There are more NFT projects on Elrond than I can count right now and if you're like me, between Discord servers and Twitter, Twitch, and Telegram you are exhausted and dizzy at the thought of engaging with them all. I'm writing this Elrond NFTs series to cut through the fog a bit and to make sense of this crazy exciting landscape developing before us. I know I need help, so maybe there are others out there like me who would love a little bit of curation with their coffee.
None of the projects I highlight in this series are endorsements or recomendations. This blog is intended for entertainment purposes only and as such I will be as transparent as possible where I may have some bias. Please use this as a starting point for your own deep dive into projects that catch your eye and not as investment advice.
In August of 2021, Elrond became the first carbon negative European Blockchain. "What’s big and instrumental, is that every Maiar transaction, NFT or DeFi product on our network will have a positive impact on the environment." This was achieved through the use of carbon offset credits in partnership with Offsetra.
In the spirit of this move and with global ecological crisis looming, several NFT projects have stepped up to support charities that are working hard to reverse the environmental damage that has run rampant across the globe in the last century. I have gathered a selection of 10 of them here, in no particular order.
🔸 Boss Beez
Boss Beez swarmed Elrond Twitter and quickly became an iconic example of early Elrond NFTs. Sold at first through direct messaging during a presale, they released shortly after the launch of eMoon marketplace and now appear on dozens of profile pics in my timeline. Their first run was a generative project ("from over 100 traits") that was manually minted and then sent to presale participants later.
Their roadmap shows that "a percentage" of total sales (but no mention of royalties) will go to charities that they will announce further down the road. They don't specify this is intended for bees but they do cite "Bees are providing one third of Earth’s food supply, being one of the most incredibly important factors for maintaing a healthy planet." in the same section, and later "Creating a bigger community not only exposes us to great like-minded people, but it will also become more beneficial to Nature".
Apart from adding value by donating to environmental charities they also mention creating passive income for their holders. It is not clear how this will happen from their roadmap and FAQ and this emains as yet undisclosed. I overheard some buzz that these bees have been busy and are soon launching a website as well as a second collection called Babeez... I wonder what that will be(e)?
🔸 Elrond Apes
Elrond Apes recently finished a presale event and they remain one of the most enigmatic projects. Exactly what they will look like except for these images above remains to be seen. They seem quite popular though despite this ambiguity as their presale sold out in less than 30 min. For those who purchased during the presale, they say "You will be advantaged because 10% of every minting fee is reflected back to existing Elrond APEs holders during the official launch."
They state that "Every purchase 40% of the royalties will be send to two charitable organizations wild.org/ & redapes.org/". According to their websites, Wild.org "... combines on-the-ground projects with subtle activism and policy interventions to achieve lasting protections for Earth’s wildlife and wild places. " and redapes' "mission is to protect orangutans in their native forests of Borneo and Sumatra while providing care for orphaned and displaced orangutans until they can be returned to their natural environment."
As they haven't actually minted yet we still don't know exactly what these apes will look like but according to their FAQ, those that purchased in their recent presale will recieve their apes "When the Maiar marketplace will be available."
...(Which according to Sever, "NFTs are work in progress... not sure if this year or early next, no way to tell atm")
Project links:
Discord
Twitter
🔸 Elrond Ghost
Ghosts is a project that only emerged in the last few days with their earliest tweet on the 20th of November. Not much information is available as of yet about this one except that they state "100% of royalty distributed to the great green wall." One to watch for as more information is revealed.
According to their website, "The Great Green Wall is one of the most inspirational and urgent movements of our times. This African-led initiative aims to grow an 8000km new world wonder across the entire width of the Continent to transform the lives of millions living on the frontline of climate change.
The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is a key partner in the initiative. Welcome to our ‘Growing a World Wonder’ campaign website, in support of Africa’s Great Green Wall."
🔸 Trippy Turtles
The team behind this generative project comes out of the UK where "artists, designers, software developers and other individuals who are working hard to develop the Trippy Turtle community." Up to now there was a limited presale available on deadrare.io where the collection is currentlt being sold, as well as a limited mint of 500 which will be distributed randomly by smart contract. They will consist of "7 or 8 attributes across 7 categories."
They state in their FAQ: "We have chosen to represent Turtles and we pledge to give 20% of every sale to an animal related charity selected by the community. The community will then get a say in which animal we do for the next project"
For their first donation, they have donated £982 ($1300) to WWF.
🔸 Panda Party
Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for East Asian imagery and anything that pukes rainbows. This project has a community treasury component to it where holders will have "partial ownership and voting rights...to propose and vote on new acquisitions and sales"
They state that "25% of proceeds will be donated to charities like the WWF and Pandas International to help the ~2000 remaining pandas."
🔸 Aquaverse
This project is a little more involved than it appeared to me at first. On the surface, (from the FAQ): "This is a collection of 9999 generative NFTs of our Guardians. The Guardians are an ancient sea sponge living in unexplored and mysterious seabeds."
