NFTs as a Force for Good: The Case of the Savvy Salamanders

People have long sought out rare physical objects, such as paintings, trading cards and memorabilia. Recent innovations in blockchain technology have made it possible for people to exclusively own and trade unique tokens that represent ownership of digital assets such as images and text files, known as non-fungible tokens or NFTs.

While NFTs have been around for a while, they weren’t well understood until they exploded into the mainstream last year, when a digital works of art were sold at auction house Christie’s to 69.3 million dollars. By the end of 2021, USD 40.9 billion had been spent on NFTs. In comparison global art market was worth $50.1 billion.

NFTs now extend well beyond the art world and can give owners ownership of music, real estate and videos or access to members-only events or clubs. Not limited to ownership and trade, these digital goods provide solutions to problems surrounding the traditional exchange of goods and services. For example, NFT concert tickets stored on a blockchain are easily authenticated and can thus eliminate counterfeiting, scalping and illegal resale.

Inspired by this rapidly developing trend, a group of INSEAD MBA students developed one of the first NFT collections at a business school.

The Savvy Salamander Study Club (SSSC) was launched in 2021 to build and bring together INSEAD’s network of crypto-focused alumni. This group of MBA students* (including myself, Aditya Rane) turned the school’s famous green salamander mascot into the face of an innovative NFT campaign where 100 percent of net sales go towards scholarships and development of the club.

The salamander NFTs further work as a token of membership providing access to members-only events and networks. The idea is to build a community of crypto pioneers as well as a unique approach to fundraising.

We outline how we did it and what we learned along the way.

 Choosing the right marketplace

In the e-commerce world, there are preferred marketplaces for certain items – such as eBay for collectibles or Etsy for handmade items. Similarly, choosing the right NFT marketplace depends on the type of NFT, as well as a combination of economics (royalties and commissions) and features that you want to build into the NFT.

In our case, we launched our NFTs relatively early, at a time when many of the major marketplaces were still under active development. We were torn between three popular marketplaces: Rarible, Crypto.com and OpenSea.

Crypto.com made the introduction of new buyers extremely easy and allowed them to buy NFTs with credit cards. While this made it easier for users and involved lower transaction fees, it meant that the NFTs were not hosted on the popular Ethereum blockchain and were instead confined to Crypto.com’s own blockchain (easy to use “bridges” between the two chains is now available but wasn’t then). Ethereum compatibility means that NFT buyers have the flexibility to withdraw their NFTs or move them to another Ethereum-compatible NFT marketplace such as OpenSea.

With Rarible we felt the marketplace was more focused on art and “1 of 1” NFTs (one-of-a-kind) unlike the generative collectibles series we had developed. Given how quickly things change in the metaverse, we chose the track record and success of OpenSea.

OpenSea supports the Ethereum blockchain and has a simple design that allows users to buy and sell assets. We were attracted by OpenSea’s support levels, security and success in executing previous generative collectibles such as BAYC. However, we had to accept the trade-off – our buyers would incur higher transaction fees given the popularity and traffic of the Ethereum blockchain.

Emboss NFTs 

Minting NFTs, in the simplest sense, is publishing the digital file on the blockchain to make it a purchasable digital asset. When embossing the salamander NFTs, we had to ensure that we create the digital file in the exact format preferred by the host platform. By adding more data points such as name, description, price and other metadata, we ensured that our NFTs are indexable and can be easily located and distinguished from other NFTs. Although the process itself is simple, a crypto wallet containing cryptocurrency is required to cover the costs.

Building a community of crypto pioneers

We quickly realized that users who were not as crypto-savvy were struggling. After consulting with INSEAD professors and digital experts, we were advised to provide training to new buyers to bring them up to speed.

We created a “how to” manual that broke down each step of the process, from creating a crypto wallet to buying an NFT. We had to spend more time educating our community than growing it, as for many this was their first foray into the crypto world. This resulted in a lot richer experience as we helped users learn to operate in the world of the metaverse while championing INSEAD NFTs as a force for good.

Go slow to go fast 

As management students who live by the “move fast and break things” ideology, we focused on getting things done. In retrospect, we recognized that going slow was sometimes the smarter choice, considering that platforms in crypto are still early in nature. After we moved forward with hosting the NFTs, we realized that we needed to add metadata to differentiate our NFTs and make them stand out from the crowd.

In the Web2 world this feature would have been easy to implement and almost universally available, but in the Web3 world it was not. This meant we were either forced to delay the launch or expect a large multi-million dollar platform to provide support on short notice. In the end, we bought time by pushing the NFT (digital release) forward and managed to add the missing attributes using OpenSea.

Keep the top well in sight 

Sometimes it felt like we were moving in circles and it was difficult to find time for this ambitious leisure activity. However, we were driven by a greater purpose – to help future INSEADers gain access to world-class education regardless of their financial situation. This played an important role in keeping the flame alive.

After a successful launch in June this year, we are now working towards our next NFT drop Savvy Salamanders in December. We look forward to expanding and increasing engagement with our alumni and helping to position INSEAD as the business school of the world – and possibly even the metaverse.

The Savvy Salamander Study Club was launched by Ferdinand Issels, Michelle Yu, Joning Lee, Jack Ni and Rodrigo Perez Antolin. For further information please contact Junting He and Aditya Rane who are leading the next phase of SSSC at [email protected].

The project was supported by Pascale Balze, [email protected]; Sandra El Dakkak, [email protected]Holman Chin, Managing Director of Campaign and Advancement at INSEAD; and Peter Zemsky, Vice Dean for Innovation, Eli Lilly Chaired Professor of Strategy and Innovation at INSEAD.

Are you an MBA student interested in participating in our NFT for Good competition? Assemble your perfect team to solve a real product problem. Register here.