On Dec 7th 2023, Tim Ferriss's popular NFT project, The Legend of CØCKPUNCH, sold out before ever reaching the "public" mint. But the Legend of The CØCKPUNCH Mint traces back much further than that. Let's revisit the early days of this NFT project, how it was announced, who got airdrops, how Mint day and Reveal day went down and so much more!
September 19th, 2022
The story begins in September 2022 when Tim registers a new Twitter handle @TimTimNifties most likely because he didn't want to crowed his feed with the inevitable influx of NFT banter to come. The first tweet on was:
“Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.” ― Mae West
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) September 20, 2022
It's unclear whether Project 555 was already referenced in @TimTimNifties's bio on Twitter, but this was the codename given to the project which would eventually to be known as CØCKPUNCH.
October 14, 2022
The first public announcement went out to subscribers of Tim's newsletter, 5-Bullet Friday. In it, he announced his new NFT project, "Project 555" and promised:
It’s going to be very elaborate and unbelievably bizarre.
Since day one, he's disclosed that:
100% of primary sale proceeds will go to the Saisei Foundation.
But most interesting to readers is that this email contains the only known link to the project's waitlist which was hosted by premint.xyz founded by Tim's old buddy mull.eth.
The link to the original waitlist was https://www.premint.xyz/tim/ and shows that registration closed October 21st at 11:59PM ET. The total number of items in the collection as well as the mint price hadn't been finalized yet, but it was expected to be somewhere between 0.25-0.5 ETH per NFT. The rules for accessing the waitlist were simple:
November 8, 2022
Tim tweeted a shadowy first look at the artwork which was clearly designed to throw people off as the would be chicken was in a wolf's clothes.
First 👀 #project555 pic.twitter.com/qY75ioi83A
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 8, 2022
Although later that evening he shared a sketch from his main account clearly showing the characters have beaks!
This quick sketch brought you by olive oil, bread, wine, and a conversation with @kevinrose... pic.twitter.com/EuZc0o6me3
— Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) November 9, 2022
Two days later on November 10th, we got some shoes.
If the shoes make the man... #project555 pic.twitter.com/TcCacJRGtC
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 10, 2022
And later that day it was unveiled that the project had yet another Twitter account, @The7thScribe, who's cryptic bio says:
I am the Seventh Scribe. So few things are what they seem...
"The darkness. It always starts with the darkness. This much I can gather from the fragments..."
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 10, 2022
- The Seventh Scribe (@The7thScribe)
Day 3, Loop 76#Project555 pic.twitter.com/0RHuLHRj1I
As of November 10th 2022, @The7thScribe had only posted two times, both of which was sharing weapons.
— The Seventh Scribe (@The7thScribe) November 10, 2022
“He was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax...”
— The Seventh Scribe (@The7thScribe) November 24, 2022
― Bohumil Hrabal pic.twitter.com/XaCSI9VoD4
On November 11th, 2022 we got a wolf mask:
To the wolves of light, even the darkness shines. #Project555 pic.twitter.com/jbK7P6nmYu
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 11, 2022
November 13th, 2022 brought us an Emerald:
Emerald. #Project555 pic.twitter.com/PEI1k7bG52
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 13, 2022
And November 15th, 2022 frog legs?
"How are your frog legs?"
— TimTimNifties (@TimTimNifties) November 16, 2022
"Well, those are quite popular. I'd say savage with a drop of phantasm." pic.twitter.com/G7U142fHbN
November 17, 2022
One month after the waitlist was released to newsletter subscribers, Tim unveiled the true name of the project on Kevin Rose's Proof podcast followed by a replay on Tim's Podcast. A few highlights from this conversation include:
In the episode, Kevin and Tim talk about what the final NFT collection count will be and they bleep it out! It isn't until the launch tweet is shared that we know the final collection count.
As part of Tim's CØCKPUNCH podcast tour, he also hopped on Ryan Carson's Daily Dose Twitter Space November 22nd and Bankless November 28th to chat with rsa.eth and davidhoffman.eth:
November 29, 2022
The official CØCKPUNCH Twitter account announces that the total supply will be 5,555 and that mint day will be December 7th at 10am PST followed by a reveal on December 9th. There will be less than 5k available for mint. On December 1st, it was added that the official mint price will be 0.3 ETH.
