Kevin Roses PROOF acquires Ethereum NFT Team Divergence

april sin hot Moonbirds NFT drop elevated PROOF to one of Web3his most lively projects, and now the Kevin Rose-led startup is working on further launches, a new social platform and more. To help bring these ambitions to life, the company just acquired a remarkable Web3 development duo.

Today, PROOF announced that they have acquired Divergence, a London-based Web3 engineering team consisting of Arran Schlosberg and Angharad “Harri” Thomas. Both will join PROOF as part of the procurement agreement, with Schlosberg appointed VP of Engineering and Thomas now acting as product director for the start-up.

Divergence previously worked with smart contracts for PROOF Collective NFT membership card and Moonbirds NFT launch, both on Ethereum. The team has also worked on other projects in the Web3 area, including PREMINTE and Allow one society NFT passports from collectors and influencers, g-money.

“I’m just delighted that they fit perfectly into our organization and really help us in a place where we need the most help right now, which is when we’re going to do really ambitious things that are being done at the chain,” Rose said. Decrypt. “There is no better team I want to hire and hire to help us achieve these things.”

Divergence first caught Rose’s attention with his Brotchain NFT art project, which generated artwork throughout the chain from an Ethereum smart contract solely using the Solidity code – something Thomas said had been considered “impossible” by some, which they “took as a challenge.” The team’s other NFT art projects include The Kiss Precise and Proof of Art {Work}.

From there, Divergence worked with features such as permit list mechanisms to ease the chaos around in-demand NFT falls, in addition to creating a smoother Dutch auction format for the chain. Rose said that their capabilities on both the engineering and product side will be the key to bringing PROOF’s long-term vision to life.

“It had always blown me away, about their willingness to take on what is perceived as the impossible,” Rose said. “I know that what we are trying to do over the next couple of years is going to require a lot of that kind of thinking.”

Expands PROOF

PROOF has a significant roadmap ahead in the years to come, including additional NFT drops, an exclusive personal conference in 2023, and various media initiatives. The startup also plans to launch its own “social universe” that in some ways resembles a metaverse, but it will not be a 3D world navigated by avatars that Decentraland or Facebooks metaverse pitch.

Rose described PROOF’s plan as more of a “social communications team around NFTs,” or a Web3-centric hybrid of online discussion community Reddit and popular chat app Disagreement. It is designed to help serious collectors unite around shared interests and holdings, with the ability to view users’ NFT collections along with other Web3 integrations.

PROOF Collective and Moonbird’s NFT holders will be offered later this summer, but Rose said the company plans to open up its social platform more widely to the public as well. Further details will be revealed during next month’s Future PROOF, a bi-annual streaming event that publishes the updated roadmap for community members.

Before joining PROOF, Divergence instead planned to raise money and continue independently. Rose would have been one of the supporters in her role as a partner in the VC company True Ventures. “They had a list of investors on the A-list,” Rose said, “and then all of a sudden we said, well, what if we do this together?”

There is a significant demand for skilled Web3 engineers in the current market, Rose said, and Divergence has demonstrated both ingenuity in NFT release mechanics and technical acumen in carrying out high-profile, valuable projects. As we have seen in other examples, for example with Akutars projecta code error can have very costly consequences.

“My true joy is making sure things definitely work out,” Schlosberg explained. “It sounds boring and like putting on the brakes, but if you want to innovate and try different, difficult things, you really have to make sure you have it in place. Instead of “move fast and break things”, I like “move fast, but you do not have to break things.”

Thomas added that by joining PROOF, the couple can continue to explore the same concepts as they had independently, but now as part of a team with increasing ambitions and resources to match.

“I love to innovate and try new things, and see what’s possible, and that’s something we’ve always done at Divergence,” she said. “What attracted me to want to work with PROOF is that now I get to do it with a team that has the talent, capacity and reach to really make it happen, and get the right projects to land.”

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