We teamed up with Hackatao to create a unique avatar NFT project
We partnered with digital artists Hackatao, Sotheby’s, and Sothebysverse to create and launch a unique, first-of-its-kind pfp project called Queens+Kings.
Queens+Kings brings a collection of 6900 generative NFT profile picture artworks that users can collect, trade, and play around with to create rarer and more valuable variations. The collection will be distributed in three drops of 2300 avatars each.
We built the entire technology from scratch for this project. We developed a custom smart contract, the web platform, and an innovative feature that allows collectors to modify and customize their avatars. Currently, no other pfp project has a similar function.
We also implemented a raffle system to reduce GAS costs, restrain bots, and ensure the NFT minting is entirely random, transparent, and decentralized.
You can check out the Queens+Kings drop and the fantastic collection of artworks created by Hackatao here:
About the drop
Today users will be able to subscribe to Q+K’s drop. Only registered wallets will be able to mint an NFT avatar from this collection.
There will be a total of 2300 avatars in the first Queens+Kings drop. 300 NFTs will be reserved for Sotheby’s, partner of the project.
The registration will be open for 23 hours, starting this Thursday at 4 pm UTC.
The users who register for the drop will be categorized into two groups:
The first group, called Whitelist, will include Hackatao NFT art collectors, $MORK Liquidity Providers, HACK/TAO/MORK Role holders (on $WHALE discord), and $MORK holders. There will be different tiers within this group that you can check out here.
1725 avatars will be reserved for this batch. While we can not guarantee a minting spot for every collector during the first drop (due to the scarce nature of the avatars), we can assure that these collectors will have a secured spot in the next drops of the project.
*Note: A snapshot was taken on 14th December at 4:23 pm CET for Role Holders, $MORK, and LP providers. If you hodl any of these before the snapshot, you are eligible for the drop. NFTs are not subject to the snapshot.
The Public group will include the users who subscribed to the drop without meeting the Whitelist group criteria. These users will have the chance to mint a maximum of one avatar from the 230 reserved for the general public.
All the minting spots will be chosen randomly through a raffle system powered by blockchain technology.
The Queens+Kings project features unique avatar traits inspired by quintessential Hackatao art and the Cryptoverse. Q+K is the first pfp project that empowers collectors to engage in an interactive, artistic journey.
In 2022, Hackatao will launch two more drops of 2300 avatars each, making it a total of 6900 avatars in the collection. Over time, the artist will also introduce new features to the project, keeping Queens+Kings alive and ever-evolving.
How the raffle system works
Given the immense popularity of Hackatao’s art and the potential value of the NFTs, it’s highly likely that a huge number of collectors will compete to mint one of the Q+K artworks.
For that reason, our primary goal was to ensure a fair minting process for everyone.
To achieve this, we implemented a raffle system that randomly picks the wallets that will be able to mint an NFT. This solution also discourages buyers from increasing the GAS price and reduces the use of bots.
We defined a series of conditions to ensure a fair drop and inhibit users from abusing the raffle by registering multiple wallets. These are:
- Users need to hold sufficient ETH to purchase an NFT to register for the drop.
- When minting, the pre-selected wallets will still need to hold those funds. Otherwise, they will get disqualified.
- Collectors from the Whitelist group will still need to hold the artworks, roles, and $MORK in their wallets at the moment of minting.
We will hold separate raffles for the first group and the second group. Both raffles work as follows:
We developed a smart contract that creates a list of all registered wallets. The list is stored in IPFS. That means it is immutable, and it can’t be modified or altered in any way.
To ensure the selection process is entirely random and transparent, we generate a seed through the smart contract using three variables:
- The address of the wallet that mines the last block in the Ethereum blockchain
- The exact date and time that the last block is mined
- The difficulty value of mining that block
The smart contract then utilizes a mathematical function to request a number representing a position in the minting spots. The code also verifies that no wallet address is repeated.
