Up there as one of the more elaborate collections featured on Flip, CyberBrokers is a 10,000 item, fully on-chain collection that boasts cyberpunk art pieces (each with unique traits; e.g. class, species, talent) which grant membership and access to metaversal experiences.
And, besides their captivating artwork that makes each CyberBroker appear as though they’re starring in a futuristic, hunger-games-esque fashion show, there’s a few things in particular that catch our attention with CyberBrokers.
The Founder
In a space where many projects are led by pseudonymous founders, it's a rarity to know your leaders true identity, and even rarer yet to have one with an IRL resume as impressive as Josie Bellini, founder of CyberBrokers.
Having previously worked in finance before joining crypto full-time in 2017 — Josie Bellini has since been busy creating art that engages and encapsulates the crypto ecosystem’s distinct ethos and history. Notably, in 2020, she created an art piece and metaverse puzzle of mindblowing scale that brought together leading projects (Neon District, CryptoKitties, Axie, Cryptovoxels, SuperRare, Age of Rust, and OpenSea) to create an immersive and interactive experience. That’s in addition to an impressive portfolio of work which’s been exhibited at major blockchain conferences like Consensus, NFT NYC, and Satoshi Roundtable — as well as has been sold at Christies (pictured below), Sotheby’s, and featured on Obama.org.
They’re Fully On-Chain
In addition to promising leadership, CyberBrokers is one of few collections that can truly brag about their tech. That’s because CyberBrokers NFTs are fully on-chain . . .
In tech terms, that means: all of the metadata related to artwork, traits, etc, had to be converted to SVG (scalable vector graphics), broken down into component pieces, then compressed to be stored as individual layers on the Ethereum network.
In layman's terms, it’s sort of like uploading and storing your photos on the cloud as opposed to simply holding them on a flash drive (except the cloud here is decentralized, not just some Google data center out in North Carolina). And this might seem like an obvious or logical step, but truthfully, the majority of NFT projects only store part of their metadata on-chain (meaning they rely on centralized structures to host ‘the media’ connected to the contract.)
We should clarify, there’s reasons why most projects don’t go fully ‘on-chain’, namely that it’s not easy and not cheap — the CyberBrokers team spent an estimated 91 Eth (over $250,000 at the time) just to do so. However, the upside is that CyberBrokers’ NFTs are highly decentralized, secure, and interoperable.
So long as Ethereum is around, even if the CyberBrokers team disappeared, it wouldn’t affect the integrity and permanence of CyberBrokers’ collectibles. Likewise, being fully on-chain hopefully ensures that their collectibles are flexible and compatible with various other platforms — whether it be Sandbox, Decentraland, Cyprotvoxels, etc, — allowing you to take your CyberBroker wherever you go in the metaverse.
That’s the crux of this move though; moving their NFTs on-chain was not merely a marketing posture, but a sincere signal to the community that they plan to be around for a long, long time.
If you want to hear more about CyberBrokers going fully on-chain, there’s a great interview with J1mmy.eth, founder & CEO of nft42, where he breaks down the importance of on-chain NFTs and gives CyberBrokers an extensive shoutout.
The Lore
In terms of content, CyberBrokers also stand out for their labyrinthian lore.
CyberBrokers’ lore is not just a few paragraphs of back-story — no, we’re talking full length chapters, well-developed characters, and an intriguing, crypto-native plotline. Essentially, each aspect of the CyberBrokers’ appearance is intimately linked to a deeper lore that's inspired by cyberpunk works such as Ready Player One, Snow Crash, and Neuromancer. The result is that nothing about the CyberBrokers’ art feels isolated or arational — on the contrary, everything has an explanation, for instance, among the different ‘talents’, there are 180 ‘Dealers’ known for their charismatic marketing of exogenous fixes for ‘serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and adrenaline.’
If any of this complexity has you intrigued, you can check out their series on Spotify where you can listen along as a radio-grade, British voice dramatically reads the Cyber Brokers lore aloud.
Here’s a taste from “Chapter 1”:
“Unironic Ken didn't have to worry about issues of the physical world. He was a CyberBroker. One of the poor souls permanently severed from their human bodies and stuck, wandering the metaverse forever.
A couple centuries ago, after the arctic shelves collapsed and triggered the first modern ice age, the world governments came together with a plan to save humanity by moving everyone into the metaverse. It had been called "The Paradigm Shift". The first ten thousand volunteers who logged in to their experimental Paradigm rigs, intent on permanently colonizing cyberspace, instead met with disaster.”
Community Quests
Beyond just entertainment, the rubber really meets the road when you consider CyberBrokers’ lore in the context of their ‘Community Quests’.
These ‘Community Quests’, inspired by a Dungeons and Dragons framework, give the community a chance to work together to solve puzzles that both uncover and shape the future storyline of CyberBrokers.
Anyone, even non-holders, can join in and help (for perspective, Quest #1 was completed by a collective of 1,947 wallets and 1,225 CyberBrokers.) However, it might be more interesting if you do own a CyberBroker because its unique traits/characteristics can be utilized to hasten the solution to these puzzles (e.g., each ‘class’ has a different number of dice rolls they can perform.)
Also, not only does completing these quests help direct the CyberBrokers’ storyline, but completion might come with rewards for those who participate (even some non-CyberBroker holders), like this mechanical arm that was airdropped as a reward to those who participated in Quest #1.
The Combo
By themselves — having a promising founder, having fully on-chain collectibles, or having elaborate lore and Community Quests — are not necessarily reason enough to be impressed. But, put those factors in combination and you've got yourself a project worth watching out for.
Even in terms of price alone, CyberBrokers have proven themselves to be a real contender — they originally minted on March 4th, 2022 at a price of 0.35 Eth and have since seen dramatic peaks and valleys, at times trading at a floor price between 6 and 8 Eth.
Today, they respectively rest at a ~3 Eth floor price, with total volume traded around 32k Eth.
Considering Community Quest #2 was just completed (with the potential to win multiple airdrops), as well as the fact that a generally hopeful sentiment is washing over markets at the moment, it’ll be interesting to see how CyberBrokers match up in the near future.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. This article is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Do your own research. See Flip’s Terms of Service for more details.