Why we’ve started an NFT project and how it can benefit people

Michel Frissen
5 min readMar 24, 2022

You’ve been hearing a lot about NFT’s lately. I bet some of you are already getting tired of new projects shooting root, while others are still busy comprehending blockchain and crypto as a whole. In my opinion NFT’s are here to stay and will be implemented on different levels of society. As I will be sharing this article on LinkedIn and some of my connections there are completely fresh to NFT’s, I’ll explain brief what an NFT is. Or even better, I’ll let Forbes explain what an NFT is (if you already know this you can continue to the next paragraph).

Forbes about NFT’s
An NFT is a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.

NFT’s from the Quokka Life Collection

Before I tell you more about our NFT project Quokka Life I have to tell you a little bit about my background in relation to why we started this project. Coming into the wonderful world as a mixed kid has enabled me to experience two different cultures. This has enriched both my mind and soul from a cultural and a spiritual perspective. It has also given me a broad view on the various challenges we see today in terms of inequality. Having perspective on both sides of this spectrum (I talk about this more in my about on Medium) I can honestly say that people from color do often need to work harder to achieve the same things. This is not necessarily someones fault in current society or the land of the living today, I’m not finger pointing. My mother who happens to be white didn’t got things easy coming to her as well, I know. But… yes there is a but and it is undeniably true, from an economic point of view over the whole line people of color tent to have less of pretty much everything. Now if you look at how heavy Black culture has influenced Pop culture for instance, it is strange that things are still the way they are. Looking outside of western societies can even be more painful, seeing that a lot of people from color lack all sorts of basic needs to even begin with.

Growing up in Gouda and later Rotterdam, the Netherlands as a product myself of the Urban community, I’ve been really fortunate to maneuver myself into a position where I get to live of my creative skills. Sure I’ve had a fair amount of luck, but it has also been a combination of hard work, developing the right skills and mindset while building a beneficial network. Besides that I had to make a lot of mistakes and going to some pretty dark moments first before I build character. When speaking about this subject on a regular base with my wife (who happens to be of mixed race as well) and friends of color, we often ask ourselves “how can some people really thrive in life while the majority of people coming from Urban communities don’t”. We have come to the conclusion that while there are multiple causes to this, one thing is certain, without the right network or peers, know-how, character and/or mindset failure is just around the corner for pretty much everybody that is starting something.

Quokka Life is for everyone

Urban Inclusive Community

After I spoke about this with my friend Ricardo Lima Pires (who has longer been active setting up social projects that benefit people) we decided it was time to build bridges and create opportunities for people coming from the Urban inclusive community (we chose to address it as Urban inclusive on purpose because there are lots of people that are not necessarily of color who underline these challenges, are interested in Urban culture, really want to contribute or might see Quokka Life just as a great investment opportunity). Ok awesome, but what do NFT’s have to do with this I hear you ask yourself? Great question! NFT’s and blockchain technology provide the perfect structure to facilitate our project.

  1. We can fund our company through the NFT Sales
  2. We can already create a community while doing so
  3. We can give our NFT holders privileges and specific benefits
More than NFT’s

Going back and forth for a while we have now created a really cool NFT collection called Quokka Life. We’ve chosen for the Quokka because it is a positive and cool looking animal, once discovered by a Dutch explorer on Rottnest Island. Our goal is to create a lifestyle brand and sustainable ecosystem behind it to setup projects that can contribute continuously to the Urban inclusive community. We will therefor donate 15% from all of our profits to Urban inclusive projects and 5% to wildlife projects. This also applies to the revenue of the initial NFT sale and secondary market provision we’ll receive in the future. Our NFT holders will get the following benefits:

  • Voting right(s) to determine to which projects we will donate
  • Discount on all of our products as long as they are holding our NFT
  • Early access to exclusive sales and new products
  • Exclusive access to on- and offline events & programs

Our first product line will be a really cool Streetwear fashion collection, to empower people and help us gain more visibility. Therefor Xander Franklin who has a lot of experience in fashion and retail, specifically in mid- & high-end streetwear, joined our team as the fashion director. Fashion will be our starting point, but we want more. Gamification, media, animation, Metaverse, more NFT collections with other animals? We go where our community inspires us to go, one solid step at a time. We kindly invite people from all backgrounds and cultures to support our project. You are welcome as a contributor, early (NFT) investor or just to connect with people from our community.

Project overview & official links

7,000 Quokka NFT’s | 340+ custom designed traits | Polygon blockchain | Mint Date: T.B.A. | Mint price: Early Presale 50 Matic, Presale 60 Matic, Public Sale 80 Matic |

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Michel Frissen

✦ Creative Entrepreneur ✦ Spiritual Soul Searcher ✦ Thinker ✦ Do-er ✦ Husband & Father ✦ Love-Joy-Health-Happiness ✦ Founder & artist of Quokka Life NFT