OtterClam’s Soft Rebranding

Gather round the stream, Otters!

Introduction

Before we get into the details, we’d like to take a moment to thank the community for inspiring this vision. As a DAO-governed community, our core team has a responsibility to listen to your ideas and consider how they might fit into the overarching vision of our project.

We hope today’s announcement demonstrates our commitment to that responsibility. We have had our ears close to the ground, listening to suggestions that keep coming up. Although the growth of the community has been a bit overwhelming at times, we’ve done our best to establish a relaxed vibe that fosters support, growth, and transparency.

In our effort to maintain transparency, we’d like to share with you the 3 key observations that ultimately prompted our decision to rebrand. After that, we’ll introduce you to the new vision, briefly touch on a roll-out strategy, and leave you with some final thoughts on our project’s future.

Key Observations

Our first observation concerns the most important aspect of our project: community. Newcomers experience an atmosphere that is respectful, supportive, and friendly. We realize the artwork drew a lot of people in. The possibility of getting in early on insane APYs attracted others. Neither of these enticements manage to capture the whole story, however. There’s more going on beneath the surface, and it’s all about the bond — no, not that kind of bond.

1. The bond is the byproduct of the vision.

The quality of our community that keeps everyone working together is the thing that differentiates us from other projects. Our community and core team devs are knocking it out of the park. OtterClam has turned into something progressively more technical, functional, and versatile.

We are confident in our level of technical competence. We also acknowledge, however, that while technical competence is necessary, it is not sufficient to ensure success. We need a strong community that is unified by a shared vision.

The strength of the bond that creates a thriving community comes from a clearly expressed vision that excites. If any of these elements are missing, the glue dries and cracks, and the community weakens.

Sure, we want this to be a good investment for everyone involved. That goes without saying, but the DAO model is built on the premise that community creates value. Our OtterDAO is no different.

This brings us to our second observation, which emerges from the first:

2. Our community has outgrown the memecoin label, and that’s a good thing.

The value of virtually all memecoin projects hinges on two basic assumptions:

1. Community creates value.

2. Intrinsic value is an illusion, or at the very least, arbitrary.

We don’t need to explain which of these two ideas aligns with the OtterClam community, and which one is diametrically opposed to it. The question is, what can we do with this insight? Well, we think the community hype aspect of the meme culture is undeniably powerful. No sense debating that. However, it is also transitory. That leads us to an important question:

Who are we?

We had to decide if we wanted to bank on the ephemeral power of the meme, or if we wanted to build on the premise that community creates value while continuing the work of improving our treasury’s (demonstrable) intrinsic value? If half of a memecoin’s power depends on the idea that no project has intrinsic value, how can we expect people to understand what we’re trying to do?

We have a treasury that functions based on the idea of intrinsic value. This logical dissonance has caused more than a messaging or marketing dilemma. The implication that our project is a memecoin with a treasury which depends on the notion of intrinsic value, is paradoxical, if not outright confusing. Our community is friendly, necessarily tech savvy, and obsessed with cute otters, but we’re far more than a memecoin project now, and we recognize that as a positive development.

Put simply, the lack of intrinsic value in the memecoin ecosystem is not a bug, it’s a feature. We believe intrinsic value is a core component of our project, and it doesn’t just come from our treasury model.

3. The real intrinsic value comes from our community.

As a reserve currency project coded with the notion of intrinsic value in mind, we believe it is quite reasonable to distance ourselves from the memecoin label. The incredibly cute otter images and the 5-day ROIs got us to this point. There’s no need to abandon either of them. But the community is the reason we are all still here. Because of you, we have the chance to do something special. Our community is the source of OtterClam’s real intrinsic value.

An NFT marketplace, otter memes, games, and great APYs might get people in the door. These things might also create occasional hype around the token’s appreciating value, but a community identity derived from a consistently clear, unifying vision creates “ride or die” Otters willing to weather any storm. We believe the following vision for our project does just that.

So without further ado, we would like to welcome you to…

The Otter Kingdom: A DAO-governed Ottertopia

What is The Otter Kingdom, exactly?