MINT DAY COMETH! Barring unforeseen catastrophes, complexities, or cockpunches, this is the plan:
— CØCKPUNCH ™ (@cockpunch) November 29, 2022
Mint day for COCKPUNCH is now scheduled for next Wed, Dec 7th, at 10am PST, followed by a reveal on Fri, Dec 9th.
Total supply will be 5,555... (cont.👇) pic.twitter.com/b6voTy5TIp
November 18, 2022
Tim starts a "Meme Contest" on Twitter with 3 winners each receiving a CØCKPUNCH NFT.
OK, you funny bastards... wine has led me to begin the @cockpunch MEME CONTEST! Limber up those hamstrings. Tuck whatever needs tucking. I'll be giving away 3 @cockpunch NFTs to people who make my magical elves (and me) laugh the most... (cont.)
— Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) November 19, 2022
When the time came to announce, 8 winners were unveiled! You can see all the winners here.
December 6, 2022
The day before the mint, the first 555 tokens (#0-554) were minted to the project’s treasury - the same address which receives ETH from sales and royalties.
Seconds after the first 555 were minted, 160 cocks were minted and airdropped to:
Tim included friends, colleagues and advisors amongst the list of airdrop recipients. Less than 100 NFT's allocated to what we're calling the "homie airdrop" feels low considering the scope of the project. For fun, here's who we've uncovered was included:
#612-636 (25 cocks!) all went to this unknown address, the most of any single address that was part of the airdrop. Not sure what those are for... It appears #637-654 were contest winners and #655-714 were hodlers of Tim's Grails NFT. You can see the full list of addresses included in the airdrop here.
December 7, 2022
Everyone knew the Mint Day would be December 7th, but it wasn't until the mint page was released that the schedule was unveiled. The schedule would be as follows:
If for some reason the project didn't mint out within the first 24 hours, any remaining NFTs would be sent to the project's treasury. But the Public mint never happened...
Apparently the Allowlist was over allocated by about 10%. Anyone with an Allowlist spot who didn't mint during that first hour lost their spot to people on the Waitlist. When the 1 hour allocated to the Allowlist came to a close, 271 cocks were gobbled up by the Waitlist within the first 2 blocks (16134775 & 16134776) or 23 seconds according to our research. This was also confirmed by mull.eth.
So who got on the Allowlist in the first place? Some of the details are blurry but it looks like:
The waitlist was comprised of losers of mull.eth's 2 NFT giveaway, of which roughly 250 got a chance to mint.
Thx to everyone (and there were a LOT of you) who entered the @Cockpunch raffle!
— BrendΞn Mulligan | PREMINT (@mulligan) December 3, 2022
The surprise for the non-winners is.. By entering my raffle, I got you a spot on the CP Waitlist (the minting period before Public)!https://t.co/3ves12Oqgv https://t.co/JWUX1eG6Gi
December 9, 2022
In the moments leading up to the Reveal, we captured the stats regarding the secondary market sales from the time of the mint through the time of the reveal. Some highlights include:
December 9, 2022
Until now, everyone's NFT looked the same, a floating, spinning gauntlet:
But on Dec 9th at 11:11am PST, we got our big reveal and everyone's gauntlet changed (surprisingly instantly) to our 1 of 1 birds.
👀
— CØCKPUNCH ™ (@cockpunch) December 9, 2022
Floor price was 0.92 at the time of the Reveal and quickly dropped to roughly 0.6 (the lowest sale to date) as people offloaded the cocks they didn't like. Surprisingly within the first hour, only 100 cocks traded hands totaling 90.66 ETH.
With the reveal came a wide range of attributes including:
cxkoda.eth worked with Tim on assigning the attributes to the collection which determins the rarity. They wrote a Twitter Thread detailing how randomness was generated and the precautions they took to ensure fairness and transparency.
0/ The @cockpunch reveal is going down soon. To render us unable to manipulate the randomised assignment of attributes and make the process as transparent as possible we took several precautions. 👇
— cxkoda (@cxkoda) December 9, 2022
The rarest cocks according to OpenSea's Open Rarity score tended to be the ones fully copper and fully pewter colors.
Demand for various clans and other attributes will certainly fluctuate as The Legend of CØCKPUNCH is unveiled over the coming weeks and months. We'll revisit the collection in time as the story unfolds. For now however, it's safe to say that The Legend of Project 555 has officially come to a close. Long live The Legend of CØCKPUNCH! 🐓🥊