Slonks: An NFT project that will actively disappear

Null

Author: 798.eth, Creator of the Web3.devmeebits Chinese Community

There is a Merge Lab above. When opened, you see a strange scene. On the left is Slonk #608，普通男性 punk 头像，slop=15。右边是 Slonk #645, an ordinary female punk, slop=3. In the middle is the combined form, black hair blue eyes yellow hair fragments mixed together, slop=161, +146 slop.

Treat this picture as an entry point to Slonks economics, 100 times more intuitive than reading the whitepaper.

Mechanism

Slonks is an NFT collection reconstructed with on-chain neural network models of CryptoPunks. Each Slonk corresponds to a CryptoPunk source, and the model renders a reconstructed image using 24×24 pixels + a 222-tone palette. The model is not perfect; the pixel difference between the rendered image and the original punk is the slop value of this Slonk. Slop ranges from 0 to 576, since the canvas is a total of 576 pixels.

The core mechanism of the token scheme currently being developed $SLOP is called voiding. Holders send Slonk into a void contract, which mints a corresponding amount of $SLOP based on the current slop value. A slop=15 Slonk voids out 15 $SLOP. A slop=400 voids out 400. The $SLOP cap is 5,760,000, equal to 10,000 × 576, which is the maximum limit for a fully mismatched Slonk.

Merge is another path. One Slonk acts as survivor, another as donor; the donor is permanently destroyed, and the survivor upgrades to the next merge level, acquiring a new embedding. The new embedding renders a new image, which is compared again with the survivor’s source, and the slop value is recalculated.

Regarding the logic of slop increasing after merge, there was a previous misunderstanding. Here, a detail at the mechanism level needs correction (thanks to Jef’s reply): the increase in slop is not random, nor purely due to the decline in the hybrid model’s simulation ability, but is determined by the morphological difference (DIFFERENCE) between the two source punks. For example, a hoodie with a big head combined with a female with a small head results in the maximum morphological difference, causing the merged slop to spike to the highest. Therefore, to achieve maximum $SLOP yield, one should look for pairings with the greatest morphological difference. You can try this at the Merge Lab.

Merge itself does not mint $SLOP$, but after merging, voiding can mint more $SLOP. This path is not explicitly stated in the whitepaper, but it is mathematically valid. In the example of #608 + #645, originally, two Slonks together could only mint 18 $SLOP via voiding; after merging, #608 单只就能铸 161 $SLOP。代价是永久失去 #645’s Slonk.

Data and Deflation: Levels are the scars of destruction

Slonks were deployed on May 1st, and five days have passed. Current totalSupply is 9,505, with 10,012 minted in total, and 507 burned. 5.06% of Slonks have permanently disappeared from the chain.

Daily burn numbers: Day 1: 0, Day 2: 79, Day 3: 175, Day 4: 60, Day 5: 69, Day 6: 124. The 175 on Day 3 was an explosion caused by community-focused testing of merge, and the spike to 124 on Day 6 was triggered by the strategy warming up due to the $SLOP whitepaper. The merge rate is accelerating, not slowing down.

It’s worth noting that voiding has not yet been activated. The $SLOP contract has not been deployed, so all current burns are purely merge actions. Players have been strategically consuming based on slop values even before $SLOP launch.

Destruction causes continuous deflation of Slonks, and the level (mergeLevel) of a Slonk is the scar of this destruction.

Within the entire collection, less than 5% have a mergeLevel greater than 0. mergeLevel is a strange field in the contract. tokenURI displays it, and it can be filtered on OpenSea. Each Slonk on-chain records its level number, but there is no view function exposing it in the contract, nor any mechanism that depends on it for rewards.

Its only strict constraint is same-level merge. L0 can only merge with L0, L1 only with L1. That is, each level-up requires destroying twice the same level of Slonks. L1 burns 2 L0s, L2 burns 4 L0s, L5 burns 32 L0s, L10 burns 10% of the total collection’s Slonks. The theoretical limit is L13, which would require burning 8,192 L0s for one upgrade, but the entire collection cannot support reaching that level.

