Outside is launching the first NFT marketplace aimed at getting people into the "Outerverse"
While I might go by Metaverse Morgan, to my friends, I'm usually known as the person who would rather be hiking or snow backpacking than just about anything else. Some people love playing sports, I love adventuring outdoors - I might not watch football...but I do watch backpacking videos on You Tube 🙋♂️
So when I saw that Outside was doing something in the NFT space, I was pretty excited, it's the combination of two of my biggest passions, NFTs and the great outdoors.
Outside is doing something very unique and different in the NFT space and since I'm so freaking excited about it, I thought I'd do a deeper dive into what they're doing since it really looks like the beginning of something special.
First things first, Outside's foray into NFTs lives on (no surprises here) Outside.io. And here's their mission statement ⬇️
We’re not jumping on a bandwagon. Rather we see NFTs as another useful piece of gear. Like any good piece of outdoor gear, an NFT should blend form and function. It should be beautiful and useful. That’s why we’re committed to embedding real-life benefits into every minting – perks that inspire you to get outside, connect you with community, and reward you for sharing your love of the planet.
At a high-level, Outside is looking at using NFTs as a way to get people to spend more time outside and celebrate the people who do. At the core of this is what Outside is calling their "Outerverse Ecosystem" which has three main components:
- NFT marketplace
- creator platform
- token
I'll break each of these down for you, or if you want to really do a deep dive, feel free to take a look at the Whitepaper.
NFT Marketplace
The first thing Outside is launching is their NFT marketplace, which they're positioning as a highly curated marketplace very different from the OpenSea's of the world - here's the skinny ⬇️
The first element of the Outerverse initiative will be the launch of our NFT marketplace at Outside.io. Today’s NFT marketplaces are awash in low-value offerings that provide no substantive benefits to their communities and don’t align with a sustainable future. As a value-driven organization that has earned a trusted reputation across more than 80 years of media innovation, we want to build a marketplace that exemplifies our values and delivers authentic experiences to our communities. Outside.io’s community will know that every NFT experience offered on the marketplace meets high standards of production, content and sustainability.
Along with building a marketplace for creators to share and sell their own NFTs, Outside will also be featuring their own NFTs offering things like event tickets that are coded to unlock rewards for activity or provide additional benefits at shows. They're also looking at making premium content available and access to exclusive meetups through their NFTs.
I think it's pretty cool that Outside decided to go beyond just making a standard ERC-1155 token like most brands have and instead decided to build a marketplace and ecosystem around what they're doing. Sure, there won't be as many eyeballs on Outside's marketplaces as OpenSea, but the eyeballs that are there probably are a lot more targeted.
The first NFT that Outside will be offering themselves is called the "Outerverse Passport" - here's a bit more about it ⬇️
The first NFT offered on Outside.io will be the Outerverse Passport, coming this summer. The Passport will be a unique generative digital collectible, artistically beautiful and individually numbered. The Passport will bestow multiple benefits on holders, including early access to select future NFT launches, special access to events and meet-ups, content and community benefits, and an exclusive multiplier to the incentives for being outdoors. We will continually add benefits to this NFT over the coming months and years, in order to ensure that our early community members are rewarded for supporting us from the start.
Creator Platform
Later this year Outside plans to launch a creator platform which they see as an entirely new publishing environment open to anyone, but with the goal of helping creators retain more of the revenue from their work.
I wish I could share more about what Outside is planning with the creator platform but they didn't go into too much depth in their Whitepaper. This is something that I'm personally really interested in as a content creator so I'll see if I can find out more, and if so either update this article or create a new article about it.
That being said, it's clear Outside is looking at creating a new way for outdoor enthusiasts to share what they're doing in the great Outdoors, and likely using NFTs as a core part of how they do it.
Outside Coin
Last on the list is Outside Coin which is slated to be released in late 2022 or early 2023. Since most things take longer than people think, I think 2023 is a much safer bet for this one.
The idea behind the coin is to reward people who spend time outside, exercise, engage with content, etc. It's a "participate to earn" model and the coins could be used to pay for premium content (i.e. Outdoor+) or invest in projects across the Outside ecosystem.
So that covers everything Outside is doing at a high-level, but there's one more topic that I think is important to cover - the environment and sustainability. It's no secret that Bitcoin and Ethereum don't earn any stripes for their impact on the environment. For this reason Outside has decided to focus on Solana which, and this was news to me, apparently uses the same energy as three Google searches per transaction.
On top of that, Outside is aiming to be 100% carbon neutral by offsetting the carbon emissions from their NFT transactions. Here's a bit more about what they're doing on the sustainability front ⬇️
In addition to choosing a low-impact blockchain for Outside.io, we are calculating and neutralizing 100% of the carbon emissions from our NFT transactions. We have retained a third-party expert to report on the Outerverse footprint, and we will share the numbers with our Outside.io community for full transparency. In advance of our first NFT drop, we have already neutralized far more carbon than our most optimistic transaction forecasts say we will produce. By purchasing 5,400 tons of carbon allowances on a respected government-regulated market, we have neutralized the equivalent of 30 rail cars of coal being burned. We will always be looking for new ways to meet this mission.
As you can tell - I'm pretty excited about what Outside is doing and am excited to be getting involved in the ecosystem as it's developing. I look forward to contributing to the community and yes, you can probably expect an update here on NFTInvesting.io as the Outerverse continues to develop!