MELD Bank Manager NFTs
Merging distinctive design with unique DeFi utility.
Minting for the Bank Manager NFTs has begun! If you participated in the MELD ISPO, go find the stake address you used in the MELD ISPO and mint your very own bank manager! 👇
Minting: https://meld.freeloaderz.io/bank-manager
How-To: https://docs.meld.com/nfts/bank-managers/find-your-ispo-address
The MELD Bank Manager is a Profile Picture (PFP) for MELD Users. The original idea came out of a desire to give our early adopter community some added benefit for their support.
As a PFP we wanted to create an NFT that had a great deal of brand personality, a character that was androgynous in gender and stylized enough to make it unmistakably MELD. The character started with the idea of a robot related to the name, your bank manager there to help you sort out your day to day finances.
We started with a robot or android-type figure and then began to give it a shape that was neutral and friendly as a “resting state”. Then, instead of applying the stereotypical elements to the character like big glasses, cigarettes or a gun on the back, we decided to strive for a more spiritual and supernatural representation.
The MELD Bank Manager v1 is a special kind of NFT. At first glance, you see that it’s a standard PFP. But this NFT also has utility, if you have one and you use it in the MELD lending and borrowing protocol then it will give a 0.3% boost in the APY of your collateral or a reduction of 0.3% in the interest rate you pay.
Mood Board
Initial mood boards accompanying the written art direction.
Initial Sketches
Sketches started with some drawings and a description of what we wanted accompanied with some mood boards. Sketches went through about 45 iterations.
Once the basic direction was complete, then variations of item designs and ideas for various properties we explored and sketched. Many never made it to the end products.
3D References
After sketches were complete then 3d modeling started with mood boards.
3D Design & Development
The 3d modeling process was pretty smooth and was closely based on the sketches. Once a basic set of models were finished the development of the custom shaders began. Shader development took a significant amount of time.
The basic idea of the shaders was to mimic various print processes like half-tone and engraving while making them behave correctly in 3D with lighting and shadows.
Once the shaders were in a final state, the development of the lighting was completed with different materials emitting light and materials having various reflectivity but still looking “print-like”.
Once everything was in place then we began the process of looking at all of the combinations and fixing issues where objects clipped into each other or materials behaved in an unpredictable manner.
Finally, we look at everything as a complete whole and make final adjustments for lights, materials, etc.
3D Scripting
Once all of the elements were final then each element and each variation of an element gets parameterized. All materials are generalized so they can work on all needed parts. Then logic is added to make sure the whole works correctly when generating random NFTs. For example, you can’t have flaming eyes with a fishing hat because the elements would clip into each other. Since there are millions of possible variations this process was very time-consuming and detailed.
The whole thing is wrapped into an application package and deployed for testing both the end graphic used for NFTs and the metadata output as a JSON file.
The end result is 45,000 unique images that are fully rendered in 3D, not layered after rendering.
Once the collection was complete, we took 20 NFTs and hand-edited them so they looked like errors or glitches in the system. They have no additional utility but they are much rarer than any other NFTs with the exception of the Gold Bank Managers.
Finally, the rarest of all of the NFTs. The 10 Golden Bank Managers. These Bank Managers not only are very rare, but the user can also use these NFTs to get a 1% increase in their yield or a 1% discount on their loan interest.
The NFTs are launched on June 5, 2023, and quickly became the 2nd biggest NFT project in Cardano by 24h trading volume.
MELD — Be Your Own Bank
We think it’s essential for everyone to gain control of their financial lives and have equal access to financial instruments used by professionals, not just centralized institutions, governments, or the 1%. We want to provide financial freedom and control to the masses, including the unbanked.
We have a long-term goal to enable the $15 trillion that is currently locked out of the global economy, including 2 billion individuals worldwide that are either underbanked or have no access to banking services whatsoever, access these tools. These are the people that are paying the highest fees, and getting the worst customer service, and they are the ones that are having the most problems.
Our vision is to create an ecosystem that empowers individuals to regain financial control by providing them with the tools and services they need to manage their money on their terms. Whether that be creating a collateralized debt position (CDP) with cryptocurrency, earning an interest return for lending fiat to borrowers, or even participating in reward incentive programs, we strive to provide our users with the functions they need to manage their own financial lives.
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