Judging from the turnout at the first town hall organized by the new team, it looks like Fame Lady Squad might get a happy ending despite getting embroiled in a grand controversy. The new team hosted an AMA on Discord to address the community’s major concerns and discuss plans.
The town hall marks new beginnings for the project; following the epic saga of actual women taking over the collection from the russian male developers pretending to be women. Yes, it sounds like a Netflix plot but, unfortunately, it happened for real.
The original team marketed the 8,888 NFTs under the guise of women empowerment and raised over $1.5 Million. There were meant to be three women behind it – Cindy and Andrea, allegedly a developer and marketer from the US and the Norwegian artist and “ideologist” Kendra. However, all were later revealed to be Russian men, according to NFT enthusiast and fellow Russian Fedor Linnik.
New Team, New Beginning
The Fame Lady town hall was hosted by Ashley Smith (@iamboredbecky), Danielle Davis (@NFTignition) and Saul (@DataLady). According to Smith, they are not the new owners; rather, they are the “stewards of the project.”
How so? Well, the turn of events looked like a scriptwriter wrote it. Apparently, Smith, Davis and others set up a Discord channel for the Fame Lady Squad and encouraged the rest of the community to come together and decide as a group. Smith became the Mockingjay of some sort against the Fame Lady Scheme. She recounts, “I woke up one morning to the contract in my personal wallet.”
Since then, the three have been appointed by the community as the primary custodian. They have also been leading the way in terms of building the transition team. So the town hall is the first of many initiatives of the group to pivot the project.
Recounting the townhall: Securing the Contract and IPs
Smith opened the floor by affirming that the common bond between the attendees is that they got into the project with such good intentions. She shared that she is personally invested in the project since it is the first project she minted on Day 1. Like everyone else, she fell in love with the narrative of empowering women. So now, the challenge for the community is “carrying that legacy moving forward.”
She also acknowledged that everyone in the space is familiar with the story and the scandal. Yes, there are challenges but in hindsight, it “creates excitement about the project.” Plus, it definitely can be a source of many lessons, particularly in doing diligence. Ultimately, the team is ready to move forward.
Meanwhile, Davis shared that the priority for the past 5-6 days has been securing the smart contract and sorting out the IPs. The team is still deciding whether to change the name or to rebrand completely. One consideration of course, is that the name “Fame Lady Squad” is currently equated with the controversy. On the other hand, the name also perfectly encapsulates the project’s which is story and narrative.
The community agrees with the team that they should approach rebranding with caution. After all, it will dictate and influence the website, Twitter handles and press materials. The goal is to avoid any possibility of the other team coming back and wanting a piece of the project once it becomes successful. For now, the Phoenix project have changed the FLS Twitter handle to @fame_ladies.
They also reassured the community that while IPs are still in the gray area, it should not be a cause of concern. This is because the token holder owns the actual IP of the individual token. So all of the community members own the IP. The concerns are more about the IP of the name, logo and the overall concept. That’s why the team is discussing rebranding heavily.
Project Phoenix: Challenges and Reception
According to Davis, they don’t have a roadmap yet, but the next month’s priorities are clear. They are not in a rush to release a roadmap for the sake of releasing one. However, they confirmed that the focus would be on community-building, utility and woman empowerment. She also noted that most NFT projects only cover the next 12 months and plan to shy away from that. Instead, the focus is to create “long-term sustainable non-hype growth.”
Several community members also shared their thoughts about the project. User @CryptoHydrate said,” Love what I’m seeing. Keeping this alive is hard to do. Making a bad situation better.. Thanks for doing it. It’s gonna pay off. We have a vibrant community.” User @wittykitty added that she’s watching from the sidelines and she got her “pom-poms up for everybody.”
One community member also asked if it’s possible to rerun contests to engage the community further. Saul answered this with great transparency saying that they would love to. However, it might be challenging because they don’t have money from the first minting. Additionally, they don’t have many Fame Lady NFTs to give away. He also assured the community that they would definitely try to find a workaround.
The community didn’t just offer words of support. During the AMA, NFT holders also pledged their support in terms of marketing the event. User @ShowmeyourNFT shared that he is sure that the project is “going to blow up.” In fact, he has been blasting it through his own networks and has been getting good attention and feedback. He promised to continue blasting to everyone and explore possibilities of releasing derivative works about the project.
The Future Plans of the Phoenix Project
Clearly, the community is working to change the narrative associated with Fame Lady Squad. Instead of the controversy, they want to create a story of how an entire community did not abandon the project despite the challenges. Undoubtedly, the hook of the project is its story of bringing women empowerment. If the team can successfully recover and rise above the present situation, then they can add resiliency and triumph against adversities to their backstory.
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