Welcome. To our new term: Welcome List. Here’s how to get on ours.

By: Michelle Abbs for People of Crypto Lab

We welcome you — black, red, brown, white — to join our list from your favorite (POC) People of Crypto.

Being on our Welcome List does afford you with access and privilege no matter your skin tone. But first, let’s define what a Welcome List is.

NFT projects have been using this format of “lists” for over a year to help ensure a group of early supporters or key partners are able to buy a piece of the project before it sells out. This list of registered wallet addresses has an opportunity to mint the project before it goes on sale to the public.

Oh wait, we spotted another buzzword we need to define. Mint. Minting means bringing something to life. Creating it for the first time. In an NFT project it means, all of the digital data our developers coded to the contract, like the different skin tones, type of shoes on your avatar and more — all with the touch of a button — come together to create the NFT avatar image! When you mint something you are the first owner and the special wallet that brought it to life.

So you’ll be able to mint 1day early (on June 20th) when you join our Welcome List. We will collect your wallet addresses through a simple form offered to early supporters and key partners. Follow us on Twitter, IG or on Discord for updates. The compiled list of wallets then gets sent to our developer who is coding our contract. The list of all the wallets collected actually gets written into the contract with a specific function, allowing those pre approved wallets to have access to that early mint period on June 20th before it opens to the public on June 21st.

You’re probably noticing we’ve mentioned wallets and wallet addresses a lot. Are you thinking, but this brown leather thing in my pocket or this be dazzled sparkly thing in my purse doesn’t have an address? We’re going to walk you through how to create a digital wallet. Check out our NFT survival kit where we’ll walk you through each step needed to grab your POC avatar.

Unfortunately the “black is bad and white is good” concept crept its way into the NFT project mint process. We’re here to write a new process with more inclusive language.

The origin of the terms date back over centuries; the term “blacklist” means being blocked entry, excluded or denied something whereas being on a “whitelist” gives you certain access or privilege to something.

Y’all already know we at POC are not going to stand for terms baked in racial undertones of denying privilege to a certain group. Nah, not on our watch. So guess what, we came up with our own language, and we invite the rest of the NFT market to adopt the term Welcome List with us. And we invite all of you to join in the Valley of Belonging in The Sandbox game with our POC avatar for the real party!