- Rohum Vora was the person behind Frank DeGods pseudonym.
- He created DeGods and y00ts NFT projects, one of the top-selling on Solana.
The concept of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), tokens that establish ownership of unique digital assets, was initially sowed by Ethereum. Since then, the plant has been continuously watered by several artists, who minted their artwork into NFTs and sold them to celebrities and people around the world.
Several networks launched after Ethereum such as Polygon and Solana, also supported the NFTs and created several marketplaces for them. One of the top NFT collections on Solana was the DeGods, which was a collection of 10,000 profile picture NFTs that depicted Gods wearing modern-day aesthetic streetwear.
In October 2021, the DeGods project was introduced, offering NFTs at an initial mint price of just 3 SOL. The artist behind this captivating collection operated under the enigmatic alias of Frank DeGods. Frank revealed his true identity in November 2022, as Rohun Vora, in a tweet where he shared a screenshot of his personal IG account. This came after he was tired of the multiple attempts by the media to expose him.
This revelation had a positive effect on the community, which resulted in the price of DeGods and y00ts (sister NFT collection) skyrocketing. Rohun’s candid reveal coincided with a trend among several Web3 founders who were publicly disclosing their identities, fostering increased user confidence and trust in DeGods and y00ts.
The Life of Rohun Frank DeGods
Rohun had an early interest in movies and watched nearly 452 movies till he was 16, which even led him to deliver a TedTalk on the subject. To pursue his filmy dreams, he joined UCLA University. With his four friends, he started a grocery delivery startup called the NEED (now Duffl). They used several electric scooters on their campus and Frank served as the CEO of the company for one year.
Their startup was accepted in the Y combinator startup program where they managed to raise $1.3 Million. However, internal conflicts eventually led to Rohun’s departure from the company, prompting him to abandon his cinematic aspirations and withdraw from UCLA. His journey then led him to explore the world of tech startups, where he worked with MainStreet, a Series A startup, playing a significant role in increasing its valuation from $5 million to $500 million.
Discovering the Crypto Space
Rohun’s first exposure to the crypto space occurred during his time at MainStreet, where he later created a viral website called Bitcoinorshit.com. He started diving deeper into the crypto sector and soon met Solana and NFTs. After observing some early NFT mints on Solana, he wished to create his own NFT project.
His NFT collections, DeGods and y00ts, garnered immense popularity, attracting a rush of celebrities to claim their DeGods NFTs, even including Solana’s founders and the Magic Eden team. The Paper Hand Bitch Tax, which imposed an extra 33.3 % charge on anyone selling the NFT lower than its floor price, generated significant attention from the community.
In December 2022, the project announced its decision to move the DeGods collection to Ethereum and the y00ts collection to Polygon. The team got a $ 3 Million grant from Polygon, although this grant did not appear on the public list over Ethereum. The move was expected to cause a loss of $200 million to the Solana platform.
Conclusion
The rise of ordinals (Bitcoin NFTs) prompted the team to introduce its share of the pie. They announced the launch of 535 Bitcoin NFTs with a minimum cost of 0.444 BTC. Rohun received praise from the community after revealing his identity and making his career pursuits public. They admired his entrepreneurial thirst which helped him ultimately establish a $250 Million multi-chain empire.
