More Than A Portrait Series.
written by Blake Finucane
Sometimes I have to remind myself that NFTs are multifaceted. That they exist beyond simply being investment assets, where the enjoyment of my day hinges on the up and down ticks of a floor price.
At their core, NFTs act as a wrapper, high tech gift wrap, if you will. Sandwiched inside can be an endless array of digital content from audio and video files to domain names and certificates that point to the provenance of a physical object.
Even with so many possibilities, it’s no coincidence that NFTs found their initial product market fit with art. Something special happens when a digital image is transformed into a unique asset on the blockchain. NFTs are an ideal vehicle for disseminating images far and wide. If memes have taught us anything, it’s the unstoppable force of image circulation at scale.
When a collection of NFTs are released, sharing the same contract address, they evolve into something even greater — a networked product that fosters immediate community through shared ownership.
World of Women (WoW) continues to leverage these distinctly crypto native aspects of community building. Artist Yam Karkai launched the collection on July 27, 2021 in order to support female artists and creators in harnessing the power of crypto. It goes without saying, but you only need to look at your timeline to know why this is necessary (lack of representation!!).
Women founders in web3 raise 4x less than men and only 13% of founding teams in web 3 include a woman, with 3% being all women teams (Boys Club being one of them).
There’s still a lot of work to do and WoW is tackling it head on. To date, they’ve deployed $3 million to nonprofits and supported 500+ artists and their new project continues to expand their impact. On February 26th, they’re launching a portrait series called “The Trailblazer Series” in collaboration with Sara Baumann.
It features 4 female founders with incredible pedigrees, and you’ll be able to mint their NFTs for free! These women have built and sold companies, established non-profits, published pioneering essays and had their products co-signed by Paris Hilton. The more spotlight they have, the more it illuminates and encourages all the women and marginalized identities within the industry.
I think it’s only right that I tell you about them:
Jill Gunter is a true OG. Deana, Boys Club co-founder and I met at a conference she spoke at in 2017 called Crypto Springs (a full circle moment). She is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at Espresso Systems a blockchain infrastructure company. Their flagship product Expresso Network is a confirmation layer that enables cross-chain interactions (interoperability!). She’s advised the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on cryptocurrencies and co-founded the Open Money Initiative, a non-profit organization researching monetary management in regions facing hyperinflation. She even wrote her master’s thesis 10 years ago on crypto in the context of Argentina’s economy.
Evin McMullen is a longtime friend and supporter of Boys Club, someone I am proud to know personally. She is the cofounder of Privado ID which recently merged with Disco (which she also founded) and was an early employee at Consensys. She is a (THE) leading voice on the importance of decentralized solutions in enhancing user privacy. There is truly no one better at eloquently and passionately highlighting the potential of blockchain tech to empower how we control our data. She’s also incredibly generous with her time and knowledge, there to help anyone in the Boys Club community and beyond. She’s literally a walking crypto AMA.
Winny.eth is a digital fashion pioneer, writing her undergrad thesis (6 years ago!) on how blockchain can increase sustainability and transparency in the fashion industry. Even if you don’t know her personally, you’ll feel like you do when you follow her on X. I promise she’ll bring joy to your timeline. She is the founder of Chipped, which creates press-on nails (with a variety of fashion-girlie approved designs) with NFT chips in the thumbs. By tapping your nail to any smartphone, you can share your customizable links (e.g. your Instagram or Github repository). I sincerely appreciate that she’s building a consumer product targeted primarily at women. Our lord and savior Kris Jenner even recently posted a Chipped set on her Instagram stories (gifted by Paris Hilton). As a nail girl myself, I can’t wait to try them.
Tina He is as much of a creative as she is an operator. She leads developer tools at Base and is the co-founder and CEO of Station Labs, which was acquired by Coinbase last year. Station is a blockchain-based community building tool, making it easy to automatically distribute incentives and rewards. She thinks deeply about token design, always building and supporting technologies that magnify human agency. She is truly on the cutting edge of understanding how crypto intersects with markets and networks, topics she covers in her Substack essays (subscribe!). She’s a multi-disciplinary thinker brilliantly synthesizing technical and cultural trends and putting them into action.
The crypto ethos is one of challenging the status quo, facilitating opportunities and choices that lie outside of entrenched institutions. As the technology becomes more widely adopted (by these said institutions and beyond), we need to be more thoughtful than ever in supporting underrepresented voices. As WoW’s CEO Taisia Antonova said, “This isn’t just about art — it’s about directing capital and opportunities to founders who’ve been systematically overlooked….”
With that being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Sara Baumann, the artist behind the portraits. She’s a powerhouse in her own right. Her work has led to collaborations with Mastercard, Instagram, and Coinbase and she’s the founder of the NFT collection Women and Weapons, also centered on inviting women into crypto.
These 4 portraits Baumann created can act as a “token” of your support of the women leading the industry. Of course, to actively have these NFTs show up in your wallet, you have to mint them, which is easier said than done. With this in mind, WoW have worked to remove both technical and financial barriers in order to streamline the user experience. The portraits can be collected for free on Etherlink, an EVM compatible Layer 2 powered by Tezos Smart Rollups. It’s fast and cheap to use (transactions cost 0.001), inherits the security of Tezos Layer 1 and features a decentralized governance model. This is a low stakes way (WoW is taking on the cost) to experiment with crypto, and I’ve always said, “to mint is to learn.”
Minting opens on Feb 25, and if you’re at Eth Denver, you’re in luck! The collection will be featured at the SheFi Summit and Nolcha Shows Open Party. (FYI: those who mint the art pieces at the SheFi Summit and visit WoW’s booth will be able to snag some merch, I’m most excited about the jewelry boxes.)
The contents of your crypto wallet are an extension of your interests and values, publicly connecting you with others in shared ownership. You can be confident that this group of minters is committed to elevating unique voices, representing a real time example of onchain community building. The portraits are a great way to start your NFT collection or perfect additions to it.
