The Super Yeti community experienced the long-awaited reveal of their treasured Yetis on June 14th. The remarkable efforts by the team behind the project were well-received by many members of the crypto community at large as well as by the secondary NFT market where sales of Yetis have topped 5 ETH. With an equitable launch of 0.1 ETH for every Yeti, a portion of the proceeds received will go towards cultivating a game and a community while also working to fight human trafficking in Nepal and India.
The Project
The Super Yeti founders go by the names Supercape and Sparq, choosing to retain anonymity. Despite this fact, they have nonetheless made themselves fully present on their Discord server and through discussions on Clubhouse and Twitter, in addition to a podcast. Tirelessly answering questions while displaying their character and ambitions. Supercape has been part of three Silicon Valley startups and lends a jovial, optimistic attitude to the project that is balanced by Sparq’s diligent, data-driven approach. Sparq is an astute and experienced blockchain developer, having worked with solidity to secure multiple De-Fi projects since 2015.
Superscape’s vision was to build a “Yetiverse;” a blockchain game and a community of Yetis that would help decide what the fate of that game would look like. The project was essentially crowd-funded with NFTs to deliver a game for those who provided funding or bought a Yeti later. Critically, a social cause was attached to the project, establishing that 5% of all proceeds would go to fighting human trafficking in Nepal and India.
Allocation & Pre-Sale
The Super Yeti company held 240 Yetis to fund future game development and community initiatives, awarded 60 to team members individually, and another 500 Yetis were given to community members as part of a giveaway. The Super Yeti project then started its pre-sale on June 8th at 3 PM EST, in which the remaining 9,200 Yetis went up for sale at 0.1 ETH each. Initially, 24 different traits were defined for each Yeti’s characteristics including their eyes, hands, colour, and background that could form up to 20,000 different combinations of Yetis. Nobody who participated in the presale knew what properties their Yeti would end up having, how rare they would be, or what they would end up looking like, but the community was excited by the vision and the cause, as well as their firm belief in the team’s ability to achieve it.
The pre-sale quickly gained traction, and all 10,000 Yetis were sold out only a few days later on June 11th. Due to popular demand, the Super Yeti team brought on additional team members that focused on community management, graphic design, and development. The result of these additional resources was the exponential increase in the number of possible Yetis, and thereby further enhanced the uniqueness of each Yeti. Instead of 24 traits there were now 88, reportedly capable of forming over a million combinations, up from 20,000.
The community was delighted to receive this news on the Super Yeti Discord Server. Furthermore, ahead of the reveal, the Super Yeti team announced their first significant donation of 10 ETH to New Light Kolkata, a public charitable trust based in India with a broad array of social justice programs including educating and caring for the children of sex workers and “untouchables”- a social caste in India placed on the bottom of the social ladder that limits many opportunities.
The Reveal
The Super Yetis were revealed on June 15th at 3PM, exactly one week after the pre-sale began. People began to notice their NFTs changing from the question marks overlaying the Yetis to the Yetis they were awarded. Many flocked to Twitter and Clubhouse to show off the designs of their new Yetis, and within a few days some of the rarest ones were selling for 5 ETH. 40 minutes after the reveal, Opensea finally gave the project the verified badge on their site. The reveal had been successful.
Since then, the Discord community has grown both by member count to over 3700 members, and also by breadth of discussion. There now exist many additional channels covering many topics even beyond Yetis.
The Future/The Impact
The Super Yeti community that has assembled over the past two weeks has been united by their belief in the blockchain game that they could build, as well as by the social cause that is inseparable from the project. The Yetis of legend are often placed around the Himalaya Mountains, the same mountain range that separates Nepal from India. It is across these two countries that the Super Yeti project focuses its donations to fight human trafficking.
This is proof of many concepts. First, that a project can be crowdfunded by a community while simultaneously rewarding those that participate. NFTs provide the ideal use case for such a model. Furthermore, it verifies that a social cause attached to an exciting project can truly supercharge the potential for both. As we move to a more socially responsible future, we look to pioneers like the Super Yeti project to exemplify taking advantage of these new technologies to improve the lives of others around the world.
