Top NFT Projects Building on NEAR
In the last year, the world of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) has become one of the most active and creative spaces in all of crypto. Artists, game developers, musicians, writers, and even athletes and sports teams have gotten into the action of minting, selling, and buying NFTs.
At the start of 2021, the NFT market cap was worth approximately $400 million. By the end it, it was worth $22 billion. This means more and more creatives are minting digital art items or other types of digital assets, kickstarting a revolution in the creator economy.
The rise of NFTs couldn’t come at a better time. With the November 15th launch of NEAR’s Simple Nightshade sharding protocol, the platform’s transaction speeds, volume, and security will allow a vibrant NFT space to grow on the NEAR ecosystem. NEAR’s $800 million global ecosystem fund, announced on October 21st, and Proximity Labs’ $350 million Grants DAO are integral to this growth, as they will help NFT projects build new and unique NFT marketplaces and experiences on NEAR.
To showcase how NEAR’s NFT community is using Nightshade’s ultra fast, carbon-neutral sharding speeds, we’re highlighting 14 of the top NFT projects building on NEAR. These NFT projects showcase both what is already happening right now on NEAR and what will be possible as creators think up new ways of using these digital assets.
Paras
The NFT marketplace Paras takes its inspiration from the real world subculture of trading cards. Paras’ NFT offerings will be familiar to sports card collectors as well as Pokemon and other non-sports trading cards.
On Paras, NEAR users can quickly and cheaply create digital trading cards for artworks, comics, and other collectibles. After minting NFTs, creators can sell them, while average buyers and serious collectors can get in on the action of acquiring the digital assets.
The Paras marketplace’s homepage keeps NFT fans up to date with NFT drops, which are the equivalent of the music industry’s album drops. Paras also makes it easy to follow NFT publications from launch to the last run of the series.
The team recently launched Boom Boom!, a first of its kind mini digital comic series for the NEAR ecosystem. Paras’ first comic, PARADIGM, also launched its first three issues for free, with more to follow for $0.3 NEAR per issue.
As of this week, Paras hit nearly $509,000 in 30-day trading volume from just over 38,000 transactions. The community is now home to thousands of users, all purchasing unique NFTs from Paras’ diverse marketplace. With over 18,000 Twitter and 3,000 Telegram followers, Paras is growing by leaps and bounds.
Rahmat “Riqi” Albariqi, Founder of Paras, said: “We’ve been hitting the ground running with implementing as many exciting features as possible on our NFT marketplace. Our goal is to create the most comprehensive, innovative, and inclusive environment to inspire NFT creators and investors everywhere.”
deadmau5 x Portugal. the Man’s NFT single “this is fine”
Electronic music DJ and producer deadmau5 and indie rock band Portugal. the Man recently collaborated with Mintbase and NEAR for the release of their new single. Released during Art Basel Miami, the “this is fine” audio NFT single is now being sold as a collection of 1 million NFTs. Exclusive to the Mintbase NFT marketplace, deadmau5 and Portugal. the Man are hoping to become the first recording artists to go platinum (1 sell million copies in the US market) with an audio NFT.
Half of the “this is fine” NFT collection (500,000) are being sold on Mintbase for 0.25 $NEAR per piece. The other half are being sold as additional awards, like the “Ultimate Bundle”, which includes 50,000 NFTs, artwork, a limited edition NFT, a merchandise pack, and a guest list spot on deadmau5’s upcoming show. Any fan who collects a pack of 1,000 NFTs will receive a unique alternate color single cover art, created through a generative algorithm.
deadmau5 said: “NFTs aren’t really that complicated. What we are doing here is giving our millions of fans and people interested in NFTs an easy way to get on board for an extremely reasonable price. The song is cool too.”
Portugal. The Man singer John Gourley said: “We believe that the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and in this specific case, NFTs, allows musicians and creators of all types to wrestle control back. The world is a better place when artists are given freedom and new avenues to create. The opportunities created by NFTs will continue to develop a whole new generation of artists, and that can’t be bad.”
OP Games
OP Games is combining the worlds of gaming and NFTs into a Web3 gaming arcade platform that gives players a voice and ownership stake in the titles they love. OP Games’ developers have designed their HTML5 arcade so that the OP Games community can own a fraction of the game, as well as effectively “co-own” a project. They’re doing this through fractionalized NFTs.
With this type of collective ownership, the OP Games community will see NFT price appreciation as the game grows and becomes more successful. Additionally, the OP Games DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) gives players a say in how the game evolves over time.
For instance, the community can ask a game’s developers to create different levels as well as new in-game assets that they can buy, own, and trade while playing. And unlike other gaming platforms, which lock digital collectibles in their own ecosystem, OP Games allows users to bring in accomplishments and skins from other games.
