A “Zero Code” NFT Platform Enabling Underpaid Asian Animators & Artists New York City, NY – October 12, 2021
Shroom Chan, a female led NFT project founded by Harvard and Columbia grads, is paving the way forward in harnessing NFTs to support underpaid Asian creatives. The rise of projects like Cryptopunks, Artblocks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club have led to an explosion in interest in NFTs as collectibles and community-oriented platforms. While these projects have minted many overnight millionaires, what if NFTs could be used for social good?
Business has never been better for Japanese anime, with media giants scrambling to get a slice of the $24 billion dollar pie. Netflix alone announced 40 new anime series earlier in March. Yet many of the passionate animators and artists behind iconic series like Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon still live below the poverty line.
“As three Asians who grew up watching anime, we see it as our duty to support the artists and storytellers behind these iconic works.”
Shroom Chan aims to support these creatives by building out Project M: a platform to help underpaid Asian creators turn their beloved side projects into generative art that can help fund better lives. Think of it as Artblocks x Asian pop culture x social good.
Project M aims to serve as both a SaaS and curation layer: vetted Asian artists will be able to deploy generative art using gold standard smart contracts on Ethereum and other popular blockchains. All without knowing a single line of code. Shroom Chan’s philosophy here is:
“let artists do what they do best, we’ll handle the technical stuff.”
By consolidating generative NFT deployment into a service, Shroom Chan aims to make NFT deployment frictionless for creatives. The majority of funds raised during any mint event on Project M will directly go into the authoring artist’s pocket.
Shroom Chan plans to raise funds to build Project M through an NFT collection drop called Shroom Chan: Founder’s Collection later this fall. This drop features 10,000 hand-drawn and randomly generated “pixel art” characters that live on the Ethereum blockchain. Each Shroom Chan NFT minted as part of the collection will provide “VIP ticket” style perks once Project M is launched.
ABOUT THE TEAM
FUNGI
An international award-winning East Asian artist based in NYC. After working at some of the top tech companies and as a Creative Director, Fungi decided to return to her roots and explore the manga-inspired art styles that she fell in love with as a child in Japan. From these distinctive styles sprouted the first Shroom Chan art.
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KINOKO
Distributed systems and blockchain developer with 8 years of experience across biotech, fintech, and blockchain industries. Helped launch the one of the largest streaming platform in the world and provided technical advisory to multiple Fortune 500 companies.
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PORCINI
Marketing and e-commerce guru with experience in real estate and asset valuation. After flipping properties under a boutique real estate agency, Porcini wanted to explore the idea of asset valuation in the digital realm. Once she heard about the NFT revolution, the rest was history.