Animated Stoner Cats mints millions with NFTs

The Future. A new animated show, Stoner Cats, funded itself through selling NFTs, positioning token holders as the only people able to watch the show. It’s a wild experiment that’s already paying off, potentially thanks to its inclusion of talent such as Family Guy’s Mila Kunis and Seth McFarlane. The show’s success could not only provide a blueprint for a new way to fund projects… but even establish a blockchain-backed ecosystem for developing new ideas.

Profits before premieres

How does a (non-Disney) show make millions of dollars in product sales before even debuting the first episode? NFTs, of course.

• An indie animated show called Stoner Cats, which premiered yesterday, is only available to owners of show NFT holders.
• The show was created by Chris Cartagena, Sarah Cole, and Ash Brannon and stars Hollywood heavyweights such as Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Rock, Seth McFarlane… and Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin.
• The NFTs, dubbed “TOKEns,” sold out in 35 minutes — 10,420 tokens for .35 Ethereum (or $800). That’s a total haul of $8.3 million.
• The NFTs are random images from the show, but they also act as an access key to watch the series and “interactive community features.”

The creators plan to release another 3,000 NFTs as the show plays out. Only the 13,000+ holders at any given time will be able to watch the show in perpetuity.

Pay, puff, pass

The Stoner Cats NFTs are already paying dividends for investors. One of the NFTs already sold on the OpenSea marketplace for 30 ETH ($68,7000), showing that demand is high. The creators receive 2.5% of the profits on every transaction.

This funding method isn’t a one-off for the show’s producers either. Kunis, who is producing through her Orchard Farm banner, hopes to establish a “decentralized autonomous organization” (DAO) that will allow holders of TOKEns to actually vote on which projects should be made or propose new ideas. Orchard Farm, in partnership with NFT firm Big Head, vowed to execute that plan and develop a new animated series annually if every TOKEn sells.