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Cool Cats was one of the hottest profile picture projects coming out at the end of 2021 NFT market boom, but prices fell sharply last year as the collector grips piled up. Today, the founders behind the project revealed a new way forward with renewed branding – and future expansion beyond Ethereum with customizable full-body avatars.
“With our new strategic direction and rebrand, we want to convey to the community and the wider Web3 community that Cool Cats is here to stay,” said Cool Cats Group CEO Stephen Teglas Decrypt. “We’re not just building for the next year, or the next five years — we’re planning for the long term.”
Cool Cats and Cool Pets NFT holders will soon be sent a free Fracture NFT, which co-founder and chief content officer Robert Mehew described as “dynamic NFTs that enable a new storytelling experience via digital collectibles.” The Fracture NFTs will evolve as holders complete missions (or “Journeys”) within the project’s “World of Cooltopia” narrative, eventually revealing potential rewards.
But the upcoming Explorers NFTs will represent a major expansion of the Cool Cats project later this year, including customizable full-body avatars that can be used across multiple blockchain networks and brought into various supported apps and platforms.
Details are still scarce on the full extent of Explorers functionality, but it sounds like the second Ethereum NFT project Doodles did just that with Doodles 2. That project doesn’t just transition to another blockchain, Flowbut turns the familiar profile pictures into full-fledged avatars that can be fine-tuned and equipped with virtual clothes.
A Cool Cats representative told Decrypt that Explorer’s NFTs will work across multiple layer-1 blockchains and layer-2 scaling networks, including some that are not Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible. These platforms will be revealed in the coming months. Cool Cats has previously used Ethereum side chain network Polygon for special edition NFT drops and a mobile games.
“Our goal is to remove as much friction as possible,” a representative said regarding the movement of Cool Cats avatars across blockchains. The team also plans to work with community members to develop assets to be used with the explorers.
Today’s announcements were paired with a rebranding of the Cool Cats project across social media and marketing materials, which will correspond with new narrative content centered on Blue Cat, the project’s protagonist.
“Our new logo features a forward-facing cat, a nod to our focus on building for the future,” said Cool Cat co-founder and creative director Colin “Clon” Egan Decrypt.
An example of the revamped Cool Cats brand. Image: Cool Cats
Cool cats prices increased at the end of 2021 as the broader NFT market rallied, pushing the floor price—or the price of the cheapest NFT on a secondary marketplace—to nearly 14 ETH (over $48,000) that October. The project signed with the major Hollywood agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in March 2022 to explore media and licensing agreements.
But Cool Cat’s prices crashed last year amid executive departures, mixed reactions to Cooltopia and complaints that the founders did not do enough to support the project. As of this morning, ahead of the announcements, the floor price was just 2 ETH according to data from NFT Price Floor. That’s less than $3,200 worth, given the depressed price of Ethereum.
To date, Cool Cats has generated about $377 million in secondary market trading volume, per data from CryptoSlam, while the Cool Pets spinoff collection has added over $105 million to that tally. Cool cats collaborated with Time Blade in 2021 also for limited edition NFTs, and today announced a marketing deal with hardware wallet maker Ledger.
Will a refreshed look, gamified reward NFTs for current owners and a bigger avatar push across multiple chains help Cool Cats confirm their blue chip status after an up-and-down year? Teglas believes that going bigger and broader is the key to growing Cool Cats into an entertainment brand that can reach beyond Web3 faithful.
“Ultimately, we believe that scaling Cool Cats’ brand awareness and bringing more members into the brand is one of the most effective ways for us to deliver on the expectations of our community,” he said Decrypt.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to correct the timing of the NFT airdrop and its functionality.
