The Smurfs, the animated franchise known throughout the world for its cartoons, comics, and films, just dropped a new non-fungible token collection to expand the tiny blue character’s reach into Web3.
Yesterday, April 18th, the Smurfs Society launched a bucket auction for 3,000 NFTs modeled on the popular characters. The bucket auction format allows the community to dictate the price of mint, is open to anyone, and rewards top bidders with special incentives like Radiant, Platinum, or Gold Fusion NFTs. It is taking place on the Rarible marketplace and lasts until Thursday, April 20th.
The complete Smurfs NFT collection consists of 12,500 NFTs, featuring 250 different Smurf characters with over 350 unique traits. Some famous characters that are featured include Brainy Smurf, Papa Smurf, and Smurfette. But the collection will also debut new names like Crypto Smurf and VR Smurf.
For the drop, Daft Punk creative director Cedric Hervet enlisted notable 3D artists to bring the Smurf PFPs to life. Some of those artists include Antonyo Marest, Chase, Phillipe Druillet, Fafi Birtak, and André Saraiva.
The Smurf’s Society is a Web3 community that aims to merge collective and individual interests by leveraging nascent technologies like NFTs, blockchain, and the metaverse. One concept that is being introduced with the Web3 move is called “Proof of Collab,” a way of gamifying community engagement that rewards collective intelligence and offers benefits to active participants in the community.
The co-founder and CMO of The Smurfs, Arthur Salkin, said The Smurfs are an ideal brand for “onboarding Web2 fans to Web3,” and that the company hopes to use Web3 to create a borderless community and a place to “provide digital sovereignty.” While The Smurfs began in the small country of Belgium, they currently have a huge global reach.
Over the past year, the Smurfs Society has been building a small, closed community to test its gamified Smurfy World, which was built on the Polygon blockchain. Early-members of this community have been given a discounted allow-list spot for The Smurf NFTs following the public bucket auction.
Big Name Brands Drop New NFT Projects
Considering the global reach of The Smurfs, the move into Web3 is big news for the entire ecosystem. But The Smurfs aren’t the only ones using nascent technology to reach new audiences. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered dozens of NFT drops from well-known companies. Here are three of the most recent stores.
First, a few days ago, the fashion brand Hugo Boss launched a new project that links NFTs to physical pieces of clothing. They did so by adding NFC tags to a select line of baseball hats and hoodies, enabling customers to create “digital twins” for their IRL clothing and rock their new digital gear in the metaverse.
Next, last week at NFT.NYC, Mastercard announced it was launching a new NFT collection. The free-to-claim NFTs grant holders access to the company’s Web3 music accelerator where they can use an AI studio (that launches in May) and browse materials related to Web3 music.
Lastly, Reddit recently launched its third generation of Reddit Avatar NFTs. Reddit’s first set of NFTs launched in July 2022, with the aim of empowering artists to create and sell work. The project was successful and helped generate thousands of dollars in sales for artists.
Although the number of NFT drops have slowed since the highs in 2021, that hasn’t stopped big name brands like The Smurfs from launching new collections. We’ll have to be patient to see if the brands’ first Web3 project is successful. But considering how popular (and adorable) The Smurfs are, we think there’s a good shot it will be.
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