The Moonbirds NFT collection is being shifted completely “in chain” by PROOF, the private community behind the collection.
Keeping an NFT “in chain” means generating it completely from the underlying smart contract, without using an off-chain storage provider.
The director of products at PROOF, Harri Thomas, explained in a community live stream on Aug. 30 that the new approach will mean that in the future, the viewable image of a Moonbird NFT will be constructed from the contract itself, which will be stored on a blockchain.
“We’ve talked about putting the birds ‘on chain’, so what I’m here to tell you today is that they’re not only going to be ON chain, they’re going to be put IN chain.”
In contrast to most other NFTs, which are tokens that point to where images are stored off-chain, their Ethereum-based NFTs will be contained fully in Ethereum itself.
“This is an unusual approach. Certainly not unique,” Harris noted, adding that OnChainMonkey, a 10K PFP NFT collection launched in 2021, uses the same approach.
In addition, PROOF announced that the first official expansion of its Moonbirds collection – called Moonbird Mythics – will be released in early 2023.
20,000 NFT profiles will be included in the collection, which is the third NFT profile pictures project (PFP) undertaken by the group.
A $50 million investment
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led a $50 million Series A funding round for PROOF, with participation from Seven Seven Six, True Ventures, Collab+Currency, Flamingo DAO, VaynerFund and SV Angel..
“It’s great to have this vote of confidence from some of the most respected investors in Web3, as well as capital to keep delivering great products and services as we mature this business over the long term,” says PROOF founding member Kevin Rose.
Exactly 48 hours after launching, Ethereum-based Moonbirds NFT sold out all of its 10,000 avatars, netting $281 million in sales.
Moonbirds is currently ranked number one in the 24-hour charts at a floor price of 13.8 ETH (over $20k at current prices) and 7th in terms of total volume, at approximately 169,000 Ether (ETH).
Additionally, PROOF announced that a PROOF social platform would be launched, a new decentralised autonomous organization (DAO) will be created to oversee Moonbirds licensing, and a new PROOF token launch that will have “real utility”.