Project Ark’s Genesis Drop — the full story
About Project Ark
In the fall of 2020 our team had the honour of hearing a presentation from a member of the WWF about holding one of the last endangered rhino’s in her hands as it passed away. This story resonated deeply with our team and we felt obligated to help organizations like the WWF continue to protect our most vulnerable species. This began our process of designing Project Ark, a carbon neutral NFT platform partnered with WWF Pandal Labs that directly funds animal and environmental conservation groups. We believe that the NFT space has tremendous potential to raise much needed resources, but also provide emotionally evocative and experiential art that can change the way people view our natural world.
At Project Ark, we aim to realize this potential impact by bringing together passionate artists, with purpose driven collectors, and deserving projects to create a win-win-win situation. Our Genesis Drop currently provides 50% of all proceeds towards the WWF in Romania, and their efforts reintroducing the endangered European Bison back into the wild while engaging the local community in the conservation process. We also have a number of exciting conservation organizations in our pipeline where we will be partnering with creatives across multiple artistic mediums. Project Ark’s ultimate aim is to create an NFT marketplace where any artist can choose the conservation project that inspires them, and mint their art with a small percentage going to the organizations we’re partnered with. We also intend to release our DAO token and create large scale natural endowment funds. This DAO will create democratic governance amongst community, in our mission to protect natural resources that are part of the common good, but exploited by private interests.
About the Genesis Campaign
Staying conscious of sustainability and Carbon emissions, we decided to go ahead and mint on the Polygon (formerly Matic) Network which is PoS (Proof of Stake) based and therefore involves negligible gas fees and Carbon emissions. We also partnered with Chainlink so we can include Verifiable Randomness (VRF), and Dynamic NFTs going forward with the help of their oracles.
We launched the campaign with the release of our NFT Eggs coming in 4 Tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum). Each Egg represents an aspect of Romanian folklore and culture, and incorporate a unique soundtrack made using Romanian instruments. We have also minted and listed the artwork of our 20 Genesis artists which can be won by Egg NFT holders, or purchased individually.
About the Conservation Effort
WWF Romania aims to conserve wildlife in the Carpathian forests of Romania, home to many endangered species such as the Amur leopard and the European Bison. In 2014, WWF Romania started re-wilding the Bison and is now engaged in an extensive project turning local communities into conservationists. This has resulted in the largest free running population of Bison in the wild in over 200 years, and the creation of new and exciting economic opportunities for these communities.
Some of our Genesis Art
You can check out all the Genesis art on our Twitter or Instagram, and you can buy these pieces on Opensea. Our own checkout will be available in the coming week.
Join the community
Apart from the Egg NFT rewards, the entire Project Ark community will receive an Early Supporter Badge NFT, as well as access for exclusive footage on-ground, AMAs with the team and the artists, as well as an easier whitelist to the platform in its initial stage. Be sure to join the communities of our wonderful partners as well:
Project Ark:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreProjectArk
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3DEGTZJ68J
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weareprojectark/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Project_Ark
Buy the art here: https://opensea.io/collection/genesis-drop-ark
Chainlink:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chainlink
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/aSK4zew
Website: https://chain.link/
Polygon:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xPolygon
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/polygon
Website: https://polygon.technology/
