What is a Cardano NFT?

NFT stands for "non-fungible token" and is essentially a digital collectible. You've likely played video games with collectible skins or mounts in the past. These items can become quite coveted amongst the playerbase, whether they serve as in-game "status symbols" or provide a boost to gameplay mechanics. The main difference between NFTs and traditional in-game items is that the former can be collected, traded, and stored outside the game itself. Players are no longer beholden to a video game publisher, and their collectible cosmetic items can't be taken away from them in the event they are banned or the publisher goes out of business. This is the key distinction between "centralization", sometimes called "Web 2.0", and "decentralization", often referred to as "Web 3.0". Cardano NFTs live on the Cardano blockchain.

Cardano is a public blockchain technology. Without diving into the weeds unnecessarily, a blockchain is a public ledger in which past transactions cannot be modified or removed. If you're reading this, you've likely already heard of the most high-profile blockchains including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cardano differs from these two incumbent players in how it operates under-the-hood, and the technology is quite complex and nuanced. But for the average end-user experience, Cardano tends to be faster and cheaper than its competitors. While other blockchain transaction fees can reach hundreds of dollars during peak times, Cardano's ADA can transact quickly and cheaply, typically under $0.20 per transaction. Additionally, anyone can run their own Cardano node (a program that continuously ensures the integrity of blockchain data) on a computer as cheap as a Raspberry Pi, while competing technologies require computing resources that only venture capital firms can afford to deploy. pandADA chose to build a Cardano NFT project (commonly called a "CNFT") for these reasons.

What is special about the pandADA NFT Project?

If you've spent some time in the Cardano NFT space, it will be easier to tell you what pandADA is not. The pandADA NFT Project is not any of the following:

• Metaverse: Emperor Mi Mi believes the term "metaverse" is usually a marketing phrase designed to encourage speculation and induce FOMO. Given that Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly "Facebook") has invested billions of dollars in capital spanning almost a decade to build out metaverse infrastructure while hiring the best and the brightest minds in tech, we believe it is unlikely for a small, unproven team to compete in this space. Emperor Mi Mi will never claim to be building a metaverse, and pandADA will never sell land.


• Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO): While Emperor Mi Mi has great respect for many DAOs (shoutout to Nemonium!), pandADA is not a DAO. Emperor Mi Mi rules as Sovereign over the pandADA Kingdom; pandADA is Emperor Mi Mi, and Emperor Mi Mi is pandADA. He will certainly consult his "Panda Parliament" from time to time in Discord, but he is not bound by their vote. Emperor Mi Mi's top concern is for the longevity of the pandADA Kingdom, and long-term success is often the enemy of short-term price fluctuation.


• Speculation Instrument: pandADA panda NFTs are neither securities nor investments and should not be construed as such. Any discussion of "floor price" results in immediate exile from Discord, and any purchase from the pandADA Adoption Center should be made with the intent to keep indefinitely - after all, you wouldn't adopt a dog or a cat to sell it later! Additionally, pandADA Imperial Credits are issued by the Crown for the exclusive use within the pandADA Ecosystem, and should only be used at the Imperial Market in order to buy items and furniture to customize your interactive Panda Pen.

Now that you know what pandADA isn't, here is what pandADA is:

• Technology-Driven: pandADA began with one simple purpose in mind: allowing its creator learn Haskell, the functional programming language used to develop smart contracts on the Cardano Blockchain, through practical experience. The pandADA Cardano NFT project has undoubtedly evolved during that time, but technology will always remain the core driving force behind pandADA's continued development. We're already punching above our weight, as one of the first Cardano NFT (CNFT) projects to develop both a proprietary multisig mint system and a Cardano native asset shop powered by pandADA Imperial Credits.


• Cross-Chain Compatible: Emperor Mi Mi believes that echo-chambers and silos produced by "crypto tribalism," in which supporters of one blockchain technology bash all others, constitute Cardano's most formidable barrier to achieving more widespread adoption. While pandADA will always be a Cardano NFT project, we're actively evaluating other chains with active NFT communities and low transaction costs as potential expansion candidates.


• Long-Term Oriented: pandADA's goal is to develop a cross-chain NFT-adjacent gaming platform over the next 3-5 years. More tangibly, this means developing a scalable foundation as a Cardano NFT and branching outward to smaller blockchains while continuing to build out the pandADA core game platform. We never used the phrase "play-to-earn" or P2E, because Emperor Mi Mi believes that games which are actually fun to play will end up as the winners once the NFT space matures.