In October, OP Games raised over $8 million in seed funding to bring more gamers into their Web3 arcade. Before founding the platform, OP Games’ Chase Freo (CEO) and Paul Gadi (CTO) each spent over a decade in the gaming industry before co-founding their arcade in 2018. NEAR Protocol, Filecoin/Protocol Labs (who collaborated with NEAR in co-grants and developer storage credits), and advisors like Gabby Dizon (Co-Founder at Yield Guild Games), are helping OP Games develop and launch over 500 games on the NEAR blockchain by the end of 2022. OP Games already boasts about 16,000 combined followers on its Twitter and Telegram channels as its rapid expansion continues.
Chase Freo, CEO and Co-founder of OPGames, said: “Now, developers can fundraise from NFTs and DAO in a continuous process. And at the same time, if the DAO of the players decides to add some more levels to the game or further develop it, they can just talk to the developer and say, ‘This is something we want to do — can you make it for us?’ Then the developer will be paid by the DAO through the game’s treasury because the game is not owned by the developer anymore, but rather by the collective.”
Mintbase
Like Paras, the Lisbon-based Mintbase is an online NFT platform, where users can mint and sell NFTs as artworks, music, tickents, and more. While Mintbase is a marketplace, it is also a NFT utility platform, which means it gives users the tools to create their very own marketplaces.
Via NEAR’s super fast transaction speeds (100,000 TPS), low fees, and great scalability, Mintbase is already offering NFT auctions, stores, and a lucrative royalty rewards system. This will help optimize and scale Mintbase’s VR integration when minting NFTs. Musician Kwame “Symbolik” Newman-Bremang, for instance, used Mintbase’s VR integration to create an immersive 360-degree experiential music video for his song “Happy Lies Version 2.”
Mintbase already has 800+ NFT stores, 2300+ minters, and hundred of NFT smart contracts on the plastform. Developers are also adding “Openbase,” an open store for NFTs, and other new functionalities to the platform to make minting, buying, and selling even easier.
Nate Geier, CEO of Mintbase, said: “A lot has been happening at Mintbase. Customization and creative liberty are at the forefront of our business model to expand the use case for our NFTs. With NEAR’s technology and infrastructure, we’re opening the doors for smoother monetization and application.”
TenK
While Paras and Mintbase are two of the most visible NFT platforms on the NEAR ecosystem, another NFT project flies under the radar but is just as crucial — TenK. Think of TenK as your platform for launching generative NFT artworks.
As an open-source generative art platform TenK has tooling to bring a wide variety of NFT artworks to NEAR. In just a few short months, the team has already brought a number of generative art projects to life.
TenK launched NEAR Misfits in late 2021, the first cryptographically complete profile picture collection on NEAR. In less than 24 hours the 2000 NFTs were sold out and the collections saw the floor rise over 220% in January. TenK also provided support to Near Tiger Academy, “a high-class collection of 2,000 algorithmically generated NFTs” with an EnDAOment fund creating NEAR opportunities for students and professors.
Part of TenK’s success is a marketing-first approach to launching collections. In addition to providing teams with a social playbook, TenK helps teams forge meaningful partnerships with NEAR ecosystem dApps to ensure utility and project longevity.
Be sure to follow the TenK Twitter account and Discord channel if you want to get involved or just stay tuned into its list of growing collaborations.
DAO Records
DAO Records, founded by Vandal and DJ Lethal Skills, have been playing around with NFTs since 2020, and are using them to help radically reimagine what a record label can be. The pair see DAO Records as both an audio NFT distribution and virtual event service for independent artists.
On DAO Records, indie artists of any genre looking to release new music can do so by minting audio NFTs. DAO Records released their first audio NFT in February of 2020, when Vandal and DJ Lethal Skillz minted a gold edition of a cover art collectible with an unlockable WAV music file. In May 2020, the pair pushed the audio NFT boundaries with the first official interactive audio NFT, Mint Tape Vol 1, which they packed with a USB cassette packed with 25 songs and 30 accompanying artworks. To date, DAO Records has released 150+ NFTs from over 100 artists.
Beyond the audio NFT minting, DAO Records has held over 50 virtual events since its founding in their cryptovoxel space known as “The Playground.” DAO Records’ goal is to build an active and vibrant Metaverse community for music and art-related virtual events, both in The Playground and other custom-built virtual venues.
DAO Records founders Vandal and DJ Lethal Skills said: “We are building the tools of the future Music Industry ecosystem to enable musicians to harness the power of the Blockchain revolution“
Satori
If you’re an artist or other type of creator, and you need help figuring out how to mint NFTs and bring them to market, then you will definitely want to keep the new NFT platform Satori on your radar. Currently in stealth mode, Satori is working with high-profile artists and musicians to build a NFT ecosystem that everyone can use to reimagine the creator economy, sparking what they call the next “creative renaissance.”
