Collectible Corner: Cool Cats
Collectible Corner: Cool Cats
From Cool Cats to Global Cats, who are they and why are they one of the best collections in the NFT scene!
Cool Cats have skyrocketed to the top of the NFT scene, renowned for their simple and cartoony design, collectors from across the board have shown their support for the project making them one of the most sought-after collections across the entire NFT space. Unlike other randomly generated NFT collectible projects, Cool Cat’s ethos aligns with the community and is centric on building a project that is informed by the people. If you’re living under a rock- no, not you cool cat! Let me explain to you exactly what the collection is about and why it should be at the top of your list!
The Top Cats
Who are the team? The fantastic four are comprised of Clon, Tom, Lynq, and Elu. All of whom contributed to the creation and birth of the Cool Cats that we know today! Each team member is equipped with their own individual superpower! Clon is responsible for the illustrations, Tom is the technical expert, Lynq is the developer and Elu is the marketing and project manager. Combine the four and you have a sell-out collection! However, it wasn’t always so straightforward, initially, Tom and Lynq were working on their own project, ‘Faticorns’. Meanwhile, Clon and Elu were also curating their own NFT project. Nonetheless, fate aligned, and the four united, a dream team that would go on to sell out a 9,999 collection.
Who are they?
So what are the Cool Cats? They are a programmatically and randomly generated NFT, engineered and created to exhibit the perfect ratio of coolness and cuteness. There are 300k potential combination of traits, so you can be sure to receive a unique and individual cat with their very own awesome style! With properties including a body, hat, face, and outfit, each cat is cool, but there are levels to coolness. Allow me to explain! The cat that you own will be ranked by a point, the point that your cat receives is reflective of the items that your cat holds. The rarer the items on your cat, the higher the point! Furthermore, your cat will fall into a category ranging between cool, wild, classy, and exotic, With each category, there is an increase in rarity and a decrease in number! If you collect a full outfit cat, you’re in luck! These cats are the rarest of them all!
What do they offer?
Cool Cats have a number of plans lined up for the future already, including a virtual Cool Cat world, breeding, merch, and collaborations. But where do you go to hear about them? Make sure to attend the Cool Cats town hall meetings and you will receive updates on their various plans of action. Voice your questions, concerns, or ideas and they will be brought to the team’s attention! The extent to which Cool Cat’s are enabling the community to collaborate is unrivaled within the collectible scene. In essence, holders are helping to guide and direct the future of the project by the team’s side, and perhaps this is why the community is so strong. In addition to this, Cool Cats are giving back 20% of all ETH raised to the community (through contests, raffles, and more). With rewards, utility, and interaction at the forefront of their project, Cool Cats are leading the way for collections in the NFT scene. Many holders have Cool Cats as their first-ever NFT purchase, this is indicative of how strong and reliable the project is. Cool Cats are fun, appealing, and interactive, therefore it is no surprise that they are succeeding.
Their support!
If you have been sat wondering who has joined the Cool Cat community, look no further than @farokh. Farokh is an NFT enthusiast and avid collector with a passion for community building. Most importantly, he introduced Cool Cats to @KeithGrossman, the president of the acclaimed TIME magazine. Both Cool Cats and Time have collaborated to release 400 images across four different images, each of which is the team’s own cats! To win these exclusive and historical NFTs, a meme competition was established where 8 winners were chosen while the remaining 392 were rewarded to Cool Cat owners via a raffle! Cool Cats have also collaborated with Ghxts, whereby Clon and GxngYxng designed a piece that juxtaposed coolness with fire. The design was airdropped to Cool Cat holders in addition to an auction that saw proceeds go to charity. This was an exciting glimpse into what the Cool Cats have to offer with their collaborations, and we should expect some even bigger announcements in the near future.
Future Cat ideas
Not only are Cool Cats bringing positivity into the NFT space, they are also actively educating, with plans to further this with their Paper Cats project. It is no secret that NFTs and cryptocurrencies are difficult to understand upon the first read. A lack of education may even deter people from wanting to involve themselves and participate in the space. This is unhospitable, and new methods are required to grow the space for the better. Cool Cats are looking to translate the ambiguities and difficulties into layman terms, while producing family-friendly content and thus enabling more people to get involved in the NFT space! Something that is wholly desired and needed in a world of amazing chaos.
Cool Cats have now surpassed a 3.5 ETH floor and are continuing to gain traction each passing day. so, like many have said before, we like the Cool Cats!
Check out our interview below where @xtremetom and I discuss everything Cool Cats. If you want to find out their plans for the collection, behind the scene information, and exclusive reveals, I would advise that you read on below!
How did the cool cats team come together and what is the story behind its creation?
Lynq and I were working on another project called Faticorns when we were approached by Clon and Evan. They saw that we had already launched an NFT and were in need of so dev help.
The project they approached us with wasn't Cool Cats, that came later.
Initially Lynq and I said - sorry we don't have the time to work on another project. However, we felt sorry for them having all the art but no dev team, so we offered to help. At the time they were only asking for a hand on putting the website layout together and Lynq smashed it out for them in an evening.
Later on, I suggested that we work together on a brand new NFT, they could supply the art and design and Lynq and I could supply the code. After some back and forth we settled on Cool Cats.
With over 4000 cool cat holders, what plans do you have for the community and did you ever expect to reach such heights?
Sadly I can not talk about our future plans too much. But I can say that we are building out a virtual world. Somewhere for all the Cool Cats and characters of the Cool Cats universe to live.
