Doodles ditches Ethereum and moves chain to Flow for Doodles 2

The popular NFT series Doodles has revealed the details of its long-awaited second project, Doodles 2. On January 25, the company announced in a letter addressed to its community that the latest iteration of its collectible ecosystem will launch on Flow, the Web3 platform founded by Dapper Labs best known for its sports-centered NFT projects.

The news came just two days after Doodles announced its acquisition of animation studio Golden Wolf, known for producing content for the immensely popular Adult Swim animated series, Rick & Morty. The acquisition will help Doodles expand its content, which Doodles founder Jordan Castro tweeted will include “storytelling without constraints & AI (artificial-intelligence) animation generation R&D.”

The new project features the signature pastel-colored cartoons of the original series created by Canadian artist Scott Martin, who goes by the alias “Burnt Toast”. But instead of keeping to its 10,000 avatar collectors in the first Doodles series, Doodles 2 is taking on an ambitious plan to expand the ecosystem to onboard more Doodles enthusiasts.

Read on as we dive into the details of one of the most buzzworthy NFT launches we’ve seen in a while:

What are Doodles?

Even if you’re not an NFT connoisseur, there’s a good chance you’ve come across one of Doodle’s pastel-colored, cartoonish avatars on someone’s social media profile. These hand-drawn characters are made up of hundreds of visual traits designed by Martin and come in the forms of cats, aliens, apes and mascots.

The project was originally dreamed up by Martin and former Dapper Labs employees Evan Keast and Jordan Castro. It launched on October 17, 2021 as a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFT) made up of colorful PFP NFTs. At the time of release, the NFTs were priced at 0.123 ETH each. Following an exclusive pre-sale, the NFT collection sold out in minutes. The collection’s most expensive NFT, Doodle #6914, was sold for 296.69 ETH in January 2022.

Even during the low market last year, the project still attracted continued investment, and raised US$54 million in a VC fundraising round last September, led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and his investment firm Seven Seven Six.

What can we expect from Doodles 2?

Weathering the ups and downs of the NFT market, Doodles has re-emerged significant developments. After announcing Doodles 2 in June 2022, the team have been periodically dropping hints — from Space Doodles to the Dooplicator, Genesis Box, Doodle Records, as well as the onboarding of current CEO Julian Holguin and singer Pharrell Williams to the executive team — keep collectors on their toes for what’s to come.

“The Doodles 2 mission is to make our digital identity and the style of Burnt Toast accessible to everybody. Over the last year and a half, we’ve learned that some of the best retaining tools are community, attractive art, self-expression, and personalization,” Castro said in an interview with nft now.

According to the founding team, Doodles 2 is built for “daily utility” and also promises to be highly customizable, allowing holders to personalize a “dynamic NFT identity” for use across channels such as games, social media, and more. Owners of Doodles 2 NFTs will be able to personalize their avatars, including the body, facial expressions, apparel and accessories. 

In the future, holders can expect new wearables collections to be released through marquee drops, with some featuring in-line products and brand collaborations with partners, musicians, and creators. Features will also include swapping between a full-body or PFP perspective and unlocking an animated version of an owned NFT, complete with original music.

The brand will initiate this cross-chain journey with the activation of the “Dooplicator” NFTs on January 31, which were offered free to existing Doodles NFT holders last June. The “Dooplicators” will mint the first Doodles 2 wearables. The second minting set to take place a month later, which will unveil its “Genesis Boxes” that were sold to holders last June, and will mint the second set of wearables. The collectors participating in these mints will receive an access pass to the Beta version of a Doodles 2 creation tool.

Is cross-chain interoperability the future of NFTs? 

Back in last year’s NFT.NYC, the team already revealed that Doodles 2 would launch on a different blockchain platform than Ethereum to better accommodate the project’s customization element, and many speculated that it would be either Solana or Polygon.

Hence Doodles' move to Flow came as a surprise to the community. The team noted a major factor was the network’s low transaction fees. Flow is a blockchain platform that was originally designed for gaming purposes, but has expanded since its launch in 2020 and become a mainstay for sports NFTs, such as NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day.

Doodles is not the first high-profile project to seek alternatives to the Ethereum blockchain. On the same day Doodles 2 was announced, another blue-chip NFT project, Pudgy Penguins, announced that it has partnered with LayerZero, an omni-chain interoperability protocol to allow cross-chain transactions from Ethereum to Arbitrum, Polygon and BNB Chain, improving access for people beyond the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.

While the benefits of crossing-chains is yet to be seen, Doodle's decision indicates that it is evolving from simple static images, into an interoperable digital identity that represents its collector across channels. The crypto community also seems to welcome the project’s migration to Flow, seeing it as Doodle’s continued effort to expand beyond its current community in the mainstream Web3 crowd.