On Satori, artists, musicians, and other creators will be able to take their NFTs directly to their audience without a middle man. In essence, Satori will give creators all the tools they need to create their own NFT businesses, and give fans the creative work they want to own.
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With plans to launch this coming January, Satori expects its new community to mint over 5 million in NFTs in Q1 of 2022. With some of the world’s best artists and musicians, Satori expects the ecosystem’s NFTs to reach a total audience of just over 10 million people.
Peter DePaolo, CEO and Co-founder of Satori, said: “Our team is building Satori with the goal to truly inspire and empower NFT artists and creators worldwide. We’ll allow them to better monetize and distribute their artwork by directly reaching their customers through our marketplace, showcasing their talent to our community with luxurious tastes.”
NEAR Misfits
A Profile Picture (pfp) NFT Avatar project, NEAR Misfits aims to become the Bored Apes Yacht Club of NEAR. The project launched during the first NEAR | CON in Lisbon in October 2021, after months of collaboration and two grants from the Human Guild. NEAR Misfits are now sold out and, as of January 10, 2022, sit as the #1 NFT project on Paras.
What are NEAR Misfits? As the story goes, 10,000 brave souls set out into the vast unknown to explore the Metaverse — only 1,923 survived. Amongst the 1,923 Misfits are 1,600 Normies, 150 Zombies, 101 Skeletons (‘Skellies’), 50 Nearkats, and the most rare of them all, 22 Glitched. Each cohort has a unique story, which the developers will unveil soon.
“These Misfits are part of a Decentralised Special Operations crew from all over the world and all walks of life,” the NEAR Misfits project description reads. “A group of humans rising to the challenge of their times, coming together to build the Metaverse: challenge the status quo, push the boundaries of what is possible, build and contribute to enabling technology. All Misfits are equal, but some are more equal than others!”
The NEAR Misfits team said: “We have created NEAR Misfits to be the best version of yourself as you enter the NEAR Metaverse. We believe NEAR Misfits have an exciting future ahead of them as Misfits grow into an active community of early adopters and contributors and as the NEAR ecosystem grows — there could be a lot more people wanting to join the Misfits party than Misfits available.”
Block History
What is the truth? What are the facts? How should block history be recorded? What is history? How is history decided? These are some of the questions being asked by the crypo community. The NEAR NFT project Block History is set on answering them.
The Block History team, which released its test version in December 2021, believes that this DAO will bring a reckoning to Winston Churchill’s popular refrain, “History is written by the victors.” With Block History, history will be written by the people.
Block History aims to leverage the power of blockchain to replace the centralized, history-making power of the “victors”. It will do this via the decentralized consensus of the community, forming a record more indelible and immutable than any previous record made by humankind.
Is it even possible? Well, Block History is calling on people both within and outside the crypto community to make it possible, ushering in an era of “true history.”
On The Block History, anyone can record what happened on the chain and mint a historical event NFT. Within 10 to 30 minutes of creating a historical event NFT, the first 100 users can track the historical event and cast it into a copy of the NFT. The immutability of blockchain will prevent the historical records from being tampered with by any hidden forces or individuals.
Block History’s test version is now live on Ethereum. The team plans to bring it to the NEAR ecosystem in 2022 via Rainbow Bridge.
Block History’s Edward Song said: “Block History announces to future history: ‘let there be light,’ in which all of humankind participates equally. We declare, ex nihilo, a new beginning for history. For the first time ever, history will be recorded truthfully and immutably via unparalleled technology that will allow for historical moments to be priced and traded as NFTs.”
NFT.HipHop’s ‘Hip Hop Heads’
NFT pop-up shop NFT.HipHop is the brainchild of Ed Young, a co-founder of The Source, one of hip-hop’s most important and influential magazines. NFT.HipHop’s first pop-up shop is Hip Hop Heads, a collection of NFTs that pays tribute to hip hop’s history and culture with 103 animated portraits of the genre’s icons, created by André LeRoy Davis. Davis, of course, is famous for the illustrations he made for The Source’s series “The Last Word.”
From Juneteenth to July 25th, NFT.HipHop added one new edition of Hip Hop Heads to a marketplace auction. At launch, each artwork debuted with a reserve price, and the current bid is bonded with the item until it’s outbid or the auction closes. If a bid is returned, Hip Hop Heads fans can immediately use the returned credits to bid again.
Check out the full series of Hip Hop Heads now at nft.hip hop and, if you like, put in a bid! There are 103 Hip Hop Heads NFTs for your choosing.
Peter DePaulo, co-founder of Satori, said: “[NFT.HipHOp] highlights several of NEAR’s best features: end-user accessibility, a familiar Web 2-like user experience, inexpensive and easy NFT minting, and on-chain royalties that guarantee perpetual proceeds for creators.”
