'Burly Bears' NFT Release From Renown Digital Artist Diablo Offers Visionary Collectors Long Term Value And Positive Environmental Impact

NEW YORK, Nov. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Burly Bears is an innovative NFT project that aims to eliminate the stigma that NFTs are a net-negative for the environment. Well-known NFT artist Diablo has created hand drawn digital artwork, generating 6,601 bears representing six endangered species. The offering is designed to build long term value for this unique collection while also donating to specific charitable organizations, thereby actively helping to save these bears.

There are eight species of bears in the world, six of which are endangered: the Gobi, Spirit, Sun, Panda, Spectacled, and Polar bears. Deforestation and mining of minerals have accelerated the destruction of our Earth's beautiful forests and deserts. The Gobi bear, for example, is named for its hot habitat in the Gobi Desert which has been destroyed through the extraction of the area's natural resources. As little as 24 remain on the planet.

Noah Weinberg, the creator of this project, loves the environment and computers, two communities which have been quarreling over the environmental impact of NFTs during the past year. When Weinberg was interning for the United Nations through the UN's Development Program, he leveraged his coding skills to learn how visual data within their Ocean Innovation Challenge can better be used to decide where funding should go for new approaches to ocean and coastal restoration. Weinberg became interested in NFTs in 2021 and wondered how he could utilize this platform to positively impact the environment.

As shown on the Burly Bears roadmap, 20% of all Burly Bear sales will be distributed to a public charity wallet of six identified charities, each focusing on saving one of the six species. A portion of the proceeds from secondary sales will also be donated, thereby providing ongoing support working to protect the bears. All donation details will be shared transparently with the community.

A minter of a Burly Bear will receive much more than just the NFT. 2 days after launch and a successful sell-out, each wallet holding a bear will be able to claim a cub cave. Those holding a Burly Bear NFT for 10 days after the Public Sale, thereby completing the "hibernation period,'' will be automatically entered into the real-life reward giveaways: 8 hibernation holders will win the National Geographic Adventure trip or the Voyage to the Great Bear Rainforest experience, each of which are designed as supervised encounters with the elusive Spirit Bear in its natural habitat. These trips have a value of over $5,000 each. One holder will win the main prize: the Rivian R1S with the Explore Package, an electric vehicle best equipped for sustainable nature exploration, a $70,000 value.

Each bear will have unique attributes and accessory pieces honoring the people of the regions represented by these six at-risk bears. The Spirit bear, for example, dons a sacred headdress from the First Nations tribes of Canada.

While many NFT projects struggle with people looking to make a quick buck by flipping freshly minted pieces for money, Burly Bears creates incentives to stay in the community and contribute to helping increase the value of each NFT which, in turn, leads to more donations to help save the bear's natural habitats.

Presale access will be given to the most active Discord community members, of which there are over 2,100 currently. Each eligible presale wallet can mint a maximum of 2 bears prior to the public sale, which also limits wallets to six bears per wallet.

People on the internet who are vocally against NFTs commonly use the same four arguments to voice their grievances. The most commonly used argument is that NFTs are drastically harming the environment. Each transaction on the blockchain requires gas to be used to mine tokens or coins that authenticate and forever prove transactions and ownership, which has legitimate environmental effects. The second is that NFTs are useless and there's not a real point to buying a label that says that you own the original of a digital file on the internet. What is the point of spending sometimes thousands of dollars on the bragging rights to a very niche and specific piece of art when anyone else can just go and save the image in the same quality as the person who spent money on it? The third mentioned point is that NFTs are a money laundering scam; it is hard for people to wrap their minds around why a .JPEG of a monkey with a hat would be worth 10x their annual salary, so their explanation is that the buying and selling of NFTs are a way for people with a lot of money to move their assets without being as easily noticed, due to the nature and anonymity of cryptocurrency. The final reason for why someone would be against NFTs is that there is no real world application or point to buying something like an NFT. Our internet isn't at the level yet where NFTs have a practical purpose or use case, and most NFT projects don't give the person who buys one anything in addition to the ownership proof and access to a community of other owners.

There are a few projects that have aimed to mitigate these issues or provide solutions that give their buyers peace of mind. For example, a project might be doing something to help the environment, but still doesn't give its owners a real-world use or point. Or, maybe a project has a really cool use case, but fails to provide a way for its buyers to feel okay about how the environment has been harmed. No NFT project has been able to fully put to rest all four of these common issues until Burly Bears. Burly Bears quiets NFT critics by: 1) compensating for its environmental impact by donating profits to specific charities that will provide help to save bears 2) providing a reason to hold a Burly Bear NFT since the longer you hold the more rewards and other NFTs you become eligible for 3) fully and transparently showing how its project creators are using profits and how they are sticking to the roadmap without fear of rug-pulling through the use of a public wallet, showing where the donations are going 4) creating a community that lives more offline in the real world with meetups and exploration outings, while also having an active home base on Discord. Not one project has been able to achieve a full-score that satisfies the average NFT skeptic, until Burly Bears.

Weinberg believes balancing several key elements in NFT offerings is determining which projects are successful. "Buyers want to feel a connection to the art and to the community that they are investing their time and money into. They are interested in holding a valuable collectible work that will not just appreciate in value but also provide a unique utility long-term. Holders like to show they are early adopters and astute visionaries and, if possible, having a positive impact."

Those interested in this project should visit the Burly Bears site, http://www.BurlyBears.io. Collectors can also join the "Den" which is the Burly Bears discord community, (http://discord.gg/burlybears)

SOURCE Burly Bears NFT