I just purchased my first piece of digital art during a limited time Black Friday Sale with 75% off for 0.01 Ether including transaction fee which at the time of writing this article corresponds to CHF 43.80.
Imagine owning a one-of-a-kind Picasso. Reproductions or fakes could be made of it and sold, and the only way it can be proven real is if a trusted expert examines and certifies it. An NFT or «Non-Fungible Token» provides proof of ownership and originality. Its «provenance» is minted into the blockchain, un-alterable and verifiable by the public for all time. NFTs have sparked a massive new market for digital art and collectables. Billions of Swiss Francs are now passing between wallets buying, collecting, investing, selling, and trading NFTs.
The Wapuu NFT Collection
Wapuu is the lovable, open source, and (un)official mascot of WordPress. Wapuu swag has been created and collected at WordCamps around the world. Web3 WP, an UglyRobot project, took the next step by building a generative art project of 2,222 unique Wapuus that can be minted as an NFT collected, and traded by the WordPress community on the Ethereum blockchain.
Web3 WP built a programmatic generator that creates completely unique Wapuu characters based on a random set of more than one hundred distinct traits like hair, hats, accessories, clothing, holding items, and colors. Traits are weighted to have various rarities, some are very common, and some may only be found on a lucky handful of Wapuus.
When you mint your Wapuu it is generated randomly, you may get one with a common or rare combination of traits. This makes the rarer Wapuus highly collectable and more valuable on the open market.
WP Pusher
Various WordPress community members have sponsored special edition Wapuus that have been randomly included in this collection. I was lucky enough to mint one of these rare specimen, i.e. Wapuu #693. So I’m now the only «certified» owner of this unique Wapuu representing WP Pusher. The NFT even came with «secret content» which grants access to a one-time-use 100% discount for the first year of a subscription to WP Pusher. At Openstream we have our own deployment workflows, so we cannot really make use of WP Pusher, but if you’re interested in voucher, please leave a comment below and I’ll send the voucher your way.
WP Pusher lets you install and update WordPress themes and plugins, directly from GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab – even if your clients are using hosting without SSH access. If it can run WordPress, it can run WP Pusher. The plugin hooks into WordPress and uses core functionality to fetch your themes and plugins from your Git repository. It’s fast, easy, and secure, with no need to give us access to your servers. You can set up WP Pusher to deploy your plugin or theme every time you push to git and never have to think about deploying your code again.
Conslusion
Owning a Wapuu NFT is an investment in the future of WordPress. As the WordPress community grows, demand will increase, making the collection more valuable. This creates a monetary incentive to add value to and grow the WordPress community. Every time they are traded, half of all royalties go to the WordPress Foundation.
Credits
- Top picture courtesy of Marty O’Neill
- Info from Web3 WP website
- Wapuu NFT Collection on OpenSea
- Recap WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin: WordPress and Blockchain
