Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) Take Over Pop culture!

Last year, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) made headlines and came to the spotlight when the prices of CryptoPunks by Larva Labs skyrocketed. CryptoPunks is a pixelated collection of digital art referring to the pop-cultural tradition of Cyberpunk.

CryptoPunks was one of the first, experimental NFT collections deployed on the Ethereum blockchain back in 2017. Today, they are classic and serve as a living manifesto of the NFT revolution.

However, now, the times when NFTs nostalgia alone was enough to carry the project, are long gone. The space evolved, developed, and has become highly competitive. Therefore, new collections not only offer art and access to exclusive online communities but also, incorporate increasingly complex and creative utilities.

Hundreds of business models are developing around NFT collections. For instance, they range from perks on the new and upcoming metaverse platforms, through airdrops of future gen collections and exclusive meetups in real life, to passive income via staking NFTs. All of this runs on smart contracts, the programmable logic first described in the Ethereum whitepaper.

How To Stand Out in the NFT Space?

No need to mention that multiple collections come out every day. Consequently, the only way to survive in this market is to be original and stand out. According to Nadini et al.

(2021), NFT traders cluster tightly around specific collections, so distinctiveness matters. One collection worth attention to is HAPE (@HAPEsocial), created and led by Matt Sypien also known as Digimental. 

Matt is an experienced British designer. In the past, he worked with brands such as Nike Sportswear, Air Jordan, OWSLA – Kill The Noise/Skrillex, Bacardi, MTV, Lacoste, Reebok, Sizeer, and many others. Now, he combines his two passions, graphic design and fashion, to create an “ape multiverse:” a 3D collection of 8,192 artworks that are about to become a fashion playground for designers.

Fashion: What Is The Market Potential of HAPE?

What is the potential of this project? Huge. Clothing brands constantly look for new ways to build an appeal to young audiences.

Burberry recently dropped an NFT collection in the multiplayer blockchain game Blankos Block Party. Adidas has just released an NFT collection on OpenSea. Notably, they collaborated with the giants of the NFT industry, Bored Ape Yacht Club.

According to Forbes, adidas Originals went on to build out a whole ecosystem of wearable digital products. It served Bored Ape and Mutant Ape avatar holders throughout the year.

This trend will likely continue – brands desire and need to be present in the metaverse, otherwise, they can fall into oblivion.

According to Forbes, this played out across the industry in 2022. Gucci, L’Oréal, Hublot, and Paco Rabanne all launched their own metaverse and NFT initiatives.

Moreover, the fashion industry is worth 3 trillion dollars, and the metaverse industry – 500 billion as of 2020. No wonder that the sweet spot on the edge of the two attracts thousands of game- and fashion- designers.

It Is All About Community In The End.

But this is not all. HAPE has much more going on under the hood than just good market positioning. The well-thought-of community-building strategy and the associated tokenomics make it extremely valuable as well.

After all, what decides the long-term success of the project is the eagerness of the token holders to HODL, plus the demand-to-supply ratio. Scarcity here is enforceable only because, according to the original Bitcoin whitepaper (Nakamoto, 2008), a blockchain prevents double-spending without a central authority. The HAPE team decided to sell the whole collection through a closed private sale, only available to those who consistently contribute to the community.

They also launched a number of channels dedicated to a broad range of topics, from wellness through LGBTQ to career advisory and business development. The inclusiveness attracted hundreds of thousands of members to the project’s Discord group. In just a few week’s time, HAPE has become the most populated NFT community Discord server in the world.

The Novel Way Of Conducting The Mint.

This allowed the community mods to cherry-pick the most engaged users and the brightest personalities for the project whitelist, also known as the “Hapelist.” Only 1,000 group members received the OG status that allows them to mint two tokens, while the whole rest can only mint one. This strategy makes the project decentralized and prevents it from the domination of “whales.”

In these circumstances, the chances are that the vast majority of tokens will get HODLed indeed. In other words, they won’t get flipped at the grand premiere coming up on Digimental’s birthday, 19th January 2022.

Is this going to be the best or the worst birthday in Matt’s life? That’s what we are about to see. What is the team occupied with at the moment?

What Comes Next For HAPE?

So far, they keep the upcoming partnerships highly confidential, and there are no leaks in the press. However, the HAPE promo offers a clear premise. If the HAPE team delivers on that premise, they are on the roadway straight to becoming the next blue-chip project.

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Please also take a look at the story of my personal NFT journey entitled “Natalia In The Land of NFTs. My Personal Journey And What I Learned So Far.”