Last year was undoubtedly an active year for the NFT market, with nearly $41 billion worth of Ethereum-based NFTs sold, according to Chainalysis research cited by the Financial Times. The last 12 months featured projects from brands, music artists and everyone in between, offering solutions that look to be seismic in the shift they will bring to industries including financial services and the music industry. With projects launching for different reasons, aiming to offer vast forms of utility, I wanted to reach out to the project creators of a handful of my favorite projects to discuss how they have been navigating this new frontier.
Andamo Hondo is a creator and entrepreneur that has been working as a digital media professional for over a decade, who was kind enough to answer questions about his latest NFT project Crypto Kings, and how he has navigated the evolving space.
Explain more about your project Crypto Kings
Truly I loved the idea of ancient lost cities & artifacts, but wanted to build something of my own. Finally, when I learned about NFT’s I knew I could pick up on some long lost projects. I searched on OpenSea and at the time there were no significant “King” projects. Took that opportunity and ran with it. Now our Crypto Kings yield a financial advancement, along with allowing members to collect swords, tokens, items, & digital access to metaverse areas. Our ultimate goal is an augmented reality app that allows users to access different rooms of a life-sized castle to solve puzzles and unlock the “treasure room” that will have a massive cash reward. We currently are selling merch from our metaverse shop & sending out crowns to our King holders.
Who came up with the artwork? Explain the effort it takes to create each King.
I came up with the artwork as I am no good at drawing, but no my digital background and work with photoshop could easily come in handy. I decided to try pixel art, but with a slightly bigger pixel canvas than the Crypto Punks by using a 64×64 pixel canvas. Each king is hand made, one pixel at a time. Took roughly 68 hours to make 50 of them, and the hardest part was capturing an icon, person, idea, that will look attractive, as pixel art. Truly, I had never done a project like this before.
What are some of the challenges you have experienced while navigating the NFT space?
I think it’s been difficult keeping everyone excited. Most people want crazy announcements every day, but our community has been unbelievably supportive, aware, and encouraging as we continue to build. I chose to do a soft launch to allow people in my finance group to join, & to test out everything we had been working so hard on.
What do you have planned for this year for Crypto Kings?
A big event in Vegas for King holders by September. We have begun writing the book for the project, and developing our AR app! Secretly working on a board game for our Kings so we’ll see what projects want to collaborate with us on it!
What advice have you learned that you would share with anyone interested in launching their own NFT?
Be honest with yourself about your abilities and expectations. I feel everything we promised we can easily deliver which means our community trusts us and our decision making. I would also say to think in your community’s shoes. What do you want them to feel, understand, and be excited about as a member of your community?
With the first 50 Crypto Kings released from the 100 piece collection, you can follow the Crypto King journey by finding the collection on OpenSea, and by following them on Twitter and Instagram searching @nftcryptokings.