Endangered animal NFTs are tokens that allow animal lovers to showcase their unwavering fealty to wildlife, these NFTs are charitable tokens used to preserve endangered species from extinction. This article talks about this range of tokens; their story and how to get them.
Endangered animal species have grown to an alarming amount every year, and over the course of decades, quite a few go completely extinct.
In a bid to preserve endangered animal life many interventions have been carried out and quite recently one of such motions is spearheaded by the WWF and it deals with NFTs.
These animals have gradually faded from existence by the act of poaching, hunting, loss of habitat, and man’s harmful effect on the environment.
The idea to create NFTs relating to those animals was conceived by the WWF to generate enough money from the revenue of sales to conserve these animals.
What are NFTs?
NFT is an acronym for Non-fungible tokens. They are special tokens that are imprinted on a blockchain, these tokens deal with graphical assets that may be from real life or a product of an artisan.
NFTs include a wide range of content from art, pictures, memes, and so on, that can be traded over the crypto space.
What is special about NFT is that these assets are not tangible and have a unique certificate of ownership that reduces the risk of fraud and encourages transparency.
For this article, we will be referencing a section of these tokens monikered NFAs
What are Non-fungible Animals (NFA)?
Non-fungible animals (NFA) is a name given by the WWF to a range of unique art collectibles that are created by well-renowned artists.
These digital artworks depict various endangered species and are sold over the NFT spaces by the WWF.
The uniqueness of these artworks besides it being created by professional artists lies in the fact that the supply of these collectibles is limited, the number of tokens available each represents an animal of that species, and the proceeds from the sale of that token go towards the maintenance of those animals.
The WWF: Founders
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was founded in 1961.
It is a non-governmental organization that helps conserve natural resources and habitats. They aim to preserve endangered species and impede humans’ negative impact on the environment.
The organization was founded by Julian Huxley, Prince Bernhard, Prince Philip, and other influential persons. The headquarters of the organization was first situated in Morges, Switzerland.
The WWF Campaign: How it all started
The innovation for NFAs began last year in November, with the crypto market making waves as the new thing in town, the WWF decided to capitalize on the market to gain income to fund their cause.
It started with WWF Germany partnering with artists to create digital art of 10 endangered species depicting a token for each animal left in the world.
The organization made about 280,000 dollars in sales from these artworks.
That was the initial campaign, the recent one is now driven by the WWF UK and lists new collectibles of NFTs to purchase with animals like:
- Saola
- Vaquita
- Riverine Rabbit
- Amur Tiger
- Baltic Porpoise
- Cross River Gorilla
- Giant Ibis
- Giant Panda
- Mountain Gorilla
- Persian Leopard
The Saola and vaquita collection appears to be successful having all the digital artworks on the collectible sold out.
These NFA are interesting to look at not just for their intricate design but the make-up as well which introduces the next topic.
What blockchain is NFA based on?
WWF claims that their NFA runs on Polygon, a side chain of Ethereum that claims to be less energy-intensive (they state each transaction only holds a carbon footprint the size of a glass filled with water).
Polygon is said to be a proof-of-stake and not proof-of-work which means that the huge amount of processing on Ethereum is not carried out but computation is done through the use of selective validators for that currency.
Amidst these claims lies a lot of controversy concerning the supposed environmentally friendly blockchain.
Why is NFA criticized?
Crypto experts and a huge majority of the media don’t buy the idea of NFAs for many reasons.
Firstly, it’s an oddly contradictory concept to their aim, making use of energy-intensive tech that does more harm than good to the environment they try to protect.
While the WWF claims that Polygon is less energy intensive than its parent Ethereum, it still registers its transaction on the proof-of-stake Ethereum (a blockchain that registers power usage more than the entire country of Sweden).
If these NFAs are a success in the market they ultimately contribute to increased emissions.
The idea of putting a price tag on an actual life is rather dissatisfactory as well, it almost seems like commercializing the animals that are supposed to be protected is quite similar to the illegal wildlife trading the organization scorns.
Labeling the NFTs with limited to represent the amount left in real life can also be seen as a ploy to get people to buy up the collection quickly, it’s almost like the WWF is urging people to buy these projects, with statements like “ Since our NFAs are limited editions, they can sell out quickly, so you better create a wallet now to get one of the artworks on time” pasted on their web page.
Plus the value of these NFTs also hugely increases in the event that the species in question does go extinct.
Another debate brought up is the fact that the WWF doesn’t need these donations to function, they are one of the world’s leading environmental charities with revenue of millions of dollars a year. People feel these NFTs aren’t necessary for them to function.
A lot of individuals have been outraged on social media about the return of the project after the German branch’s campaign but the WWF has yet to make a tweet or message in response.
How well are NFAs doing in the market?
Quite well considering a few collectibles have sold out, the WWF has made nearly 300,000 dollars in sales and counting.
How to buy NFAs
Well, animal enthusiasts would fancy a chance at getting one or two of these collectibles before they’re sold out.
Here are a few ways to buy NFAs;
Step One: The first thing to do is have a crypto wallet with sufficient funds available.
Step two: Next, the wallet should be linked to an NFT market where endangered animal NFTs can be found like OpenSea
Step three: After selecting the preferred NFT the necessary cryptocurrency will be transferred and the NFT will be transferred to the wallet.
The prices of these NFAs range from around 80 to 400 dollars in fiat money.
Conclusion
NFA is an innovative idea to gain donations to further the cause of preserving wildlife.
While this may be the case, there are a lot of controversies circulating about the intentions of this campaign.
On the other hand, NFA proves to be quite the fancy token to flaunt for those seeking to collect rare digital assets.