Many people in the crypto and NFT space are looking for ways to innovate their philanthropic efforts – from individual artists, to groups to organizations. For instance, in April many artists got together in Club House to sell their NFTs to support a young child battling cancer and were able to raise $60k in one night to go towards medical bills. Rare Pizzas, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), are using the funds from their collectible NFT sales to support local pizzerias all over the world by paying them to offset the cost of pizza for the masses. Project Ark has gathered artists to raise money for the World Wildlife Foundation for a project that is rewilding buffalo in the Carpathian Forest in Romania. Leyline, a new nonprofit, is taking the idea of leveraging the blockchain, NFTs, collectibles and gaming for philanthropic efforts to a whole new level.
“We want to do everything we can to eradicate poverty and solve the climate crisis.” says Leyline founder Jeremy Dela Rosa, “…by focusing on the blockchain and NFTs, and bringing gaming and technology into the philanthropic space to innovate.”
Leyline is a membership platform that provides a loyalty program for doing good deeds. The ladder of engagement begins by first taking care of oneself and then scales to larger commitments. To start, Leyline Points (LLPs) can be earned from things like sleeping enough hours or doing some form of exercise. People can claim points for doing small local acts like donating blood, cleaning up a beach or volunteering at a soup kitchen. They can also have a global impact by donating computing power to cancer or climate change research through a partnership Leyline has with the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Interestingly, the community is about to break 200k hours in donated computing power. The promotional video below focuses on the BOINC partnership and how members can get involved.
The organization is preparing to integrate an NFT marketplace where creators donate works into a prize pool and members on the platform can use their Leyline Points to collect and trade digital assets. In the coming weeks they will be partnering with influencers and celebrities to raise the visibility of the platform and increase participation. Right now users are able to trade in their points for gift certificates from places like Burger King and Sephora, as well as redeem items from a variety of games like Fortnite and Lost Castle. Leyline is building on Klaytn, which does proof of stake, a more energy efficient blockchain and will make NFTs available on OpenSea. Ultimately, the goal will be to allow members to move their NFTS into different metaverses and operate on different blockchains.
Many of the people on the Leyline team come from some of the biggest video game companies in the world, which is no surprise since founder Jeremy Dela Rosa hails from Blizzard Entertainment, a well-known player in gaming. As a result, expect to see high quality NFT artworks for fans.
Leyline has been gradually building its community, so far it is made up of approximately 1700 people with over 70 volunteers from the crypto, gaming and philanthropic worlds. The core users are in North America and Western Europe with expansion happening in Latin America and Asia. The aspiration is to grow the platform and community with the anticipation that as the crypto/NFT space matures the platform will be positioned to further strengthen an ecosystem that is built on doing good and making a significant social impact around the world.
