RealBirds White Paper

6 min readMay 30, 2022

Intro

RealBirds is an NFT collection of 4,185 uniquely customized and hand drawn birds. Our art theme should be painfully obvious to all those spreading the good word that birds are in fact not real, they are government surveillance drones planted to spy on the people. We will have a separate paper published on the complete lore and background of the birds. This paper will focus on the technical and fundamental aspects of the project as well as our goals and strategy.

Tech

RealBirds is the first $NEAR native Omnichain NFT. Our initial smart contract is on the NEAR blockchain. Once the NEAR blockchain endpoint is added to the LayerZero stack, our contract is integrated into LayerZero’s revolutionary protocol and a world of Omnichain possibilities are created.

What is Omnichain?

Omnichain tech allows protocols to send messages to any contract on any chain. The message is a bytes payload allowing user applications complete control over its structure and interpretation. Omnichain solutions are a messaging transport layer for smart contracts to communicate between chains. Instead of “physically” bridging assets across chains like traditional cross-chain and multi-chain solutions, Omnichain transports messages (transaction info). The result is the ultimate communication system between any blockchain, obviously this opens up a world of new opportunities. For a deeper dive on Omnichain tech read a few of the incredible LayerZero posts: An Omnichain Interoperability Protocol and LayerZero the future transport layer of IBC.

The Omnichain solution has some incredible potential for NFTs specifically. Through this innovation in blockchain communication your NFTs can now travel across chains in real time without the security risks of bridging. An individual can mint an Omnichain enabled NFT on $ETH and easily transfer it to $AVAX, $BNB, etc. and back to $ETH. Projects can incentivize holders to travel chains, mint on other chains, and use other Omnichain features. For creative NFT projects we can not stop thinking about the new possibilities this introduces: Image features can change based on the NFT’s current chain, airdrops can be targeted towards specific chains incentivizing movement, holders can access unlock-able content and assets for visiting all chains on the checklist, the list goes on.

$NEAR and Omnichain

At this point no Omnichain projects are integrated with a $NEAR endpoint so NEAR users can not participate in this revolution, but the RealBirds team is working to assist LayerZero and other Omnichain builders to integrate that endpoint. We believe $NEAR is the most user-friendly, well structured, and positively incentivized blockchains in crypto. Introducing the Near Protocol to the Omnichain future will open up doors of liquidity and adoption for the entire $NEAR ecosystem and we are excited to lead the charge.

RealBirds is a CC0 Project

CC0 stands for Creative Commons Zero. CC0 projects waive copyright protection; thereby placing it completely to the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes (for profit or otherwise) without restriction under copyright or database law. RealBirds is proud to be a CC0 project incentivizing free use, derivatives, creative inspiration, and forwarding the greater crypto ethos of an open and accessible Web3.

Our Goals and Plans

Above all our goal is to make a fun, funny, enjoyable NFT project for our community, while striving to further Omnichain innovations and the $NEAR ecosystem.

Wen Mint?

As we described above, incredible doors are unlocked with Omnichain development, one being the flexibility an Omnichain project has to mint. The RealBirds total NFT supply is 4,185 however only 1,000 NFTs will be minted on $NEAR.

The first RealBirds WL mint will be on August 11th 2022 for 1,000 NFTs on $NEAR. The WL mint will be open for 24 hours starting at 10am ET, as the WL mint ends on August 12th at 10am ET the public mint will begin, and will also last 24 hours. Whitelisted addressed will be able to mint 2 RealBirds and non-whitelisted addresses will only be able to mint 1 RealBird. The mint will take place on our website: https://therealbirds.com/. The mint will be FREE for both WL and Public.

The rest of the RealBirds total supply will mint on other blockchains down the line.

Roadmap?

We believe the term Roadmap has basically become a buzzword for projects to offer promises and lure in buyers. We don’t believe in utility for the sake of utility and will not promise anything we can’t deliver on. We believe NFTs are about community above all else, our “utility” exists in the sense that we are breaking down barriers for the $NEAR ecosystem and pushing forward Omnichain innovation for NFTs. With Omnichain capabilities we plan on doing several things never before done in the NFT space. With this being said, we are not putting ourselves in a box this early with a roadmap, and we’re not outright refusing the possibility of features like a community token or airdrops if they make sense in the future.

Timeline?

Our initial $NEAR based mint is August 11th — 12th 2022 (1,000 RealBird NFTs)
By October 11th — December 11th we plan on the $NEAR endpoint being officially integrated into the LayerZero stack. Within this period we plan on hosting our $ETH mint for 1,250 NFTs. Once integrated RealBirds will officially be an Omnichain NFT that began on $NEAR, all minted birds at this point will be able to travel across all chains and benefit from everything that Omnichain has to offer.
In October — November 2022 we plan on minting another 1,250 RealBirds of the total supply on $SOL
In the following months we plan on minting the rest of the total supply on additional Omnichain supported blockchains like $BNB, $AVAX, $FTM, etc.

This is a loose timeline and we will update the community with any changes.

What will you do with the funds?

The NEAR mint is free, so we will receive no funds. For future mints the team will retain 20% of funds raised from mint. This will go towards hiring, payments for advisors / partners, and marketing efforts. The remaining 80% of future mint proceeds will go towards the RealBirds Treasury.

Similar to our view on “Roadmaps” we believe the term “DAO” has become a buzzword for projects to seem more decentralized and community driven. The truth is most projects don’t need a DAO and most DAO’s do not need an entire community as a governance model. The majority of NFT holders who are technically DAO members have never made a proposal nor have they voted. We love the concept of a more centralized and complex DAO made popular by Hasu — A DAO with Leadership.

The Complex + Centralized DAO

The treasury being managed with this DAO model will be much more effective in our opinion. The DAO members can be a combination of our core team, some Informants (our VIP members, advisors, and partners), and some holders who qualify as whales, early adopters, etc. A more educated, vested, incentivized, and experienced DAO leadership team will allow the treasury to accomplish its mission.

The RealBirds treasury will aim to be one of the most important in the $NEAR ecosystem, prioritizing funding, investment, and support of original $NEAR native projects. The treasury will also fund, support, and invest in Omnichain innovations to continue pushing the space forward. The better the treasury performs the more value we can return to the RealBirds community.

There will also be a 5% fee on secondary market sales for RealBirds NFT’s. Half of this 5% fee will go towards the team to fund ongoing salary payments, ongoing hiring, and marketing efforts. The other half will be pushed right into the treasury.

We are also seeking a grant from the NEAR Foundation and will keep the community updated on any progress.

Conclusion

After months of building behind closed doors we are thrilled to be starting this journey. Thank you to every Informant in our private discord, every friend, advisor, partner, who has talked with us so far and shown support. We see an incredible opportunity to be building the RealBirds project in a bear market and feel very aligned for future success. Be sure to follow us on Twitter for all major updates, and check out our highly classified Website. RealBirds is officially LIVE and are whitelist is OPEN!