Curriculum·J307 Digital Ownership and the Creator Economy·about 43 min
Issuance, pricing, and distribution
By the end of this lesson you can
- →Explain why a fixed price below the clearing price allocates by gas rather than by demand
- →Compute the value a gas war transfers away from both issuer and buyer
- →Compare fixed price, Dutch auction and allowlist mechanisms by what each contests
- →Choose an issuance mechanism from the outcome you want rather than from convention
Junior · enrolled learners
This lesson opens with The Otherdeed mint, 30 April 2022.
- What happened
- Yuga Labs issued 55,000 units of virtual land at a fixed price, in an open mint with no meaningful supply constraint on who could attempt it. Demand exceeded supply immediately and buyers competed for inclusion by raising their gas bids. Bloomberg put total gas spent at roughly $123M by the time the drop sold out, with other estimates running to $157M and above depending on the window measured and the ether price used. The mint congested Ethereum broadly, affecting users with no involvement in it. Buyers whose transactions failed were charged gas and received nothing, and Yuga Labs subsequently announced it would refund gas on failed transactions. Reported proceeds to the issuer were around $320M.
- The decision point
- Pricing a scarce good below its clearing price does not make it cheaper. It changes the allocation mechanism from price to transaction ordering, and per J302-04 transaction ordering is bought. So the difference between the mint price and what buyers were willing to pay was not saved by buyers or captured by the issuer. It was paid to block producers as gas, which is the one outcome that serves neither party to the sale.
- Recorded loss
- $123,000,000
What you will be able to answer
- →What happens when a fixed price sits below the clearing price?
- →What did the gas war cost per unit?
- →What does each mechanism contest?
- →Why is a refund not a fix?
Orientation and Year One are open: anyone can read them without an account. From Year Two onward the lessons are for enrolled learners, because progress through the later years only means anything if it is tracked against a record.
It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Sources and review
- https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/04/yuga-labs-refunds-gas-fees-for-failed-otherdeed-transactions
- https://decrypt.co/99521/yuga-labs-refunds-gas-fees-for-failed-transactions-during-bored-ape-otherdeed-mint
- https://amycastor.com/2022/05/01/yuga-labs-otherside-land-sale-turns-into-a-giant-gas-war/
- https://nftplazas.com/backlash-as-otherside-nft-mint-gas-fees/
Confidence medium·Volatility medium·Reviewed 2026-08-06·Owner unassigned
Contested
Reported gas totals for this mint range from about $123M to over $180M depending on the measurement window, whether the whole weekend is counted, and the ether price applied. The lower Bloomberg-attributed figure is used throughout so that every derived number is conservative.
Reported proceeds also vary, with $561M cited for first-day sales across primary and secondary activity and about $320M attributed to the primary issuance. The worked example uses the primary figure, which is the one the issuance mechanism actually determined.