But it goes deeper than simply the nearly 10k generative NFTs. This project is also developing a play-to-earn game that will be a "Metaverse that aims to bring together a community in an immersive virtual online world, you will embody your NFT in an unknown aquatic world." The whitepaper states that the game will feature eight different character classes, one of which is an untradeable Common class that will allow players access to the Aquaverse whether or not they can afford an NFT. There will be turn based combat and items and equipment with rarity that will be fully tradeable on the market.
The project will have a token associated with it called $Sponges. These tokens will act as "governance and invest in positive impact projects." These positive impact projects will be "Sponge aquaculture as a first step, and external impact projects around the sea as a second step"
$Sponges will be earned at the Guardians mint, by buying or selling NFT on the secondary market (cashback in $Sponges), airdrop of $Sponges to Guardians holders, royalties on the sales of his Guardian on the secondary market (first holders only), and by playing the play to earn. Simply for owning the very first collection, "for every transaction of their Guardian on the secondary market, the first owners will receive Royalties in $Sponges token for life!"
Their environmental angle is interesting to me. They will be building systems that will clean ocean water using sponges, together with their partners marinecultures.org. Buying a Guardian is supporting MarineCultures. They selling these systems as well and state that "2% of all profits from the sale of these products will go to the Guardians, the holders of the Aquaverse NFT," with an upward goal "to equip all the coasts, ports and polluting aquacultures of our pond to be able to depollute the seas and oceans together." They esitmate that for each pond, "1 billion liters of water cleaned every day and + 360 billion in 1 year."
🔸 Trees
Elrond Trees emerged this past week with a project that will incorporate a game that allows users to develop their own garden. Each tree they sell will be one of many but the plots of land will each be entirely unique with additional drops of unique items. Participants will want to buy the BASIC trees from their sales, then farm with them and try to earn RARE, EPIC, and MYTHICAL varieties, competing with each other to be the first to farm unique trees.
They say their website will be out early 2022 with a release for the game scheduled later that year, including a mobile app so you can look at your garden on the go.
Elrond Trees wil be donating 25% of profits to One Tree Planted with a mission towards reforestation in Europe in 2022 and more missions of reforestation in the rest of the world from 2023. More information about these missions can be read in their whitepaper.
🔸 Maiar Elves
Maiar Elves are developing a card game with a mobile app set to launch towards the end of 2022. Before then, they will drop four Ages of card collections, each offering benefits to holders of cards from the previous drops. Future drops after Age 4 will airdropped to the community. They are aiming to launch their website near the end of 2021 to allow for minting.
Their four ages each represent unique styles and attributes and will incorporate some lore from Lord of the Rings. Alongside the 2222 carde per collection there will also be additional limited edition releases and each limited edition holder will get bonuses such as discounts or airdrops. They will have a website soon and currently exploring their options for minting. Aside from the images above they have teased a few three dimensional cards on their Twitter: video and video 2.
According to their Twitter bio that 5% from sales will go to One Tree Planted.
🔸 Rise of the Ents
Rise of Ents is one project within an ecosystem of projects all collaborating together to create what they describe as "multiple nft brands to bring a metaverse of sorts combining our themes into one cohesive story." Most of these are still under wraps but so far we are privy to collaborations with Elva Forest and Dwarven Forge. The rest are meant to be surprises, drawn out tantalizingly slow to keep us all engaged for years to come. Their website they say, is 95% done.
Being so story-centric with a developing deep lore, they intertwine their stories with other NFT projects to create one complex mega-story. One such example is their character Onodrim, who is dropping now on Erdsea. Onodrim is the leader of the Ents (the tree-like creatures that appear in Middle-Earth) and in Rise of the Ents he is: "Their ruler, Onodrim the Oak King, is an ancient ent that it's said to be over 1000 years old. It's extremly wise, powerful and posses lots of magic skills." And then after some battles where he was mortally wounded, he is rescued by the help of Dwarves: "Onodrim's regenerative properties couldn't help him heal completely, so he needed the dwarves' intervention and skill...It was that moment when Mecha-Onodrim was born"
Mecha-Onodrim then is one such collab where he fits into the Dwarven Forge collection. This project-verse is in fact so large that it seems like it will need it's own dedicated article to explore effectively.
It is quite fitting that a project with such tree-centric characters would also be using proceeds to help trees. 10% of what they bring in will go to One Tree Planted.
🔸 Elva Forest
"Xia wondered how there came to be two moons over Elva Forest. They sat low in the sky. One of them giant and one a third of the size of the other. As she walked the path back home, bioluminescent plants lighted her way, coloured in all shades of purple and blue."
This is an excerpt from the growing body of stories developing on the Elva Forest Medium page. These stories provide a rich background for the characters in their NFT collection. They are working in collaboration with several other projects as well and are partners with Rise of the Ents. As such, they also donate 10% to One Tree Planted.
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🚀 Want to start crypto? Click on the bowl of noodles ➡ 🍜
(just because i like it 😎...)
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