Recap of our community hosted AMA and announcement of the winners

On Thursday June 17, we hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with our Co-founder & CEO, Anita Angelica Moore on the Blind Boxes Official Telegram Channel.

The AMA reintroduced the community to our team and also enabled us to get tangible feedback directly from the community. The participation was fantastic with over 50 questions submitted. Users who met the criteria for eligibility also had the opportunity to win $BLES rewards.

The top question gets a reward of 300 $BLES, while the next three rea reward of 100 $BLES each. Given the overwhelming response, we decided to expand the winners circle by including 4 additional questions in the prize pool. Here are the questions, in order of the winners, along with their Twitter handles.

Q1: My question is about your long term marketing plans. How, or through which big partnerships do you plan on utilising to pass your product onto the normal — especially non-crypto people? #BLESAMA

From @Shabbir30260554 via Twitter (wins 300 BLES)

Anita: Great question. Currently, our community is comprised of 26,000+ members across Telegram, Twitter, and Discord. However our research on our own community tells us that we skew greatly towards a “crypto-heavy” crowd. We SO greatly appreciate you! Yet we realize that for us to achieve our full potential we need to pierce the crypto sphere where we currently reside and break into mainstream circles.

Due to the current regulatory environment, and restrictions across traditional channels of advertising crypto projects must be creative about their approaches to marketing and PR. Fortunately, we have strategies in development and already in play, as we strive to get on the mainstream radar.

One way we are accomplishing this is via strategic partnerships across various ecosystems. If you follow the Blind Boxes OFC Blind Boxes OFC announcement channel you will see the team posting almost daily about new partnerships.

Each announcement represents a deal that has required weeks, or sometimes months of behind the scenes work. When we consider partnerships, we look deeply at the technical and strategic value of the relationship, but also at the communities that are represented by our partners

For example, our announcement earlier today about the NFT competition with Ocean Protocol represents an ongoing collaboration with their project, as well as their vibrant and active community of over 100K members.

Q2: Why will only $100M BLES tokens be minted? Will this amount be increased later? Will new $ BLES be printed on the market? #BLESAMA

From @Nisansala_1 via Twitter (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: Unlike fiat (USD, Euros, etc), $BLES has, and will always have a fixed supply.

This is a core tenet of our token metrics, development strategy, and ethos. We believe that a transparent and non-inflationary token ecosystem preserves value for long and short-term stakeholders alike. Blind Boxes will never print/mint new BLES tokens above the 100M tokens that we minted on the TGE (token generation event).

Q3: Why did you decide to use the Ethereum network? Do you have any plans to launch Smart Key mainnet and let $BLES run on your own network? #BLESAMA

From @Alison_m2000 via Twitter (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: Currently, Blind Boxes is running on BSC and Ethereum. We are however well aware of the limitations of any protocol, especially Ethereum.

As such, Layer 2 solutions are always on our radar. For example, we have a solid ongoing relationship with the team at Polygon. We are actively considering integrating this and similar protocols within the next quarter. For us, the primary considerations are timing, supply, and demand.

For example, before deciding to “flip the switch” on a new protocol, we need to see positive indicators on both the supply side (i.e. exciting NFTs being created on a particular protocol) and the demand side (active communities of buyers). To return to the specific question presented by @alison_m2000, we have not specifically considered Smart Key, however, we would consider it if the right supply/demand indicators were present.

Q4: Are all Blind Boxes priced equally, and do they all come with just one NFT plus BLES tokens, or do they come with different numbers of NFTs? #BLESAMA

From @SandaruSankalp2 via Twitter (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: Let’s clarify how pricing and selling occur on the platform.

First, a curator (who can technically be anyone, we encourage you to apply) creates an empty collection on the platform. Next, the curator creates a whitelist of creators/artists to join this specific collection. Then each artist adds their own NFTs to the collection.

Then each artist adds his/her/their own NFTs to the collection. This is an important point, each NFT enters the collection with a price tag that was assigned by the artist. As in, each artist decides the list price of their own NFTs.

Once the collection is full of NFTs, the curator seals the collection and then our system goes to work. The Blind Boxes engine wraps EACH NFT into its own Blind Box and each Blind Box in the collection is given the SAME PRICE.

This price is typically the average price of all NFTs in a given collection. Finally, the collection is dropped (made available for sale) and users are able to purchase Blind Boxes from the collection.

In the hours and days ahead, the boxes are sold ONE AT A TIME from the collection in a random manner. The result is that collectors/buyers pay one flat rate for any item in a particular collection.

Q5. What are Blind Boxes’ long-term goals and vision? In order to achieve the highest efficiency of the set goals, what is Blind Boxes’ roadmap in the near future, what will be the goals that Blind Boxes’ will focus on developing this year? #BLESAMA

From Nguyễn Văn Hùng via Twitter (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: Long term we aim to be the premier curation platform for NFTs in the art, music, entertainment, and gaming arenas. The keyword here is “curation”. One of the core issues we are tackling in this increasingly crowded market is curation.