If the 1725 spots reserved for Hackatao collectors are not filled, those positions will be opened for the users in the Public mint group.
Collectors will have 23 hours to mint their NFTs. This way, we ensure people have enough time to purchase an avatar, which discourages increasing the gas price to speed up the transaction.
It’s important to mention that the IDs of the NFTs will be randomly assigned. So, collectors will have no motivation to mint an NFT sooner with the hope of getting an artwork with a low ID.
We have developed a similar raffle system for the TIME Pieces project. If you want to know more about how that project went down, we encourage you to check out this article:
Queens+Kings: Introducing Hack The Royals
Important: The Hack The Royals feature will be available from December 27th.
Hackatao’s goal was to develop a project where collectors could create their own avatars using different traits and combining them to generate new, unique variations.
Each avatar in Queens+Kings is made of between 8 to 10 traits, including:
- CROWN
- HAIR
- EYES
- MOUTH
- BEARD
- FACE
- DRESS
- BODY
- BACKGROUND
- POWERS
That means each avatar in the collection can potentially contain up to 11 NFTs (the avatar + traits).
The project’s unique characteristic allows users to collect valuable assets and engage in an exciting interactive experience, including trading traits and customizing avatars.
When minting their first NFT, users will only receive the avatar token, and they will be able to mint the traits in a later step (or not mint them at all and keep the asset as it is).
The reason behind this is that we didn’t want to force users to mint all the NFTs simultaneously in one single and costly transaction.
The avatar will visually feature all the traits, but they won’t become NFTs until the user decides to mint them.
Avatar traits have different levels of rarity based on the total number of units. Users can check the percentage of avatars in the collection with a particular trait.
Since every edition of the avatars is registered in the blockchain, we had to develop a creative solution to keep gas costs as low as possible.
We developed a batch minting feature that allows users to customize their avatars in one single transaction.
The goal of this project is that collectors can generate an economy around Queens+Kings by buying, selling, and trading NFT avatars and traits and creating new, more valuable combinations of the artworks.
To support this objective, we focused on ensuring that the NFT trading is entirely fair and transparent.
To achieve that, our development team implemented an innovative solution that impedes owners from modifying an avatar after putting it on for sale.
The way that solution works is that every time a user edits an avatar, that NFT is burned, and a new one is minted. So, if the owner modifies the avatar after receiving an offer, the asset will be erased from the marketplace, annulling the offer.
Creating a simple and engaging UX
Our main focus for this project was to keep the user experience as engaging and straightforward as possible.
We wanted to keep the minting process simple: with the fewest possible steps and easing complicated interactions. In most cases, that meant making tough calls.
At this point, it’s important to point out that most of these decisions were made together with Hackatao and validated with the community.
One such decision was to use the Ethereum mainnet for all the transactions and hosting the assets. This allowed us to provide a better user experience and ensure collectors wouldn’t have to go through unnecessarily complicated steps when interacting with the platform, such as:
- Adding an alternative network to their wallet
- Bridging tokens from a different network
- Buying news coins to acquire an NFT from this collection.
- Wrapping their tokens to sell their avatars on OpenSea
We also optimized the Hack The Royals feature so the users could customize their avatars and change traits in a single blockchain transaction, reducing GAS fees.
One thing we evaluated at the beginning of the project was using the ERC-1155 standard for the NFTs to ensure lower GAS fees.
However, using ERC-1155 added extra steps when interacting with avatar traits, making the experience with the Hack The Royals feature more lengthy and annoying.
That’s why we finally decided to maintain the ERC-721 standard for both the NFT avatars and the traits.
Get ready for the drop!
Today, users will be able to register for Queens+Kings drop and take part in a unique and exciting artistic journey that is just starting.
You can check out all the Queens+Kings drop info here:
At NFT Studios, we are super happy to have partnered with such important members of the NFT space to make this project possible. This is how we are building the Metaverse, one block at a time!
