“This project was created to contribute to the wider Web3 community, as well as to offer content for children in the Metaverse. At the same time, it serves as a channel to onboard normie parents into NFTs.”
Darren used to work in the IRL event space in the Asia region. When the pandemic hit and IRL events weren’t allowed, he got into NFTs. Stan, the founder of Aave was using an NFT penguin as his PFP on Twitter, which caught Darren’s eye. Darren’s Pudgy Penguin has been his PFP since June 2020. He got to know Punk6529 early in his arrival to the web3 space, and through multiple positive interactions between the two, he was brought on to assist Punk6529 in his endeavors.
Darren is now a core member of Punk6529’s team, and contributes to the 6529 NFT Fund as well as the Open Metaverse (OM) project. His main responsibility for OM is the onboarding process, and he has brought over 3,800 individual artists, represented by over 70 global NFT communities, into the OM. He also assists new artists to enter the NFT space. “The adoption of the Metaverse will rise rapidly and exponentially over the next 5 – 10 years. This web3 project will prevent corporates like Facebook and Google from completely controlling the space.”
The only hurdle at the moment is internet and processing speeds. “We would like as many people as possible to join the decentralized Metaverse, and want them to be able to render the world we have created. So we’ve scaled back on the detail in our space, which will change and develop as speeds improve.”
While Darren believes that blockchain technology will reach into everyday life, he does say that “AI can’t, at least right now, build a community around itself; that’s only something a human can do.” Catch him on his Twitter podcast ‘The Metaverse Show,’ which has featured guests from Sotheby’s, Christies’, Makersplace, NFT Asia, Coinbase, Transient Labs, ClickCreate, Art2Act and multiple renowned NFT art collectors.
Darren has just launched his side project, ‘Darren & The One-Eye Baby,’ a free e-book for children aged 5 and under, written by and featuring “yours truly,” illustrated by arlekin_ julia. It is the first children’s storybook brand built upon the spirit of Web3. “This project was created to contribute to the wider Web3 community, as well as to offer content for children in the Metaverse. At the same time, it serves as a channel to onboard normie parents into NFTs.”