Leveling up costs geometrically, but offers no geometric rewards. It’s the opposite of traditional games: in Slonks, upgrading means throwing the same kind of Slonk into the incinerator one by one. The level number records not how many times you’ve won, but how many of the same kind you’ve burned. Currently, mergeLevel is an empty trait. The team has retained its interface, and whether future economic incentives will attach to it remains unknown. But from the combined scene, it’s clear that the level is a mark of how many same-type Slonks have been destroyed.

Dual Valuation

At this point, the facts are solidified. Slonks do not have a single valuation logic; there are two conflicting valuation systems.

The first valuation considers the rarity of the source punk. Within CryptoPunks, 9 Aliens, 24 Apes, and 88 Zombies are recognized as rare. If a Slonk’s source is Alien $SLOP 5275, no matter how well the model renders it, it cannot eliminate the inherent rarity premium of the source. The rarer the source punk, the more the Slonk’s low slop and high fidelity preserve the visual recognition of the Alien’s green face or the Ape’s ape face. Low slop is the core value of this type of Slonk.

The second valuation considers the number of #2890 或 Ape # that voiding can mint. The higher the slop, the more $SLOP is minted via voiding. This valuation has nothing to do with whether the source punk is rare. A normal male punk with slop=400 will void out 400 $SLOP, while an Alien with slop=15 will void out 15 $SLOP. In terms of $SLOP price, a normal punk with high slop is far more valuable than an Alien with low slop.

These two valuation systems directly conflict in merge decisions.

If you hold a low slop Slonk with an Alien source, merging will do two things:

1. Give it a new embedding, so the rendered image no longer faithfully replicates the Alien’s green face.

2. Destroy a donor Slonk.

The result is you get a Slonk with higher slop, but visually it no longer appears as Alien. It’s indistinguishable from non-rare punks—no longer recognizable as Ape, Zombie, or any rare punk. The rarity premium assigned by the CryptoPunks community is wiped out.

What you gain is the potential to mint 100 $SLOP via voiding in the future. $SLOP has not launched yet, so its price is unknown, but Alien’s secondary market value is verifiable. This transaction has a negative expected value for those holding rare source Slonks.

For those holding a common source low slop Slonk, merge is a positive expectation. This Slonk has neither source rarity nor $SLOP quantity value; it’s in a valuation trough. Throwing it into merge to turn it into a high slop Slonk is the most valuable thing it can do.

Evolution

Extrapolating this logic to the entire collection results in a Darwinian scene.

Poorly reconstructed Slonks are the fit. Their high slop makes them a gold mine for voiding; no one merges them, so they survive.

Well-reconstructed Slonks split into two layers. Rare sources survive, as no one dares to merge them because it would ruin visual recognition. Ordinary sources are recycled, collected as donors, and thrown into merge to upgrade other Slonks.

Eventually, the collection will evolve into two coexistence types. One is high slop “perfect failures,” where models render these punks unrecognizably, but voiding value is high. The other is low slop “rare faithful reconstructions,” with sources like Alien/Ape/Zombie, low slop preserves visual recognition, and secondary market value remains high.

The middle ground Slonks continue to disappear. Ordinary source Slonks with ordinary slop have no valuation advantage and are natural donors for merge. They contribute to the two surviving groups and exit permanently.

Five days, 5%. This rate will continue to rise as merge tools become more widespread and $SLOP launch approaches. Slonks is a project designed to actively disappear. Its rarity is not fixed at the launch of 10,000, but is the result of every merge decision made by the market.

Conclusion

Slonks and unipeg are both playing the game of scarcity, but in opposite directions. unipeg accumulates dust to make it difficult to assemble integers, with NFT quantities fluctuating around 6,000. Slonks destroys directly—over 500 have been burned in 5 days, with no sign of slowing, irreversible.

Merge, as described in the whitepaper, is a neutral mechanism. On-chain, it’s not. Merge is a way for Slonks to optimize collection valuation through self-consumption. Every merge is a market vote, permanently removing one Slonk from the world in exchange for an upgraded slop of another.

Five days ago, the total was 10,012. Today, it’s 9,505. $SLOP has not launched yet; the淘汰 process has already begun.