As the supply of NFT assets increases, sellers and buyers will have increasing difficulties connecting. By presenting NFTs in collections that have been curated by tastemakers, influencers, professional curators, and well known artists, Blind Boxes is accomplishing the goal of sorting and filtering the market.

Taking this further to the future, we aim to automate this curation process by developing recommendation algorithms to further support/automate this collector to artist market connection. We also envision being the niche market where famous and well-established creators and curators go to launch special gamified drops.

Q6. Can you discuss your plans for marketing around the Rick and Morty drop?

From @Spencer Hewett via Telegram (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: We are excited about the Rick and Morty drop(s), and have a longstanding relationship with the collector. I mention this in plural, since there will be more than one drop. In the days ahead you will see more details about our plans for these assets. We have made one announcement so far, there will be more. We find that spacing announcements out allows the community to more fully digest the news. On top of traditional marketing channels and techniques (banner ads for example). We will be leveraging full throttle our network of crypto and traditional influencers. Also, Clubhouse events, and IRL guerilla marketing will be in play for this and other profile sales events.

Q7. Any updates on Launchpad and the WangchungNFT contest?

From @Manan via Telegram (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: An announcement about Wang Chung will come early next week. Voting for this competition will occur on chain. As mentioned in our post about tokenomics, voting will be incentivized by token rewards for BLES stakers. Stay tuned for that voting event, especially since it will only last for 5 days. We are especially excited about the Wang Chung partnership, since the band itself has access to traditional PR channels and will also be promoting the sale there.

Note: Please click here to read our latest post on the voting process for the Wang Chung contest.

Q8. When can we expect the new UI to be online and functional?

From @OldSchoolBlockMiner via Twitter (wins 100 BLES)

Anita: Excellent question. We are in the final stages of testing and refining the new UI as we speak. No one is anticipating this more than myself, personally, since I realize the importance of having a compelling website for both, the primary website as well as the dApp. My team tells me that it will be finished in the next 7 -10 days. We will release an updated timeline as soon as it is more clear.

Below are a few additional excellent questions posed by our community on Twitter as well as our Telegram channel that are worth sharing:

Can you list 1–3 killer features of this project that makes it ahead of its competitors? What is the competitive advantage your project has that you feel most confident about?

From @AdelaideBro via Telegram

Anita: 1. Transparent on ramp for people to become CURATORS and monetize their ability to be tastemakers and talent scouts within the NFT arena. Similar to Airbnb and Uber, Blind Boxes is a platform that empowers regular people to earn income on their own terms.

2. NFT Creator Launchpad — we empower creators to launch their own community tokens on our platform. Think of this as an IDO launchpad for NFTs.

3. Our vibrant community — as a project we are empowered by YOU. Thank you all.

Currently NFT is a hot topic, but are NFTs for art only?. Does Blind Boxes think that more real world use cases will emerge for NFTs as time goes on and why should we take NFTs seriously?

From @TranHieu via Telegram

Anita: We at Blind Boxes are extremely Bullish on the NFT market. As more layer 2 solutions, and beyond come on board we will see the underlying costs of NFTs drop. This will be great for the market since it will spur increased adoption across the ecosystem. I expect to see increasing adoption in areas like ticket sales and luxury items…. and of course VR/AR and the Metaverse. We are very much in the early stages of this technology. We are really just getting started. Let’s Go!

Almost everyone wants to know what the strengths of the project are. But can you tell me the weak points and problems the project is facing? How are you going to solve it?

From @Mirai via Telegram

Anita: Communication and community are immensely important for a project of our scope, especially in the early stages. Our team strives to maintain transparency about our progress on a daily basis. Currently we accomplish this through Telegram, Twitter, and Medium. I am happy with our efforts so far, but I see room for improvement here. We have a budding community on Instagram, however we have far to go there. It is important for us to have a strong community on Instagram and Discord, because this is where the artists and mainstream collectors live.

About Blind Boxes

Blind Boxes is a gamified curation platform and launchpad for NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This highly scalable dApp enables brands and creators to diversify their revenue streams, increase the liquidity of their creative assets, and become leaders in decentralized global economies, while engaging fans and buyers to discover and collect rare, limited edition NFTs.Via the Blind Boxes Marketplace, buyers get to experience the thrill of time-released white-labeled blind box series, where a collector can draw from and unlock sealed packages of exclusive items, curated by tastemakers across the arts, music, & entertainment sectors. Curation is at the core of our value proposition. The platform offers a commission structure that incentivizes independent contributors to produce bespoke blind box collections that feature top-tier talent and emerging artists and designers from around the world.

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