Three roller derby athletes tried to use NFTs to give back to their community. However, the backlash they faced shows that the roller derby community isn’t ready for NFTs.
The three roller derby athletes – Lady Trample (Samara Pepperell), Miss Tea Maven (Jennifer Dean), and Sharon Tacos (Cailin Klein) – tried to create a meaningful NFT project. Their project, ’Bout Time NFTTT, consisted of 10,000 NFTs, which featured unique, roller derby-related artwork.
The athletes announced the project on March 9 via an Instagram live. The collection, complete with social media accounts and a Discord channel, was supposed to drop on March 31. Klein, Pepperell and Dean said 50 per cent of the sales would go to roller derby leagues, and another 5 per cent would go to offset the environmental costs used to mint the NFTs. The three athletes would take the rest. However, priced at $25 each, the project was far from a lucrative initiative.
Backlash from the roller derby community
As soon as they launched it, Klein, Pepperell and Dean received hundreds of comments from their supporters. Most of it was negative feedback, claiming the three were scammers and promoting a project that harmed the environment.
Pepperell said, “If this community doesn’t want us to run this project, then we’re not going to do this project for them. The whole reason was to raise money for the derby community, and they so strongly spoke out against us.”
As a result, the three athletes had to pull the plug on their NFT project. It is indeed a pity, especially as it could have greatly benefited the community. In fact, NFT projects such as the Naomi Osaka NFT are being used to raise awareness, rather than to make a profit.
All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
