What are Moonbirds?

Moonbirds are actually a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs based on the ERC-721 token standard of the Ethereum blockchain network. The NFTs feature portraits of animated owls with different styles and characters. Moonbirds was launched on April 16, 2022. In addition, the collection comes with exclusive characteristic elements that make each NFT a unique and valuable piece of investment. The collection ranks among popular and very successful PFP collections like Azuki, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and CryptoPunks.

There are 10,000 NFTs in the Moonbirds collection. Out of the 10,000 NFTs, 2000 were reserved for the members of the PROOF Collective to mint prior to the sale of NFTs to the general public. There are 1000 members in the PROOF Collective. So each member received two NFTs. A supply of 7,875 NFTs was released to the general public via a whitelist. This list was comprised of the lucky winners of a widespread raffle held by Proof that required potential collectors to have 2.5 ETH (the price of one Moonbirds NFT) in their registered wallet at the time of entry. Apart from the reserves and the raffle, the final 125 Moonbirds NFTs were held by the Proof Collective admins for use in future collaborations, marketing, and more.

What made them popular?

Moonbirds took the world by storm by becoming one of the top 10 highest-grossing NFT projects of all time less than one week after release. 

What exactly made them so viral?

• The trusted backing from the PROOF Collective group and the founders are strong points drawn in favor of the Moonbirds NFT collection. 

• The owners who held the PROOF collection tokens got multiple benefits, such as they got a chance to mint two Moonbirds tokens at the time of its launch in the market.

• The newly introduced concept of “nesting”. The nesting process basically involves locking up the Moonbirds NFT in your wallet for an extended period. Upon nesting, the Moonbird can help you obtain many other additional benefits. The longer you accumulate the nesting time, the more rewards you can receive. Another significant advantage of nesting Moonbirds NFTs refers to the advanced safeguards against common phishing techniques.

The creators of Moonbirds

The PROOF Collective developed the Moonbirds collection. The PROOF Collective is an exclusive community of 1000 members, including NFT artists and collectors. 

The founders of PROOF Collective are Kevin Rose, Ryan Carson, and Justin Mezzell. Kevin Rose is a venture capitalist at True Ventures. Ryan Carson is one of the founders of Treehouse. Justine Mezzell is the Chief Product Officer at Proof. They are the brains behind the Moonbirds NFT collection.

Other projects by PROOF 

Oddities

Moonbirds Oddities is a collection of 10,000 pellet NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Moonbirds owners who have "nested" are eligible to receive a pellet. Pellets are the indigestible components of an owl’s prey: teeth, bones, feathers, and fur regurgitated into a single compressed mass of a substance. The art for the Oddities was created in collaboration with Gremplin, who is the artist behind the Cryptoadz collection.

Grails

GRAILS is a collection of 20 unique pieces of NFT art released by PROOF Collective NFT. GRAILS consists of 20 different pieces of art created by 20 different artists. During the minting window, all artists' identities are hidden from each NFT. Once the mint window closes, PROOF Collective will host a live stream event to reveal the artist for each piece of art in the GRAILS collection. Grails NFTs will be minted on the Ethereum L1 main chain.

Emotes

Emotes by Heart You is a 1,433-piece NFT collection stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The current floor price for an Emotes by Heart You NFT is 0.38 ETH. The total sales volume for Emotes by Heart You is 1.8K ETH  with 1.1K owners. Heart You is a project of self-understanding, love, and acceptance of the whole self. Heart You’s tagline is “Emotes find their owners”. It encourages NFT owners to explore the embedded messages and symbolism of the work. Heart You work challenges self-understanding and promotes the acceptance of self and the removal of guilt and shame.

How are their projects funded?

PROOF is funded by True Ventures. PROOF has raised a total of $60M in funding over 2 rounds. In the seed round on April 26, 2022, they raised $10 million. They were funded by Seven Seven Six. Their latest funding was raised on Aug 30, 2022, from a Series A round. They raised $50 million in this round. VaynerFund and Andreessen Horowitz are the most recent investors. Currently, Moonbirds is well funded, as 100 percent of proceeds of the project’s primary sales have been set to go directly to Proof’s holdings with plans to expand the project’s team and launch new products. With five percent of all secondary sales to be set aside for project development.

How did they build a community?

The PROOF Collective is an NFT-based membership club created by Kevin Rose. It rewards holders with free NFT drops, access to events and content, and other perks. PROOF released the 1,000 access pass NFTs in December 2021 via a Dutch Auction format, starting at just 5 ETH.

The Proof Collective website proudly states that its members own more than 150,000 NFTs, including nearly 150 CryptoPunks, more than 800 Bored Apes, nearly 500 Meebits, more than 5,000 Art Blocks, and nearly 330 SuperRare 1:1 NFTs, among others.

How did they make this happen?

Like any other popular NFT community, it was all about using exclusive memberships to their advantage. For instance, here are some benefits that Moonbirds NFT owners get.

• Moonbirds NFT owners have complete ownership over the intellectual property associated with the NFT. 

• The IPFS hosting ensures better efficiency and security.

• Moonbirds owners are also granted priority access to future Proof NFT projects, including the forthcoming Proof Metaverse. 

• The next important advantage associated with Moonbirds NFT collection is the carbon offsetting, which makes them environmentally responsible.

• Moonbirds NFT collection also offers the evident benefit of utility as owners can use them as profile pictures. In addition, the Moonbirds NFT collection also allows the NFT owners to reap benefits from locking up their Moonbirds through nesting.

Future of the startup 

PROOF’s future is studded with various interesting Web 3 ventures. Some of the exciting projects include

• The metaverse project called Highrise

• Creation of Moonbirds DAO  which will oversee all licensing of the Moonbird name by granting trademark rights

• Announcement of licensing model called Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 

• Creation of PROOF token

• Releasing a third NFT collection: Moonbirds Mythics, a 20,000 PFP (profile pic) collection slated to launch in early 2023.

Final thoughts

After a successful round of funding and so many new projects up their cap, PROOF is undoubtedly here to create a stir in the Web 3 world. Let’s wait to find out if the Moonbirds are going to soar towards the moon.