The Otter Kingdom is the long-term vision for OtterClam. Slow and steady fits the financial model we depend on, so why not take our time, and get this right as well? The Otter Kingdom incorporates elements of the OtterClam community that would already be familiar to our Discord members. Let me share some of the highlights of the model:

• Otter Arcade: A place within the Otter Kingdom where all of our games would be housed. Our community has developed numerous, brilliant gaming ideas that suit all types of gamers with varying degrees of risk tolerance. I envision the Otter Arcade to be a place all Otters could go to have fun and play community-developed video games.
• Otter University: As an extension of our existing otter university discord channel, the Otter University would be a place where people could go to learn about the various aspects of The Otter Kingdom and our treasury through videos, articles, and virtual presentations (classroom clam-o-nomics, anyone?). We are excited to see the form this eventually takes, but we love the idea of having an educational feature built into the Kingdom.
• Otter Den: Similar to the Otter Den we currently have on Discord, the Otter Den in The Otter Kingdom would just be a place for fellow Otters to hang out. Dim lighting, NFT artwork on the walls, comfy seating, maybe a VR-compatible movie screening area? A pool table?
• Otter Market: The market would be a place to buy and sell our very own NFT PAWs, virtual land within The Otter Kingdom, and various items to be put on the land players might buy to improve it. The Otter Market may also house an exchange or link to one(s) we’ve partnered with.
• Portals to Otter Space: Otters are friendly, smart, and welcoming. These “bridges” or “portals” would take you to other virtual land or gaming partner-projects from various points on the map. Other projects in the virtual land and gamefi space could link us up to their virtual world as well. We love collaboration, if you haven’t noticed.
• Otter Reserve: Inside The Otter Kingdom is a large island preservation area where virtual land is bought and then managed to preserve otters, harvest clams, and learn about the conservation efforts of our partner NPO. The only structure on the Otter Reserve is the Nature Center.
• Nature Center: Within the Otter Reserve, the Nature Center is where we provide information regarding otter habitats, threats to otters, and fun facts about otters. In the DAO spirit of transparency, we would also like to include a real-time view of the revenue we’ve generated and shared with our partner non-profit organization, including a link to their site.
• Otter Palace: A place where mods, devs, and founders hangout — Otter royalty, so to speak. Could also be thought of as a “think tank” where ideas are generated and worked through. Even the most benevolent kings need a palace to rest and keep an eye on things!

Why “The Otter Kingdom”?

In case you’re curious, here are the main reasons we chose this name:

1. The Otter Kingdom effectively communicates OtterClam’s full potential as an ecosystem thriving with utility.
2. The Otter Kingdom is already mentioned on the project’s main website, the official documents, and the initial Medium post. Since the community is familiar with the name, it should catch on easily.
3. It would not require any meaningful technical changes to the existing protocol (i.e., the currency ticker doesn’t need to change, the treasury and all of its functions can remain the same, no migration would be necessary, no changes to policies and operations, etc.).
4. It provides a clear vision that our community can rally behind and coalesce around.
5. The Otter Kingdom name conjures a light-hearted image with a fun gaming vibe, without sacrificing the potential for the kingdom’s more serious wealth creation and preservation opportunities.

What to Expect

Beginning in mid-January-early February, you will see minor changes being implemented to our landing page, app, and 3rd party sites and apps. Once the cosmetic changes related to the rebranding are complete, quarterly milestones will be published and updates will be provided on a regular basis.

Note: The OtterClam name is not being replaced. We view The Otter Kingdom as a vision that allows our current technical innovations and partnerships to continue uninterrupted, while pivoting away from the memecoin label that no longer serves the OtterClam community and its vision. You can think of it another way: The Otter Kingdom will be a place governed by the OtterDAO, so the OtterClam project will ultimately consist of The Otter Kingdom and the OtterDAO.

Final Thoughts

We believe our community has evolved into something greater than a memecoin project. We have the artists, content creators, developers, marketers, and leaders to be far more than a fleeting artifact of crypto history. But to realize this potential, we need a vision our community can rally behind — one that encourages engagement and growth.

There will be no shortage of technical, logistical, and creative challenges along the way. With a community-first approach, however, we believe The Otter Kingdom can meet those challenges while offering fellow Otters the opportunity to generate and preserve wealth, grow as individuals, and have a whole heck of a lot of fun along the way.

We’re still serious about our otter memes, but we’re even more serious about the Otters that make them possible! Thank you for your support, and please stay tuned for more information regarding our rebranding strategy and the official Otter Kingdom roll-out.

See you downstream, fellow Otters!