Original Placement:
Today’s Cardano NFT project is a veteran in this space and is building a gamified multimedia ecosystem inspired by the manga and anime world: Danketsu.
The previous guest was a project that needs no introduction, but for those living under a rock, we had the pleasure to engage with our beloved doggo meme token.
This column is where I invite NFT projects to share their stories and vision as a way to connect with and learn about the Cardano Community.
Hey, awesome to have you back on our column. Tell us some news since our previous interview. What have you achieved and where are you heading?
It’s always a pleasure chatting to you!
A lot has happened of course. Our Danketsu Hustle gamification platform has turned into a game, it’s now running on 2 chains, and also servicing multiple projects.
We’ve expanded significantly, in terms of what we were doing in 2023, particularly with the recent toy deal.
Signing partnerships left, right and centre, related directly to the toys, and also indirectly. It’s really exciting and pushes the ecosystem and the industry forward as a whole.
Tell us more about your recent toy deal. What synergies do you envision between NFTs, physical collectables and IP (intellectual property)?
Look, it has been incredible, I’ll be honest, this has been the basis of Danketsu from the very beginning — taking Cardano and Web 3 to the mainstream through multimedia and physicals.
We’re now partnered with the largest retailer for apparel and toys in North America, and together we’re building out our 2 mascots Bobo and Shroomy, which will hit the online store very soon.
It still hasn’t hit me that Danketsu will sit next to global brands like NASA, Disney, Marvel, Rick N Morty, Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, amongst others. And possibly literally sit next to them on the shelves at Walmart, Costco, or Target. Perhaps, it will once we go live…
Each plushie will come with a QR code that you can use to mint a free NFT, along with this though, each one will have educational content about the blockchain and how to get involved.
On the Cardano side, we’ve partnered with NMKR to use their new wallet functionality, where you can scan the QR code, mint an NFT, and it stores it in your wallet, without having to worry about anything else, which is ideal for a newbie.
We have a similar set up on the Polygon side, with our friends at Komet. They have a sweet existing Gmail connect wallet set up.
On top of all of this, we have a couple of major announcements remaining that will enable us to enter the “impact” space through the sale of these toys, which we’ll be sharing more about.
One of the most important things for us was to make sure that our existing holders are also rewarded in the most beneficial and legally viable way possible. This is why we’ve given IP and commercial rights to the holders of the NFTs, and now for any NFT that becomes a phygital item and goes to retail, the holder of that NFT will get a share of the royalties from the sales of the items.
You initially launched on Cardano as ADA NinjaZ. After the rebranding to Danketsu, you’ve also expanded to Polygon.
Can you walk us through your strategy? What have been the ups and downs?
To be honest, there hasn’t been a lot of downside to it, in my opinion. We expanded to another chain that had a strong non-Web 3 presence, because we wanted to work towards a larger non-Web 3 deal, which will enable us to integrate what we’ve done with community engagement/interaction and blockchain with traditional markets.
Polygon has provided us with that avenue. And it has been great. We’ve seen over 100 first-time users come over to buy Danketsu NFTs on Cardano, and over 300 expand to Polygon.
That’s a win for both chains too. The only challenge was the initial negativity and hate we received when we made the announcement.
Of course, since then, it has become normal for projects to expand to other chains, as we see interoperability becoming more commonplace.
I’m not saying we’re setting trends, but you know (wink).
What does the future hold for Danketsu? What details can you share about your roadmap?
At Danketsu, we want to become the Web 3 multimedia powerhouse. That’s been our goal from day 1. Providing on-chain interaction to develop further multimedia deliverables, be it in the form of toys, books, comics, music, gaming or animation.
From a more micro point of view, our key goal in the near term is to see Danketsu plushies in major retailers, first in North America, and then globally.
Following that we will work with our partners, to create figurines and get them into specialty stores, followed by our comics, expanding our music and then of course an animated series.
Concurrently, we will grow our Danketsu Hustle game, both as a White label SaaS product and also a text-based game. There are a lot of partnerships with Oracles and other blockchains that we are working on, which will enable the game to be accessible by multiple projects and collections on multiple chains.
Awesome contribution. Any closing words? Where can people follow you?
Thank you for having us again! Also, a huge shout-out to you for being a big supporter of our project for a very long time.
Head on over to X, and type in DanketsuNFT, we’re hard to miss (I can’t seem to get my hands on that pesky @Danketsu handle, someone who hasn’t used the account in 9 years, seems to have it haha.
Or just come by the Discord!
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.