NFTs are revolutionizing the world of digital art and media by blockchainizing ownership and eliminating middlemen. But NFTs are also a powerful tool to support the common good. Beyond a growing list of celebrities creating and auctioning NFTs for charity, generative art project Rare Pizzas created the world’s first “edible NFT” to feed hungry communities and support neighborhood restaurants in a struggling post-Covid economy.
“Rare Pizzas started as a response to the pain, loss, and exhaustion folks suffered in 2020. Not only did people lose connection to those they love and care about, but they also became disconnected from their local food institutions,” said founding member of Rare Pizza’s Pizza Mafia, Irvin Cardenas.
“As a result, many small businesses were forced to close, and many still run the risk of shutting their doors. Rare Pizzas’ goal is that, through a globally shared love for pizza, we can support small businesses for at least one day, feed hungry bellies, and provide a sense of community.”
That day is Bitcoin Pizza Day, which commemorates the 2010 purchase of two pizzas for 10,000 BTC – now valued around $400 million. On May 22, 2021, Rare Pizza’s DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) will use the proceeds from 10,000 unique digital pizza NFTs to buy 10,000 real pizzas from participating establishments around the world.
Cardenas believes Rare Pizzas is proving the power of DAOs to create meaningful change. After serendipitous beginnings in a Clubhouse room full of strangers, Rare Pizzas’ NFT art sale raised funds for its global pizza party within three weeks. Cardenas said the project is illustrating “the power of the distributed web, blockchain technology, and the creative ways to use NFTs for good.”
Through social media, the project attracted more than 300 artists and 30 developers. “We have a fantastic team of professionals from all walks of life who came together on Clubhouse to bring this project into reality – from master VFX artists who’ve worked on projects at Lucasfilm and Disney to young entrepreneurs, software engineers and everything in between,” Cardenas said.
In order to ensure each pizza NFT is verifiably unique, Rare Pizzas integrated Chainlink VRF (Verifiable Random Function) to secure the pizza creation process end-to-end. “Chainlink is a huge part of our core infrastructure,” Cardenas said. “This project wouldn’t be possible without it.”
VRF generates a random number that is used to select ingredients and form a recipe that is “baked” in real time. Rare Pizzas’ baking pipeline uses metadata such as nutritional information associated with each ingredient to influence how each NFT renders – just like a real-life pizza. Cardenas said there are over 2^96 different combinations of ingredients and other variables like bake time and temperature.
His vision for what Rare Pizzas and its DAO can bring to the world extends beyond the Bitcoin Pizza Day event. “From a social standpoint, our data and surveys tell us that Rare Pizzas is the most extensive, open and diverse generative art project,” he said. He attributes the project’s success to its diversity and shared love of pizza.
“DAOs are powerful. A committed group of individuals with a shared goal really can make a difference. Keep an eye out for pizzaDAO, because we aren’t done yet.”
To learn more about Rare Pizzas check out their website, Twitter and Discord.
Read more about Chainlink’s latest integrations here.