I wanted to leave off by offering some directional advice on sales pricing to help get things moving, since I know it has already been discussed in the Discord and in #44.
Summary
After eight years, only about one-third of Squares have been sold, leaving the majority unsold and most of the Billboard still unoccupied. The current primary sale path is commercially broken, and that is unlikely to change without direct intervention. This proposes replacing the current buyer-facing sale path with a treasury-subsidized intermediary sale mechanism that enables market-aligned pricing while still routing sales through the legacy contract.
Problem
The primary smart contract sale price is immutably fixed at 0.5 ETH. On the current OpenSea collection page, the floor is 0.006 ETH, many of the lowest visible listings cluster around 0.007–0.01 ETH, and the top collection offer is 0.003 WETH. That puts the primary sales price roughly 50x–83x above the visible lower listed market and about 167x above the current top collection offer. The result is that the primary sales are priced far outside the market that currently exists for Squares, making it commercially non-credible for most buyers.
This gap is also unlikely to close on its own in a healthy or reliable way. The project has already had roughly eight years, including prior NFT upswings, yet the collection is still priced where it is now, with about two-thirds of the supply unsold, even with its historical ERC-721 significance. For the legacy 0.5 ETH price to become naturally competitive, either ETH would have to fall dramatically relative to when the pricing was set or the collection would need a major speculative repricing event driven by renewed attention or viral demand. That kind of upside is possible, but it is not a serious operating plan to bet on. The practical conclusion for eventually selling out is that market-aligned repricing is a structural requirement, not a temporary exception.
Proposal
Implement a treasury-subsidized intermediary sale mechanism for unsold Squares.
Under this model, the buyer would pay a new market-aligned price to an intermediary contract, the intermediary would cover the difference needed to satisfy the legacy 0.5 ETH mint price, the purchase would still complete through the legacy contract, and tenthousandsu.com would route purchases through this mechanism instead of sending buyers directly to the current fixed-price contract.
The purpose of this proposal is to replace the broken buyer-facing fixed-price sale path with one that can track market reality. The subsidized primary sale price should not be immutable. It should be admin-adjustable via smart contract so it can be revised over time as market conditions change.
This proposal is directional. It is meant to establish the sale mechanism and the pricing posture, not to fully specify every implementation or pricing detail upfront. In particular, this proposal does not attempt to define:
- the exact pricing formula for every Square
- the exact factors that should be used to determine market-aligned pricing
- the exact smart contract design or implementation details
- the exact amount of treasury subsidy that should be used per sale
- the exact portion of treasury that should be committed to this mechanism
At current treasury levels, the project appears to have enough capital to make this mechanism available at meaningful scale, albeit with some operational overhead. For example, at a hypothetical 0.01 ETH buyer-facing price, the treasury could cover roughly 75 sale gaps of about 0.49 ETH each at a time. If roughly two-thirds of the total 10,000 Squares remain unsold, that would imply about 88 manual replenishments after the initial funding to move the rest through the mechanism. That does not make the mechanism unworkable, but it does make replenishment cadence a real operating consideration since the legacy contract cannot be updated to automate that workflow.
That example is only meant to illustrate current subsidy capacity. It should not be read as a recommended sale price, a required subsidy amount, or a recommendation to commit the full treasury or make roughly 75 subsidized sales available at once.
From the buyer’s perspective, the experience remains simple and straightforward: they pay the displayed price and complete the purchase without needing to think about the subsidy mechanics behind it. In practice, the buyer would pay the intermediary contract, the intermediary would combine buyer funds with subsidy funds to execute the legacy sale, receive the purchased Square, and then transfer it to the buyer.
The tradeoff is backend overhead. Compared with a direct legacy purchase, this approach would consume more gas because the intermediary contract would need to execute additional logic, route funds through the legacy sale, receive the purchased Square, and transfer it to the buyer. Treasury would also need to manually replenish the subsidy contract repeatedly over time. Those overhead costs are real, but they may be the practical cost of making the primary sale path commercially viable again.
This provides a balanced way to work within the constraints of the legacy smart contract and the resources at hand to address the otherwise irreconcilable pricing gap with the secondary market.
Why rebate-based repricing should be ruled out
Rebate-based repricing was explicitly discussed in issue #44, but it should be ruled out as the wrong implementation path.
The core problem with a rebate model is high friction for buyers. It asks buyers to overpay upfront, trust that reimbursement will be executed correctly, and accept added uncertainty and delay around the actual effective price. In a Web3 environment, where buyers are already more skeptical and trust-sensitive, that extra friction is a meaningful deterrent rather than a minor inconvenience.
A consequence of the friction is also that it sharply narrows the effective audience. A rebate flow makes the most sense only for people who already know and trust Will or the project maintainers, that is not a low hanging fruit to attract newcomers. It also only works for people who already have enough ETH on hand to cover an inflated upfront payment, people may be willing to pay closer to secondary market values but cannot afford the upfront price to get the rebate. That makes it a weak path for broader audience expansion and sale conversion.
By contrast, the subsidized approach keeps the buyer-facing experience simple: buyers do not need to care about the behind-the-scenes subsidy logistics and only need to pay whatever sale price the intermediary contract is currently set to.
Open directional questions
- How the subsidized sale price should be reviewed and adjusted over time?
- What factors should determine appropriate competitive pricing relative to the secondary market?
