Next Earth, one of the most recent new NFT initiatives, was founded with a dual goal in mind: to produce the first blockchain-based duplicate of our globe while also contributing to the environment.

Next Earth has made significant progress on both fronts, having raised more than $1.3 million in the world’s first Initial Tile Offering, with over $130,000 going to The Ocean Cleanup and Amazon Watch. A simple Discord-based poll was used for the inaugural donation, in which community members voted on the allocation of funds to each charity.

Now, with their charity DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, Next Earth has taken it to the next level.

What is the Name of the Next Earth DAO?

The Next Earth DAO was recently utilized to allocate new cash to four charities: The Ocean Cleanup, SEE Turtles, Kiss the Ground, and Amazon Watch, among others. In addition, next Earth sold $640,260 worth of virtual real estate in September, with 10% of the proceeds set aside for philanthropic donations. Virtual landowners selected how that 10% would be shared up with the Next Earth DAO.

These landowners determined that The Ocean Cleanup would get the most money, with 86 BNB, followed by SEE Turtles with 24.57 BNB, Amazon Watch with 18.25 BNB, and Kiss the Ground with the remaining 17.55 BNB.

Next Earth can alter the concept of donation because of this DAO-based approach. This is a genuinely democratic method in which community people dictate how the project’s funding should be allocated. This is not a conventional governance system in which corporate organizations such as banks or large tech firms make the decisions. Instead, this is an open community with equal voting rights for all members.

Why DAOs Are the Future of Charity

In terms of form and usage of blockchain technology, the Next Earth DAO is revolutionary. This is the first time a DAO has been utilized to allocate monies generated from an ongoing metaverse tile offering. Furthermore, it is rethinking the concept of a metaverse since it understands that the physical and digital worlds are intricately linked and that we must act as stewards of the Earth.

The use of DAOs to decide how to allocate funds is not merely a theoretical exercise. Instead, it’s a valuable tool with real-world implications, improving the health of our planet through philanthropic donations.

As blockchains gain popularity and usability, it becomes evident that they may be used for much more than just cryptocurrency. They are collaboration, development, governance, and transparency platforms.

Next Earth is setting a paradigm for other blockchain projects to follow when they begin their token sales or fundraisings later this year and beyond by employing DAOs to select how their virtual real estate funds should be managed.

How Can You Participate?

Decentralization is the way of the future for charity contributions.

Decentralized applications, or dapps, are increasingly being used by individuals worldwide to help them with everything from sending money to friends and relatives to purchasing plane tickets. The Next Earth DAO is an excellent illustration of how we can make a charitable donation as simple as participating in a crypto project.

The more projects like Next Earth that follow this approach, the better it will be for individuals who need help from others, whether in the form of financial support or simply raising awareness about a worthwhile cause. They’ll also help us get closer to our vision of a genuinely global community by doing so.

Sotheby’s has announced the creation of its own NFT platform.

The portal, dubbed ‘Sotheby’s Metaverse,’ will feature curated NFTs from the Sotheby’s team and let users to buy NFTs with ETH, BTC, USDC, or fiat currencies. According to the auction house, future capabilities will include dynamic auctions and the option to mint generative artworks.

Mojito, a business that builds NFT systems and maintains compliance, is powering Sotheby’s new NFT platform.

Natively Digital 1.2: The Collectors, a collection of 53 NFTs from 19 collectors including Pranksy, j1mmy.eth, and Paris Hilton, is the inaugural sale on Sotheby’s Metaverse.

Like rival Christie’s, Sotheby’s has increased its involvement in the NFT art market this year. It sold a sculpture by Pak for $17 million in April. Sotheby’s has auctioned CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and other NFT art projects since then.

“It was evident right away when Sotheby’s first entered the realm of NFTs earlier this year that we had only scratched the surface of the potential of this new medium — and NFTs,” said Sebastian Fahey, Sotheby’s Managing Director of Europe, Middle East, and Africa. “This next market breakthrough, in my opinion, is one of the most fundamental and exciting yet, and we at Sotheby’s are in a unique position to apply our experience and curation to the emerging world of art for the digitally native age.”

Nifty Gateway, SuperRare, and MakersPlace were among the first to establish themselves in the non-fungible token market. However, it has since been suffocated by the website OpenSea.

OpenSea, which handled about 35% of NFT trading volume between February and April (including a Quartz article sold at auction in March), has increased its market share to over 95%, making it the clear leader in the business of connecting buyers and sellers of what is essentially proof of ownership for a digital asset stored on a blockchain.

According to data collated by The Block from the crypto websites Dapp Radar and CryptoArt, of the $2.8 billion spent on NFT marketplaces in September, $2.72 billion was spent on OpenSea. SuperRare had less than $25 million in trade volume in September, ranking it second among NFT platforms.

While OpenSea appears to have quickly established supremacy in the NFT sector, an impending incumbent may jeopardize its position in crypto. Coinbase, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange globally, said on October 12 that it would launch its own NFT marketplace. It’s an open challenge to OpenSea, one that will put the top player in an emerging market to the test.

NFTs for the masses

To utilize OpenSea, users must first purchase the cryptocurrency ether on a crypto exchange like Coinbase and then log in to the site using a crypto wallet like MetaMask. Customers could buy NFTs immediately on the exchange with a credit or debit card on a Coinbase NFT platform, simplifying the procedure.

NFTs are still a specialized market. According to the website Nonfungible, there were only roughly 10,000 active NFT wallets each week during the last month. However, Coinbase, which has 68 million users (pdf), can bring NFTs to a much larger audience. In addition, the possibility of having a single home for cryptocurrencies and NFTs may appeal to Coinbase clients who are already participating in the NFT market. At the same time, those new to the tokens may find a reasonably simple pathway to buy or sell them.

According to Mike Proulx, a vice president at market research firm Forrester, “the company is betting on differentiating itself with a simple [user interface] that demystifies the NFT process and makes it more accessible to the average creator and collector.”

OpenSea and Coinbase Compared

Technically, OpenSea is in a good position, despite being a relative newcomer. It supports a variety of blockchains, provides robust statistics, and has established trust through verified user accounts, all of which will make it tough to dethrone as the leading NFT exchange.

Coinbase, on the other hand, brings NFTs to a whole new audience. The company is one of the most popular crypto platforms, especially for newcomers. Moreover, Coinbase has all but guaranteed a slice of the expanding NFT market by lowering the barriers to entry and allowing users to buy an NFT using a credit or debit card.

“Many are predicting Coinbase to be the OpenSea killer, and it certainly has the potential to be,” said Pedro Herrera, a senior blockchain analyst at DappRadar. “At this point, I’d say it will impede OpenSea’s supremacy, but OpenSea will remain a dominant marketplace for the time being. In any case, I’m getting my popcorn.”