Vancouver-made NFTs celebrate Lunar New Year with digital red pockets
Lunar New Year is just around the corner, and many people are looking forward to the delicious feasts to come. For a Vancouver-based tech company, a recent meal over the holidays inspired a brand new NFT collection.
Creative studio OddFutur3 (OF3) recently announced the launch of Luckies 8888 NFT Collection, an NFT project that celebrates Asian culture through its design of digital red pockets.
“The specific idea of Luckies NFT was conceptualized over a holiday dinner together with my co-founder Larry and his partner Rose, who casually suggested the idea of creating an NFT project using Chinese Zodiacs,” said Nick Lo, co-founder of OF3 in an interview with Daily Hive. “For OF3, Luckies is the first major project that our company is launching.”
“As a team composed of first and second-generation immigrants of Asian descent, Luckies is an ode to our heritage. It pays homage to the purpose of red pockets in celebrating new beginnings while using a new medium of delivery with NFTs.”
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OF3 aims for a public launch for Luckies in late February, with the 8,888 unique, generative artworks built on the Ethereum blockchain. Each Luckies minted through LuckiesNFT.com will cost 0.088 Ethereum, and there is a maximum of 8 NFTs per transaction.
The hand-drawn zodiac characters were designed and illustrated by New York-based artist Sophia Chang to celebrate prosperity and the culture of giving.
“We are close friends with Sophia, and so we inquired with her about her appetite to take on this project,” explained Lo. “We thought she was the perfect fit to create a project that celebrates Chinese culture, especially as a well-known artist of Asian descent in North America.
“The most enjoyable part of this project is being able to use our past experiences with building communities and translating those skills into new technologies that potentially allow us to build even stronger ones.”
Nick Lo, OddFutur3 co-founder (OddFutur3/Submitted)
Community is a big part of OF3’s plans for Luckies. Throughout the Lunar New Year, the creative studio will be hosting an immersive experience to learn, share, and celebrate Spring Festival traditions for whitelist opportunities to the 8888 NFT Collection.
Minting a Luckies NFT also provides buyers with membership to OF3’s Luckies community, which has a Road To Prosperity filled with bonuses and perks.
“For Luckies, foremost, our goal is to build a long-lasting community and brand that celebrates Asian culture. Secondly, we want to use Luckies as a vehicle to enable a broader community to be a part of the OddFutur3 journey and reward those for their support,” explained Lo. “By being a part of the Luckies community, the roadmap of benefits includes receiving Luckies airdrops for Mid-Autumn Festival, the chance to receive airdrops for all future OddFutur3 project launches, access to Luckies play-to-earn arcade, and much more.”
OF3 is also giving back through the NFT collection. A 1:1 mosaic art piece comprised of the 8,888 NFTs, designed by Chang, will be revealed eight days after a full sell-out. The piece will then be auctioned off, with all proceeds being donated to North American charitable organizations that support the heritage and history of Chinatown.
Two of the Luckies NFTs that become available when the 8,888 NFT collection from OddFutur3 drops in late February (OddFutur3 Submitted)
“Luckies is a project that celebrates Asian culture, which resonates with me deeply growing up as an Asian-American woman,” said Chang. “In our culture, 8 is a lucky number and represents fortune. And to me, red pockets mean prosperity, joy and gratitude.
“As an Asian American, I grew up with the tradition of celebrating Lunar New Year together with my family. My parents would always sit on the couch after dinner; we’d recite wishes of prosperity, good health and fortune and bow three times before receiving my red pocket. It’s a cultural tradition I hold close to and would like to continue sharing with generations to come.”
Chang explains that while there will be 8,888 unique Luckies available, the majority of the NFTs are algorithmically generated using her hand-drawn art.
Sophia Chang, Luckies NFT designer and illustrator (OddFutur3/Submitted)
“While most of them are generative art, there are some surprising 1:1 pieces that will be limited to some lucky collectors depending on which ones they will receive at random,” said Chang, who has worked with an extensive client list including Apple, Disney, Brooklyn Museum, and Nike.
“What I enjoy most about creating NFTs is that it’s a new art form. I’ve worked on a lot of types of canvases, but the utility and end product of working on an NFT project using generative art is totally new. OF3 works on a lot of exciting projects, and Luckies allowed me to dip my toes in the NFT space. Plus, I get to work with a great team at OddFutur3.”
Getting ready for an NFT drop next month is keeping OF3 busy. However, Lo said that his team is already preparing for the future.
“After we launch Luckies, our team at OF3 will be building as much as we can to support the Web3 ecosystem,” said Lo. “This specifically includes future NFT collections with some of your favourite brands, as well as continuing to build more value for the Luckies community.”
To learn more about the upcoming release, head to LuckiesNFTs.com
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