Hello HIVEains, as we come to the end of our first complete year on HIVE i think to myself, we should have something to set the milestone in place but what? As we're on the blockchain and everything is digital, something like a special NFT, some HE token or even a new account badge could be created but sometimes it's nice to get something in your hand, something you can hold and keep as a memento.
Back on STEEM i used part of a silver and gold stacking community called #steemsilvergold, now #silvergoldstackers and every year, we as a community from 2017 we would create and release a 1oz STEEM silver bullion round. 1 side was the STEEM logo and the other side was a design that came from someone in the community. The process from design contests to shipped was 3-4 months each year. To work with the mint we had to prebuy the silver and the minimum order was 1500 oz's so today's prices were talking $30,000+. When crypto winter set it, we had fewer members and the remaining members were buying less because STEEM was worth less so after 3 release's, raybrockman (main guy in charge) said enough was enough and the financial burden on him was too much. We were presaling maybe 1000 oz's at most and he was forking out of his personal money for the remaining 500 oz's hoping to be able to sell them to get his money back. Now that's fucking commitment to the community.
(Picture source - @welshstacker)
Anyways, I know that there is a demand there for something that community members can buy each year. Maybe a silver round is not the way to go, a .999 silver coin sounds like the perfect thing but not many people were interested when we were doing it and I'd say 95% of these STEEM rounds for years 2017,18 and 19 were all bought by SGS community members. The main problem was the overhead was too much and presaling $30k of bullion coins is no easy thing to do. As a community, we can spend $200k snapping up PUNKS in a day but not $30k on actual physical assets/mementos. Anyways something with a smaller overhead and that appeals to a wider range of users. Something that's edgy and proven.
What would be a cool thing to issue 1 of each year for the community to buy?
DRINK!!!
Thats right Mr Bob, what else? Most people like a drink and if they dont, it's a collector's item so you buy it as a collector's piece. Now im not in the business of processing and distilling alcohol but there are plenty of micro distillers that will offer a white-label service where they supply the booze, bottle it and label it for us. We can also create our own blend and make it taste like "crypto rich" (i just invented that flavour) but that would take time and like I said, im not an expert on the subject. I'd be talking about very drinkable alcohol, not piss in a fancy novelty bottle.
Maybe your thinking SSUK has been hitting the bong too hard but hear me out. What is something you would buy each year to have in a collection? A zippo lighter?, some sort of deck of cards?, i dont know. I personally dont drink but I'd buy a bottle of HIVE juice each year if it was in a sexy bottle and nice boxing. Each year, we create a new front label from community design contents, stamp a mintage number to each bottle, change the boxing/packing and produce something amazing to collect.
This is basically ripping off the process we used for the STEEM rounds but it worked and there's no learning curve for me as we did 3 rounds over 3 years so I know the process. Im proposing we swap 1oz of silver for a bottle of alcohol. The overheads are much smaller, smaller minimum amounts and creating a new die each year for that year's coin design costs $600-800 whereas changing a label design might cost a few dollars meaning we can sell "first batch", "standard" and "last batch" if we wanted to. Probably not as it's all the same but being able to change labels at almost new cost is an advantage. We could release 4 spirits a year, one for each season. Probably not but we'd have the option.
What Alcohol?
VODKA
HIVE VODKA
Yep, HIVE vodka. Why vodka? I dont know, to be honest, it seems to be the most universal. To me as a non-drinker, vodka, gin, whisky, rum all taste like burn so it's not because I favour vodka personally, I just think "HIVE vodka" sounds cool and it'll be easier to market over another spirit.
In my head i see. A matt black thin 70cl bottle with a red rubber cork. Using a laser printer, they print on a large HIVE logo 3/4 the way up the bottle, add batch/year info to the bottom 1/4 and print the bottles mintage number on the neck. Ideally, a QR code to an NFT would be awesome but not sure how doable that would be have my limited skills. That's what i have in my head, no idea about packaging. I'd guess we buy nice pre-made ones and get them custom printed and receive them flatpack.
The selling price per bottle at a rough guess would be between $50-70 delivered anywhere in the world. A few things factor in, the cost of the vodka, the bottles, label design/printing, packaging/boxing and then, of course, the logistics of shipping. From what i have seen, I can get 1 bottle of vodka delivered for about £30-40 from a microbrewery. Boxing might cost £5 per bottle for something nice and shipping is whatever it is. Im from the UK so having someone in the US that would take a bulk shipment and then forward them on would save on shipping but this is something i have not thought about yet.
Oh this would be a non-profit project. The end selling price would be the cost price. I might take 2-3 bottles of each release for free but it would be a non-profit meanly to try and keep the end selling price as low as we can.
I've only been looking into if it's doable are not and now im looking to find out if users like the idea are not.
So... what do you think of the concept?
Would you buy a bottle of HIVE vodka each year? Is there any other blockchain out there with its own vodka? Shit, I'd buy ETH vodka if it were a thing, i'd pay for it with ETH and make little ETH logo shaped ice cubes to drink that shit. Maybe you are still thinking im mad and this is a bullshit idea and you may be right, let me know in the comments below.
Think about it, each year we release a new HIVE vodka, the label is unique, designed and chosen by the community, you order the same mintage number each year to add to your collection, you do this for a few years and build a nice collection of tangible HIVE memorabilia. The value of the bottles could go up if HIVE becomes more adopted and we go from being a 5 figure active user platform to 7-8 figure active users platform. If HIVE stays niche forever and the value never goes up, you can drink it till you forget what you paid for it.
Anyways, I think it would be cool if we had something that we could as a community are a small part of the community could create and sell something that is physical/collectable for everyone on the blockchain. HIVE vodka! sounds pretty good to me, it's a little risky, I am aware of that but that's the appeal as well. Think of all the unboxing posts, all the taste reviews uploaded by drunken HIVEeererrrr'sss and the buzz that could be created from a community created vodka.
