What are Meebits? Metaverse-ready NFTs from the creator of CryptoPunks

Launched in 2017, CryptoPunks was one of the earliest examples of one NFT crypto collectibles; a series of 10,000 pixel art profile pictures (PFPs) with randomized features.

They proved to be a runaway success, with NFT enthusiasts paying tens of millions of dollars for 24×24 pixel images of monkeys, aliens and zombies. But for CryptoPunks’ creators Larva Labs, that was just the beginning.

In May 2021, Larva Labs returned with Meebits, another one Ethereum-based PFP NFT project with double supply and an extra dimension.

What are Meebits?

Like CryptoPunks, Meebits are a series of NFT characters with randomly generated properties. However, there are some differences; unlike their two-dimensional predecessors, Meebit’s 3D characters are rendered in voxels (so-called because they are pixels with volume), and there are 20,000 Meebits in total.

Of the 20,000 Meebits, 18,881 are humans, 711 are pigs, 256 are elephants, 72 are robots, 57 are skeletons, 18 are visitors, and 5 are dissected (think humans without skin). Visually, Meebit resembles characters from games such as Minecraft or Roblox – and therein lies the most important selling point.

Meebits and the Metaverse

Larva Labs is gambling that the 3D models that make up Meebits will play a crucial role in the burgeoning development metaversea persistent, shared virtual world where users interact using avatars.

While some big tech firms build centralized metaverses where they control all virtual assets on the platform, Larva Labs and other Web3 pioneers hope to build a truly decentralized metaverse, where users own virtual assets in the form of NFTs – which can be migrated between different metaverses – platforms.

As such, the ability to own a 3D model of your very own virtual avatar is a compelling prospect—at least one compelling enough to propel the project to an all-time sales total of $515 million and a minimum price of 4.4 ETH as of August 2022, according to data from CryptoSlam.

If you purchase a 3D model of one of its blocky voxel characters, you’ll also receive the full 3D model and high-resolution rendering of your Meebit. You can port this directly to any metaverse project that supports it – although few currently do.

Although Meebits look different, they have one thing in common: they are always expensive. That said, some Meebits, especially the rarer ones, are more expensive than others. Meebit #6337, an algorithmically generated 3D skeleton in a suit, sold for approximately half a million dollars at a Christie’s auction in September 2021.

The 3D NFTs are traded as Ethereum ERC-721 tokens on a proprietary marketplace without any fees, but you can also trade them on any Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, such as OpenSea.

Meebits and Yuga Labs

In March 2022, Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club The NFT project, bought from Larva Labs the intellectual property rights for CryptoPunks and Meebits. “This means that we now own the brands, art copyright and other IP rights for both collections, along with 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits,” Yuga Labs said in a blog posts.

Yuga Lab’s first step was to give holders of Meebits the same commercial property rights as holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club. This license allows anyone who has had NFT to use the images in it for commercial purposes. Apart from this, Yuga Labs acts as the custodian of the Meebit brand and will encourage its development. Yuga also bought 1711 Meebits.

In July 2022, Yuga added a 5% royalty on secondary sales of Meebits, such as those on OpenSea and LooksRare, to “help keep this Meeb party going (and going and going).”

Yuga didn’t reveal what else it’s building for the project, but said the vision “centers around embracing the currents that are already at the core of the community — play, DIY experimentation, technical minimalism and interoperability — and dialing them up.”

How to buy a Meebit

No one tells you should buy a Meebit – but if you have a few thousand dollars to spare, do it here.

To take advantage of the gas-free exchange on the Meebits site, the first thing to do is to go to the Meebits site. You can also use a secondary marketplace, such as OpenSea, to purchase your Meebits. The difference is that Meebits does not charge fees for trading on its marketplace for transactions up to 100 Meebits.

Anyway, check which ones are on offer and connect to a Web3 wallet, such as MetaMask, to the website. Right now, for example, a pig wearing a fetching pair of headphones (Meebit #5979) is selling for just under $95,000 on OpenSea.

You can’t bid NFT against other OpenSea bidders on the Meebits marketplace – you have to go to OpenSea for that – but you can trade it for ETH or another Meebit in the Meebit trading terminal.

There you can set an expiration date for your deal and send it to the owner to see if they’ll bite. If they do, you will lose everything you give up in the trade and receive Meebit in your wallet.

Once Meebit is in your wallet, you can do whatever you want. For example, you can set it as your Twitter profile picture. As of August 2022, Meebits is not supported by any major Web3 games, but the voxel animation file is yours to play with.