Do you remember the “Punk Turtle” from 2018? Despite attracting global attention the Turtle’s habitat still remains in a state of disrepair. To change that two entrepreneurs from Australia are setting out on an ambitious plan to buy land and restore its riparian zone.
To raise the funds required the photographer (me :D ), Chris Van Wyk, and his business partner, Huxley Peckham, are minting a limited run of eleven Punk Turtle NFTs. What’s an NFT? It stands for Non-Fungible Token and they are taking the cryptocurrency world by storm. The idea is that one creates a unique digital artwork and sells it to the highest bidder. What makes the punk turtle NFTs distinct is that their virality and popularity have already been proven on a global scale, including being written about by The New York Times and National Geographic.
Currently the future of the Mary River Turtle rests in the hands of the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC).
Not only will ten percent of monies raised go directly to the MRCCC, a further ten percent will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). With the remaining income the pair hope to privately buy large areas of land that border the Mary River so they can return the riparian zone, the zone along the side of the river, back to its pre-settlement glory.
With foundations in sustainability the pair, Huxley and Chris, hope to demonstrate how to use cryptocurrency to rapidly create tangible positive change in critical environments.
“We want to prove that photography can change the world, and, at the moment, cryptocurrency seems to be the fastest way to achieve this for crowd funding projects.”
The first NFT, titled “Punk Turtle” has already been released to Auction ending on January 2, 2022 at 3:04PM Queensland time.
You can find the auction on the OpenSea platform here:
https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/48783388047703138381779883509546443198407336007152938885993643449905565401089/
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