Lil Nouns are just like Nouns, but Lil!
An expansion DAO based on Nouns DAO, Lil Nouns DAO works to create a new layer within the Nouns ecosystem; Nouns as kids. By expanding the ecosystem, Lil Nouns DAO aims at exposing more people to Nouns.
Learn more below, or start creating Lil Nouns off-chain using the Playground.
The Lil Nouns Auction Contract will act as a self-sufficient Lil Noun generation and distribution mechanism, auctioning one Lil Noun every 15 minutes, forever. 100% of auction proceeds (ETH) are automatically deposited in the Lil Nouns DAO treasury, where they are governed by Lil Noun owners.
Each time an auction is settled, the settlement transaction will also cause a new Lil Noun to be minted and a new 15 minute auction to begin.
While settlement is most heavily incentivized for the winning bidder, it can be triggered by anyone, allowing the system to trustlessly auction Lil Nouns as long as Ethereum is operational and there are interested bidders.
The proposal veto right was initially envisioned as a temporary solution to the problem of ‘51% attacks’ on the Nouns DAO treasury and was copied over during the creation of Lil Nouns DAO. While Nounders initially believed that a healthy distribution of Nouns would be sufficient protection for the DAO, a more complete understanding of the incentives and risks has led to general consensus that a more robust solution should be implemented before the right is removed. Naturally, so is the case in Lil Nouns DAO.
The lil nounders will veto proposals that introduce non-trivial risks to Lil Nouns DAO, including (but not necessarily limited to) proposals that:
There are unfortunately no algorithmic solutions for making these determinations in advance (if there were, the veto would not be required), and proposals must be considered on a case by case basis.
Lil Nouns are generated randomly based Ethereum block hashes. There are no 'if' statements or other rules governing Lil Noun trait scarcity, which makes all Lil Nouns equally rare. As of this writing, Lil Nouns are made up of:
Lil Nouns are stored directly on Ethereum and do not utilize pointers to other networks such as IPFS. This is possible because Lil Noun parts are compressed and stored on-chain using a custom run-length encoding (RLE), which is a form of lossless compression.
The compressed parts are efficiently converted into a single base64 encoded SVG image on-chain. To accomplish this, each part is decoded into an intermediate format before being converted into a series of SVG rects using batched, on-chain string concatenation. Once the entire SVG has been generated, it is base64 encoded.
The Lil Noun Seeder contract is used to determine Lil Noun traits during the minting process. The seeder contract can be replaced to allow for future trait generation algorithm upgrades. Additionally, it can be locked by the Lil Nouns DAO to prevent any future updates. Currently, Lil Noun traits are determined using pseudo-random number generation:
keccak256(abi.encodePacked(blockhash(block.number - 1), nounId))
Trait generation is not truly random. Traits can be predicted when minting a Lil Noun on the pending block.
'Lil Nounders' are the group of builders that initiated Lil Nouns. Here are the Lil Nounders:
Because 100% of Lil Noun auction proceeds are sent to Lil Nouns DAO, Lil Nounders have chosen to compensate themselves with Lil Nouns. Every 10th Lil Noun for the first 5 years of the project (Lil Noun ids #0, #10, #20, #30 and so on) will be automatically sent to the Lil Nounder's multisig to be vested and shared among the founding members of the project.
Lil Nounder distributions don't interfere with the cadence of 15 minute auctions. Lil Nouns are sent directly to the Lil Nounder's Multisig, and auctions continue on schedule with the next available Lil Noun ID.
For being selfless stewards of cc0, Lil Nounders have chosen to compensate the Nouns DAO with Lil Nouns. Every 11th Lil Noun for the first 5 years of the project (Lil Noun ids #1, #11, #21, #31 and so on) will be automatically sent to the Nouns DAO to be vested and shared among members of the project.
Nouns DAO distributions don't interfere with the cadence of 15 minute auctions. Lil Nouns are sent directly to the Nouns DAO Treasury, and auctions continue on schedule with the next available Lil Noun ID.