Thoughts on the BWEEP Pop-up Store

Can there be indie, underground NFTs?

Couple of weeks ago, NFT artist Gengoya dropped an announcement.

Gengoya is the artist behind BWOPLE and BWEEPs, one of the most popular creators among Tezos NFTs. (Currently listed as #10 on Objkt’s all-time creator sales.) These are largely monochromatic illustrated profile pics—BWOPLE is all 1/1 designs and BWEEPs is a generative set that was dropped on Fxhash.

The upcoming event (“exhibition”) is a small pop-up store in Fukuoka for selling merch.

But here’s the kicker: it’s not just a store for selling merch, but also for selling NFTs.

The idea is that customers can generate a new NFT at the pop-up store! And potentially even buy merch branded with that NFT. One of the fun innovations involves using a pen plotter to fabricate badges.

The minting system used at the store checks against an existing database to be sure that the generated BWEEP is unique.

Better yet, Gengoya has created new attributes just for the event. I believe you’re able to select the traits you want—Gengoya did this with recent BWEEPIFY drops.

The idea to sell merch isn’t new obviously; the idea to mint fresh NFTs on-the-spot seems quite novel, though. And seems perfect for the boutique project that Gengoya is running.

---

Generally NFT projects are treated either like startups or like pure artworks—there isn’t a whole lot of in-between. There are digital assets like 10KTF and stuff that basically falls into the category of shitcoin. But BWEEPs is much more in the spirit of a small indie art shop product.

To put it another way, Gengoya works directly with his community in the Discord, taking requests for new characters and events. He already has a nice merch store for BWOPLE. Is it possible that this could happen in neighborhoods as well? Imagine artists selling prints of their work, as well as digital work—such as iPhone wallpapers and profile pictures—directly from a point-of-sale device.

This perspective frees us from the narrow story of PFP NFTs like BAYC, Azuki, DeGods and such. Or even artists like XCOPY. Billion dollar valuations and maintaining hype cycles. The images are often forgotten in this process—and blur into mere membership cards or stocks. In fact, Gengoya’s approach feels like the antithesis—personalized images from a corner store. The idea of using a pen plotter to fabricate NFT merch doesn’t scale, but is perfect for a solo act.

Certainly this doesn’t mean that these can’t become popular or desired or incredibly rare. But there is real stability (and fun) in this level of NFTs. Here’s another thing to imagine: taking a flight to the BWEEP Fukuoka event to secure a special-edition BWEEP! I would love to attend an event like this where you could pick up NFTs from artists in the region. You can even picture this being a permanent store that you can visit to pick up this season’s BWEEP.

And perhaps one day you’ll have a local store for generating yourself a custom avatar. Or perhaps they’ll have a kiosk at the Ghibli Museum for doing this. You can envision doing this at Disney or Universal parks. This is an infectious idea! It has legs. (Unlike these PFPs heh.)

I’m always so impressed at Gengoya’s vision. The guy’s a natural.