’s future efforts.

The response was a simple “OK”. Shortly thereafter, the team posted an announcement. The important bit is this:

In anticipations of a smooth transition to DAO control, the market was buying up Geckos like there was no tomorrow. The gecko floor price jumped over 50%. Then the realization started to dawn on people… the transition wasn’t, nor would be, smooth.

Aftermath

To say that this announcement was premature is a severe understatement. Nothing was set in stone, no negotiations were had, and we had no time to communicate with the wider community. Heads were spinning.

The team essentially laughed at our proposal and wanted to keep all IP rights and 90% of the royalties going forward. How could a DAO, primarily in charge of the whole project, function properly with such a tiny allocation of resources?

During negotiations, the team has said they’d rather drive the project into the ground than sufficiently empower the DAO (paraphrasing). They even ridiculed a DAO rep who said he cares about the community by calling him “Bernie Sanders”. 🤔

Days later, Ali took to the garage to show some compassion and reassure us that he had our best interest in mind.

As a matter of principle, we believe the following

most of the royalties should be reinvested back into the project itself
communities are entitled to sufficient transparency
individual community members should play a key role in deciding the future of community-based projects

Rebirth

With negotiations ongoing, this community of amazing people is poised for a rebirth. A rebirth that will send a strong message throughout the entire ecosystem. A message that says:

NFT communities are not just sources of income for founding teams. They are the very reason a community-based NFT project succeeds or fails. They should be honored and respected.

More explicitly, this rebirth for the Geckos will take one of two forms:

A complete buyout of the founding team.
The community will wrap/entangle our NFT’s and migrate to a brand new collection that our DAO has 100% control over. The new collection will then be listed with the help of our marketplace contacts.

In either scenario, the DAO will have the freedom and ability to self-govern, execute on a roadmap, and thrive. We will have a DAO-controlled multi-sig wallet, NFT based voting mechanisms, and an elected board.

In the Meantime

As gecko holders, we know it’s tough to see the price action become so erratic during this turbulent transition. We ask that you please stay patient. The future is bright.

If you would like to help our efforts:

Delist or organize OTC transactions through tools such as Yawww. All royalties in the meantime continue to flow to the founding team. Check out the yawww connections channel in Gecko DAO discord to organize such trades.
Keep voicing your support on social media and in Discord channels everywhere. Help get #freethegeckos out there.
If you have a gecko, go to the Gecko DAO discord to get your special #freethegeckos edit.
If you have a non-gecko PFP, also head over to the Gecko DAO discord and one of us will create a special edit for you as well
Contribute to the pool of ideas within our Discord. Support one another. Continue to enjoy the community.

To those of you, Gecko or otherwise, who have and continue to voice your support… THANK YOU! We see you, and it means the world to us. We cannot wait to come out the other side of this and return to vibing with our friends.