Metamon
“Capture, Evolve, Battle!” is the motto of the new game Metamon. Set for launch in January 2022, the game centers on a universe of “cute and powerful monsters” called “Metamons” that players can capture, combine, and evolve to use in gameplay.
In Metamon, players capture or adopt limited edition NFTs of critically endangered alien creatures. By combining two of the same Metamons, players can evolve them into even rarer and more powerful creatures. Metamons live on a far off planet, where cosmic bodies full of unique lifeforms from across the galaxy crashed to form MetaLand.
“A world of magical and powerful monsters spread throughout every ecosystem in MetaLand,” the game’s website reads. “Your mission as a Metamon Explorer is to capture, train and evolve them to their best and rarest forms so you can battle others in your quest to be the best.”
For a limited time, the game’s developers are currently doing an exclusive Metamon drop on Paras, where players can grab limited edition character skins as well as collectibles. Be sure to check out the Metamon Paras page, and stay tuned for game and launch updates on the Metamon Twitter account, which already has nearly 4,000 followers.
Sisu
Think of Sisu as a hybrid climate and social action project built atop NFT and DeFI technology. Sisu’s founder, the Columbian-American art creator and social entrepreneur, Angela del Sol Varela, sees the NEAR project as a new way for people to network and collaborate on climate and social projects using NFTs and blockchain tokens.
At the 2021 edition of Art Basel Miami, del Sol Varela is working with NEAR-based NFT platform Satori to debut a gallery of NFTrees. These are NFT artworks that are linked to actual trees that get planted as part of carbon offsetting projects in South America. She is also currently in the early stages of developing, with Satori’s help, a blockchain-based system that will track tree planting, measurement and growth, as well as verify that people are actually caring for the trees.
Sisu’s Angela del Sol Varela said: “When we talk about carbon credits it’s a market that’s very obscure. We might not know where trees are being planted, who is measuring their growth, and who is taking care of them. With blockchain, there is that component of transparency and being able to follow up.”
Follow Sisu’s Twitter for news and platform updates.
Feiyu
Built on NEAR, Feiyu is a platform with an entirely new take on social media. On Feiyu, which is currently only available in China, users get to express their creativity by sharing memes and GIFs, and do so in an NFT-based metaverse without having to register a wallet..
Equipped with a built-in meme generator and NFT marketplace, Feiyu offers users an extremely easy path to create and share their GIF and meme creations with others. Participation on Feiyu is driven by rewards-based incentives, like earning in the native token or NFT items such as skins, weapons, and so on. Feiyu users acquire tokens from centralized exchanges to pay for gas fees amongst other things.
Feiyu recently held an initiative called “pixel art war,” where users were encouraged to work together via chat rooms on an artboard to develop their own unique pixel art NFTs. When interacting with the artboard, users were able to acquire pixels and earn Feiyu tokens as a reward, which fostered a high degree of collaboration and elevated the process of NFT creation in the process.
Xue Kai, Co-founder of Feiyu, said: “At Feiyu, we want to inspire everyone to create the most innovative and unique pieces of NFT artwork. These days, social media is by far the most popular means of interacting on a global scale. By building on NEAR, we’ve been able to make our very own social media platform come to life and realize the true potential of blockchain and its efficiencies.”
Raiz
A Mintbase project, the Lisbon-based Raiz is using NFTs to help fund vertical farms in under-utilized urban spaces. Raiz was founded by Emiliano Gutierrez, who believes these urban spaces can be epicenters for the growing and harvest of foods for local communities and restaurants. As such, Raiz is diametrically opposed to the agriculture industry’s business model, which ships harvested food across global markets.
The NFTs come into play through the digital artworks of plants that Raiz makes available. These plant NFTs are linked to impact metrics such as carbon emissions avoided and water save, which are major issues in traditional agriculture industrial farming markets.
Over time, Raiz will further link the physical with the digital by transforming local hydroponic systems into investable crypto assets. These assets will allow people from across the world to have greater access to tokenized environmental and local impact. A larger goal is that the Raiz NFT model could be used for or at least inspire other local food growing efforts.
Emiliano Guiterrez of Raiz said: “At Raiz, we believe another way of growing food is possible. Welcome to the urban farming evolution. We aim to build a network of vertical farms in city centers across Southern Europe, with a hybrid energy model. Focusing on the principles of circularity and sustainability; our vertical farm is able to produce a wide variety of flavourful fresh herbs.”
About NEAR
NEAR is a high-performance blockchain that is designed to be super-fast, incredibly secure, and infinitely scalable. NEAR’s vision is to create a network that enables people to re-imagine finance, creativity, and community in new and inclusive ways. NEAR is built by an award-winning team of engineers and entrepreneurs to be simple to use, inclusive and good for the environment. NEAR is backed by top VCs such as A16Z, Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain.com, and Baidu Ventures.