As for expectations, I certainly never expected Cool Cats to explode like this. Crazy to think that 9999 cats is all it takes to have Keith Grossman (President of TIME) to slide into your inbox. Watching the holder number grow and seeing some of the people buying Cool Cats, like Devin Finzer, blows my mind.
How did the collaboration with Time Magazine materialise and why did cool cats decide to pursue this opportunity?
Cool Cats has many passionate members and one extremely devoted cat that helps fuel some crazy positive vibes throughout the whole NFT space is Farokh. He introduced Keith to Cool Cats.
As to why. TIME is a household name and a well respected brand. Teaming up with TIME is a huge step forward for Cool Cats and NFTs as a whole. It is another step towards validating NFTs and helping to establish mainstream adoption.
All that being said, I was sold on the pure energy and positivity exuded by Keith and his team. I love seeing people that are passionate about their work.
What are your plans for Gen 2 breeding in the future, how will this function and can you elaborate on the potential process?
Breeding is an extremely complicated topic. We have to be very careful with our implementation. It has the power to moon Cool Cats or tank us.
We are currently asking the community what features they would like to see implemented and what they would hate. Nothing will be created without the community's approval.
There is also a hidden aspect to breeding that we can not yet discuss and it will have a huge effect on the whole process. More news on that in the future.
Your weekly Town Hall meetings provide a hub for updates on your project and interaction with the fans, could you explain more about your vision and goals for this idea?
The weekly Town Halls give us an opportunity to connect with members of the community that can not be present for small and impromptu updates and meetings. This is extremely important as it allows us to inform the community about Cool Cats, take questions and hear any concerns.
I would personally hate Cool Cats to become an echo chamber fueled only by the immediate community in discord. As such we hold Town Halls on both discord and Twitter spaces.
Twitter spaces exposes us to the wider NFT community and provides an opportunity for non Cool Cats to step in and voice any concerns or issues they may have. We can then address said issues and hopefully strengthen our overall standing.
You are continuing the theme of simplicity in your upcoming launch of paper cats, an open source and infinite supply NFT which will offer tutorials for users, helping them to understand the basics of NFTs. What inspired you to initiate this project and do you see your brand pursuing educative tools further?
In all honesty the idea was seeded by the Cool Cats community during a spur of the moment idea session on our discord, so full credit goes to the community. We simply took the idea and ran with it.
The trigger for Paper Cats was a discussion about issues people were seeing in new NFT launches; in their code, execution and average Joe Bloggs being priced out. All in all, the NFT environment is becoming very inhospitable. The conversation quickly turned to methods to help new people and Paper Cats was born.
We certainly see a plethora of educational tools being born from Paper Cats and we have already started to partner with various companies in an effort to expand the initiative.
Can you tell us more about your collaboration with Ghxsts? On the surface this was the perfect antithesis! What was the behind the scenes of the design process and how did you confirm the final design?
The design process was all between Clon and GxngYxng. I believe they were vibing in private chat. I personally didnt see any of the art process, just a few variations of the final pieces, which as i’m sure you have seen, were amazing.The -1 Cxxl Cxt was GxngYxng’s idea. At the time there were a few heated discussions in the Cool Cats discord. We have a lot of holders that are new to NFTs and people were confused about airdrops and the expectation was that everyone would receive a piece. Luckily , GxngYxng proposed we drop a -1 Cxxl Cxt to every holding wallet. We loved this idea. There are of course pros and cons to this approach but we felt full inclusion was a really nice solution.
What is your take on projects that have preceded cool cats and have exhibited striking similarities?
I personally have no issue with projects that give a nod to Cool Cats and include some form of tribute. I don't agree with projects simply copy pasting any of our artwork into their project or deriving pieces directly from our original pieces. Unless they are a 1 of 1 commissioned piece.
Sadly, with every successful project there will be copy cats looking to earn from that success. Luckily Openseas is pretty good and removes the worst offenders.
Buying into a copycat project is extremely risky. NFTs and crypto are riskier than standard investments, but low effort copy projects carry a high risk of being banned on Openseas without warning. It doesn't matter how old a copy project is. The IP owner could get a project removed with a DMCA takedown at any time or take more direct legal action.
Your production and execution of the marketing was top notch right from the beginning, how were you able to perform at such high quality?
Personally, I think the Cool Cats are so unique in the NFT space that they naturally caught people’s attention. I have heard so many stories of flippers looking at Cats to flip, but their other half sees the cats on the screen and asks to be bought one. A ton of people have a Cool Cat as their very first NFT. That is an extremely organic and powerful marketing tool.
You have amassed support from young children to older adults, did you have a demographic in mind before beginning and can you tell us more about how you plan to market the cats for the future?
When creating Cool Cats I remember being sat in a design meeting, Clon and Evan were discussing cool vs cute in relation to a venn diagram. They settled on the cats looking cooler than cute, by a 60/40 split.
In terms of demographic, we never really had anything specific in mind, just a more holistic approach. Keep everything family friendly and cool. We all wanted a project that we could be proud to show to our friends and family.
Future plans are tough for me to answer right now. I think it's safer for me to talk about our hopes for the future. Those hopes look like plushies, books, animated series, games and a host of educational tools featuring Cool Cats. Whether or not those hopes are already being worked, I can not confirm or deny.
Hey there! Hope you’re feeling cool after this article, you may also have a newfound love for cats! This project has to be one of the best for me, I love the aesthetic, I love the team and most importantly it has an engaging community. If you want to find out more about the collection, check out their Twitter here! @coolcatsnft As for me, don’t forget to let me know who you would like to see next!