Popular consensus is that we’re myred in a bit of a bear market at the moment. But don’t tell us that! Here at Curate, it’s full steam ahead – build, build, build!

VERASITY PARTNERSHIP = A FIRST IN THE NFT SPACE

In one of our most popular announcements ever, we are now partners with Verasity $VRA. While it’s wonderful to partner with quality projects, this partnership brings something very special to our platform.

For those who don’t know, the underlying technology from $VRA is what’s known as a “Proof of View” (POV) protocol.

The TLDR of POV is this: Images (aka JPEG NFTs) can automatically be verified for authenticity and originality through Verasity’s software. In practical terms, it means that “right-click-savers” won’t be able to ‘copymint’ NFTs. Or, in other words, they can’t copy NFTs, and passs them off as their own.   

While it’s not extremely frequent, fraudsters do pop up from time to time trying to sell illegally copied NFT images.  Eliminating these types of scams is something we at Curate have always worked hard to accomplish… But, with over 110,000 NFTs on our platform, this is a VERY difficult task, and it takes intensive, diligent work to achieve. 

Through our partnership with $VRA, these types of scams can now be identified and caught immediately (and automatically). Incorporating this fraud-blocking protocol is a massive win for artists, collectors, and our company itself. In fact, we are officially the first NFT marketplace in the world that;s able to boast about taking this step to fight fraud. 

We hope that this partnership with $VRA concretely demonstrates our passion and care for all the creators and collectors on our platform.

PARTNERSHIP WITH $AFEN BLOCKCHAIN & NFTYTRIBE

“Why stop at one new partnership this week, when we can have three?” That was our thinking heading into the week… And it’s clearly the right idea.

Our second partnership announced this week is with Aften. Now, The Afen Blockchain Group’s goal is to use blockchain technology to open up the pan-African economy by way of crypto adoption. They hope to spur new financial opportunities for communities and individuals across the continent.

One of our main goals from partnering with Afen is to gain more visibility in the burgeoning African crypro/nft market. This is because the African market is primed for logarithmic growth. In fact, Africa a(s a whole) has the youngest average population in the world. This demographic reality almost guarantees that blockchain technology will help many of the continent’s poorest and unbanked. They will leapfrog over traditional institutions by way of their mobile phones.

Having said all that, our desire to gain more of a foothold in Africa isn’t JUST business. We have a number of creators on our platform who either hail from that continent, or are otherwise of African descent. Creators with heritage from Benin, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, and more are all currently represented in the Curate app. In fact, our CFO, Moe Carrim, recently moved from South Africa to England this past January. 

And so, it should be very clear to all that branching out into Africa is a decision led by both our heads and our hearts.

The second part of this Afen partnership involves the NftyTribe multichain marketplace. This marketplace will feature NFTs on ETH, Polygon and BSC as they launch. Partnering with NftyTribe underscores our latest push to coordinate and integrate with other NFT Marketplaces which align with our values. We can’t wait to see how this partnership develops over time.

STEVE TEASES POSSIBLE PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL (soccer) TEAM PARTNERSHIP

In other news this week, our CMO, Steve, announced that we’re in discussions with a professional football team. This potential partnership will take shape next season, if we’re successful. 

It comes as no surprise to people familiar with our executive team, that there are some pretty big football fans among them. Since Curate is headquartered in essentialy the birthplace of modern football, it makes sense that we want to partner with the football world.

Of course, many professional sports leagues and teams have begun incorporating NFTs into their revenue streams over the past 12 months or so. It’s pretty clear that this trend will increase over time. So to that effect, we hope to land a partnership with a team we believe in, and stand behind… But we also hope that by landing our first pro sport partnership, it will allow us to build more in the future.

As a side note, it should be stated here, that, I write “the birthplace of modern football” when speaking about England – and nothing more. In no way did I suggest that they’re “the nation that’s perfected the game.” Those discerning readers out there may have already noticed that distinction. But it can’t be made clear enough.

But regardless of our feelings towards the English national footbal team, or English footbal in general – there’s one thing we can all agree on:

These are immensely exciting times to be involved in the crypto, and NFT space.

JAMES BRINGS BACK THE BOOMS + CONTEST WINNERS

Speaking of exciting times, this week James announced he’ll be bringing back his popular and historic “boom tweets”. 

Many OG Curators remember James’ boom tweets which heralded good news. As was mentioned in last week’s recap – we’re committed to retaining as much of our original culture that we’ve built over the past two years as we head further into the next growth phase of our company.

Of course, it’s impossible to have growth in the crypto world without contests, and giveaways. So to that end, we’re pleased to have two separate contests over the past few weeks at Curate. One contest celebrated our 100,000 user milestone, and another… just because sometimes it feels good to give away free things for our supporters.

We congratulate all our winners, and if you’re so inclined you can find the winner lists here, and here.

Well, that’s the week that was, and we’re so thankful you’ve been here to share it with us. Until the next one, keep creating!