We are now only one day away from one of the most highly anticipated events within the booming sector of non-fungible tokens and digital art so far when the remaining membership tokens for the NFT creation and distribution platform Ether Cards will go on public sale.
Final countdown 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Main sale starting tomorrow, March 18th!
Did you know…? Every #EtherCards Common card has the chance to upgrade to an Alpha or OG 🔥🔥🔥
OG’s sold for 40 ETH in the presale… pic.twitter.com/fookZSVmyQ
— Galaxis (@Galaxisxyz) March 17, 2021
NFTs with a Twist
Ether Cards membership tokens will of course be NFTs themselves. Besides exclusive artworks from several of the world’s most popular digital artists, Ether Cards can have special utility traits assigned to them at random, which give their owner certain benefits such as fee reductions or free access when using the platform. The rarest and likely most valuable ones will be two cards with a royalty trait, one granting the owner 1% of all smart contract fees collected by the platform and one granting the owner 1% of tomorrow’s NFT sale proceeds.
The website of Ether Cards state that the trait system is a “work in progress”, meaning that they may add new traits at a later date. Earlier, their website mentioned that there would also be negative traits, for example, one that refers to Bitcoin SV founder Craig S. Wright. Originally, Ether Cards jokingly planned that two cards with this trait should have never been able to coexist in the same wallet, otherwise they would “sue themselves into oblivion” and both get destroyed in the process. It however seems like the trait has been removed for the public sale.
From Plastic Cards to Digital Art
Ether Cards started out in 2016 as a manufacturer of plastic Ethereum wallets, which had their address printed on them as a QR-code and the private key hidden underneath a scratch-off field. These plastic wallets were often used for giveaways at conventions and blockchain conferences and were fully customizable to have a company logo or some artwork printed on the surface.
In the last year, the company pivoted to service the nascent field of digital art instead by creating a platform to add gamification to the process of creating, distributing, and selling NFTs. Creators who distribute their NFTs through the platform can also add traits to their cards, which may then be used on Ether Cards on a limited scale until the traits expire, or on other platforms. The cards distributed in the public sale will keep their traits forever though.
In the future, Ether Cards plans to move to a layer 2 solution. This will both help artists out with the rising gas fees on Ethereum and can potentially speed up the adoption of Ethereum’s scaling solutions by being the first project to bring NFTs to the second layer.
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
The public sale will start on March 18th, 2021 at exactly 9 AM EST. Turning up on time is the key since Ether Cards will follow an increasing price curve. In an earlier pre-sale, all available cards sold out earning Ether Cards a total of 2,074 ETH (~3.6 million USD). In the pre-sale common tier cards were sold at a price of 1 ETH, so early buyers are in for a bargain when the first cards start selling tomorrow for a price of 0.3 ETH.
The price increases with the number of cards sold and the common tier will reach its maximum price at 5 ETH. On top of the common tier, there are Alpha cards which cost between 5 and 25 ETH, and OG cards which cost between 30 and 55 ETH.