- Who should control admin-adjustable pricing and treasury operations?
- What operating process should govern treasury replenishment over time?
- How much treasury should be committed to this mechanism at any given time?
- Whether this mechanism should apply to all remaining unsold Squares or only a defined subset?
- What level of additional gas and operational overhead is acceptable in exchange for making the primary sale path viable?
I wanted to leave off by offering some directional advice on sales pricing to help get things moving, since I know it has already been discussed in the Discord and in #44.
Summary
After eight years, only about one-third of Squares have been sold, leaving the majority unsold and most of the Billboard still unoccupied. The current primary sale path is commercially broken, and that is unlikely to change without direct intervention. This proposes replacing the current buyer-facing sale path with a treasury-subsidized intermediary sale mechanism that enables market-aligned pricing while still routing sales through the legacy contract.
Problem
The primary smart contract sale price is immutably fixed at 0.5 ETH. On the current OpenSea collection page, the floor is 0.006 ETH, many of the lowest visible listings cluster around 0.007–0.01 ETH, and the top collection offer is 0.003 WETH. That puts the primary sales price roughly 50x–83x above the visible lower listed market and about 167x above the current top collection offer. The result is that the primary sales are priced far outside the market that currently exists for Squares, making it commercially non-credible for most buyers.
This gap is also unlikely to close on its own in a healthy or reliable way. The project has already had roughly eight years, including prior NFT upswings, yet the collection is still priced where it is now, with about two-thirds of the supply unsold, even with its historical ERC-721 significance. For the legacy 0.5 ETH price to become naturally competitive, either ETH would have to fall dramatically relative to when the pricing was set or the collection would need a major speculative repricing event driven by renewed attention or viral demand. That kind of upside is possible, but it is not a serious operating plan to bet on. The practical conclusion for eventually selling out is that market-aligned repricing is a structural requirement, not a temporary exception.
Proposal
Implement a treasury-subsidized intermediary sale mechanism for unsold Squares.
Under this model, the buyer would pay a new market-aligned price to an intermediary contract, the intermediary would cover the difference needed to satisfy the legacy 0.5 ETH mint price, the purchase would still complete through the legacy contract, and tenthousandsu.com would route purchases through this mechanism instead of sending buyers directly to the current fixed-price contract.
The purpose of this proposal is to replace the broken buyer-facing fixed-price sale path with one that can track market reality. The subsidized primary sale price should not be immutable. It should be admin-adjustable via smart contract so it can be revised over time as market conditions change.
This proposal is directional. It is meant to establish the sale mechanism and the pricing posture, not to fully specify every implementation or pricing detail upfront. In particular, this proposal does not attempt to define:
At current treasury levels, the project appears to have enough capital to make this mechanism available at meaningful scale, albeit with some operational overhead. For example, at a hypothetical 0.01 ETH buyer-facing price, the treasury could cover roughly 75 sale gaps of about 0.49 ETH each at a time. If roughly two-thirds of the total 10,000 Squares remain unsold, that would imply about 88 manual replenishments after the initial funding to move the rest through the mechanism. That does not make the mechanism unworkable, but it does make replenishment cadence a real operating consideration since the legacy contract cannot be updated to automate that workflow.
That example is only meant to illustrate current subsidy capacity. It should not be read as a recommended sale price, a required subsidy amount, or a recommendation to commit the full treasury or make roughly 75 subsidized sales available at once.
From the buyer’s perspective, the experience remains simple and straightforward: they pay the displayed price and complete the purchase without needing to think about the subsidy mechanics behind it. In practice, the buyer would pay the intermediary contract, the intermediary would combine buyer funds with subsidy funds to execute the legacy sale, receive the purchased Square, and then transfer it to the buyer.
The tradeoff is backend overhead. Compared with a direct legacy purchase, this approach would consume more gas because the intermediary contract would need to execute additional logic, route funds through the legacy sale, receive the purchased Square, and transfer it to the buyer. Treasury would also need to manually replenish the subsidy contract repeatedly over time. Those overhead costs are real, but they may be the practical cost of making the primary sale path commercially viable again.
This provides a balanced way to work within the constraints of the legacy smart contract and the resources at hand to address the otherwise irreconcilable pricing gap with the secondary market.
Why rebate-based repricing should be ruled out
Rebate-based repricing was explicitly discussed in issue #44, but it should be ruled out as the wrong implementation path.
The core problem with a rebate model is high friction for buyers. It asks buyers to overpay upfront, trust that reimbursement will be executed correctly, and accept added uncertainty and delay around the actual effective price. In a Web3 environment, where buyers are already more skeptical and trust-sensitive, that extra friction is a meaningful deterrent rather than a minor inconvenience.
A consequence of the friction is also that it sharply narrows the effective audience. A rebate flow makes the most sense only for people who already know and trust Will or the project maintainers, that is not a low hanging fruit to attract newcomers. It also only works for people who already have enough ETH on hand to cover an inflated upfront payment, people may be willing to pay closer to secondary market values but cannot afford the upfront price to get the rebate. That makes it a weak path for broader audience expansion and sale conversion.
By contrast, the subsidized approach keeps the buyer-facing experience simple: buyers do not need to care about the behind-the-scenes subsidy logistics and only need to pay whatever sale price the intermediary contract is currently set to.
Open directional questions