28 June 2024: NFT.Storage Community Update

Catch up on the latest updates from NFT.Storage, including community initiatives, product enhancements, new partnerships, membership strategies, and exciting fundraising successes.
Elizabeth Griffiths
July 1, 2024

Overview

Welcome to the NFT.Storage Community Update! We are thrilled to bring you the latest updates from NFT.Storage in our community newsletter. This edition includes updates on community initiatives, product developments, and our growing ecosystem. Dive in to stay informed and see how you can get involved!

Community Engagement and Updates

We're Going Monthly!

To better manage our updates with our small team, we’re switching to a monthly newsletter format. For more frequent updates, follow us on our social media channels:

Improving Our Communication to You

We’ve been battling deliverability challenges and are working with a deliverability expert to overcome them. Expect more frequent emails from us. To help improve deliverability, please click all the links and reply directly to this email and say hi!

Consensus 2024

We gave away free NFT.Storage hats at #consensus2024! Thanks to @FilFoundation for facilitating from their booth! We know you love our swag, so even though we can't make it to all the events, we're going to try to get out there more.

Recent AMA Highlights

Recently, our CEO Elizabeth (Twitter) and our Head of Strategy and Business Development for Arts & Culture, Jesse (Twitter), hosted an AMA with Molly Mackinlay (Twitter), the Head of Engineering, Product, & Research Development at Protocol Labs, and the Co-Founder and CEO of FilOz. They talked about the importance of data preservation, and how you (both individuals and businesses!) can support the mission of NFT.Storage.

Here are the best takeaways: Tweet Thread

  • Why you should care about decentralized storage: Decentralized storage offers a level of resiliency and robustness you can’t get anywhere else. When talking about highly important pieces of work or culture, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket.
  • The real-world impact of Cultural Preservation: A key example Molly brought up was the usage of IPFS by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative. Around the time they onboarded to IPFS, there was significant concern that websites hosting large-scale environmental data could be at risk.
  • Why Public Goods need to be supported: Data Preservation itself is a public good, and it’s the responsibility of businesses that share the public good’s mission or collectively benefit from it to contribute to these teams.
  • Why businesses should support NFT.Storage and consider becoming a member: We, along with many other public goods, provide a critical service that benefits and underpins larger-scale businesses in our ecosystem.

Product Enhancements and Updates

NFT.Storage Classic Update

  • 30 June Milestone: NFT.Storage Classic will no longer accept new uploads starting 30 June 2024.
  • Your Data is Safe: All your data remains accessible through the NFT.Storage Gateway and is securely stored in the Filecoin Network.
  • Revamped Status Page: Subscribe to our status page for immediate updates on service impacts.

Partnerships with Pinata and Lighthouse

You asked for our recommendations and we answered. We’re excited to share our new partnerships with Pinata and Lighthouse for hot storage solutions. Use our referral links to support NFT.Storage while benefiting from these services:

Community Membership and Support

Community Membership

Contributing to public goods is essential for the sustainability and growth of the NFT ecosystem. Joining our community is a great way to support this cause. There are no time requirements, just an opportunity to contribute and collaborate.

New Corporate Members

  • Pinata - Bronze Member
  • RARI Foundation - Bronze Member

Join our community alongside existing members like NFTPort, Tthentic.tech, and many individuals from notable web3 companies to make a difference: Join NFT.Storage Community

Community Membership Strategy and Marketing Updates

We believe community membership is an essential revenue stream for us, and we need to ensure our ROI is worth the time to get members on board and manage the community. As part of this strategy, we’re adjusting our membership prices beginning 1 July:

  • Bronze: $1k → $5k
  • Silver: $10k → $20k
  • Gold: $100k → $50k
  • Platinum: New tier, $100k

Our business development strategy now focuses on targeting the company leadership, understanding their decision-making process, and leveraging contacts to build strong relationships. We’re also pivoting our marketing messaging to emphasize supporting public goods, including NFT.Storage. This approach highlights the collective responsibility and cultural significance of preserving digital art.

How Can You Support NFT.Storage?

If you’re a business, we encourage you to become a corporate member of NFT.Storage. Not only will you be financially supporting our mission, but through our working groups, you’ll also be able to have a direct impact on the direction of our product and NFT preservation as a whole. If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out our memberships here: Join NFT.Storage Community

We’ve also launched strategic partnerships and made it easy for anyone to support us through donations in crypto or fiat. Learn more.

Fundraising and Success Stories

Filecoin RetroPGF Success

In April and May we participated in the first @filecoin RetroPGF—a retroactive funding round for public good projects that have created an impact in the Filecoin network. We’re proud to announce we’ve received 1,744 FIL (~$10,620).

With 660TB of NFT data made available through the NFT.Storage Gateway daily, powering many marketplaces, wallets, and other ways of viewing NFTs, we would have loved to see more support for the value that we contribute. However, it’s a great result for one of our first public good funding rounds and we're eager to continue to learn and iterate together 🥳.

Thank you to all of those that casted a ballot for us and to the donors of this round who helped make this possible @protocollabs, @FilFoundation, @web3mine, and @Titannet_dao.

Shout Out to Magic Eden

A big thank you to Magic Eden for their generous donation and for encouraging the community to do the same. Make a donation to support our mission. https://nft.storage/donate

A Massive Thank You to Protocol Labs

And of course, a massive thank you to Protocol Labs, our biggest supporters from the very start, and a team that has been a hugely instrumental part of our success to date 💙.

Opportunities to Get Involved

Join the Fund Working Group ✨

We’re looking for people to join the Fund Working Group. As the name suggests, these legends have the goal to drive funding for the continuation of our mission.

Being a public good means we aim to provide services that are accessible to everyone, and without the support of the broader ecosystem we wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we are now! Being part of the fund working groups means you’ll support us by:

  • Identifying and applying for grants
  • Drumming up support for our grant applications
  • Finding individual and corporate supporters of NFT.Storage who can join the community, donate, or become strategic partners
  • Making recommendations, introductions, and building relationships

If this sounds interesting to you, come join a group that’s absolutely critical to the future of NFT.Storage! Along with the core team and our amazing partners, our working groups are what’s really going to make NFT.Storage tick behind the scenes in the coming months.