ProjectX –The Origins

Introduction to ProjectX

What is ProjectX

We started ProjectX in 2021 because of the critical mass of NFT and DeFi users. We’ve been in this space for years, patiently waiting for the right time when the market would be big enough for us to solve two areas in this broken system;

1. The current NFT market lacks transparency and is unnecessarily complicated for new users. Potential NFT buyers have no way to evaluate the market or compare NFTs to know if they made a good choice.
2. Collectors and creators don’t have options that allow them to monetize their collections.

These problems block millions of potential NFT buyers from properly participating in the market. There is a glaring need for a service that will simplify access to the NFT market for buyers and offer a secure option for monetizing NFTs for collectors and creators.

We solve both of those problems with our simple solution that brings together collectors, creators, and buyers in a way that benefits everyone. We make NFTs more accessible and liquid.

For as little as $100 and two clicks, you can own a piece of the NFT market.

What do we do?

1. ETFs: Our ETFs consist of dozens of well-selected, well-balanced, rigorously analyzed NFT’s covering a particular area or the entire sector.
2. NTF monetization: We offer NFT collectors instant liquidity and passive income on their assets.
3. NFT charities: We work directly with A-List celebrities to issue limited edition NFTs that give up to 100% of the proceeds and royalties to their charity of choice in perpetuity.

How does the process work?

ProjectX is a platform for making ERC20 tokens that are backed by NFT collectibles. These tokens are called ETFs. Those tokens are fungible by definition. By using our platform, users can create and trade ETFs based on a wide variety of NFTs.

There are two types of ETFs on the platform:

- User-generated Pools
- ProjectX curated pools.

User-generated (open) Pools

These pools are open to all users. Anyone can upload their NFTs or create a pool on our platform and get an ETF ERC-20 token.

Some pools are only open to specific NFTs. For example, we have pools only open to Meebits, NBA Top Shot, HashMasks, CryptoPunks, EtherCards, and different variations of them. Through these ETFs, users will be able to get exposure to dozens of well-renowned and quite pricey NFTs without buying them. It’s the only way to get exposure to MeeBits or CryptoPunks for just $10.

The ETFs have a 1:1 backing between a single NFT contract and an ERC20 contract. For example, if a user owns 1 Meebits ETF, that means they can redeem exactly one specific Meebit from the pool at any moment by burning the EFT ERC-20 token.

ProjectX Curated Pools

These are ETFs created and chosen by the ProjectX team from the curator’s committee NFT pools.

ProjectX curated pools are significantly broader, more diversified, and sophisticated than user-created pools. They are Balancer pools that combine several Level 1 (users-created ETFs). We consider them as Level 2 or ETFs of ETFs.

For example, we will have Music NFTs, which consist of 100+ music-related NFTs. Digital Art NFTs comprised dozens of different digital art ETFs like Punks ETFs, Meebits ETFs. etc.

What’s our Story?

John Slyusarev is a New Yorker through and through. He dreams big and is always trying to create solutions to problems he sees. His background is in venture capital and it. He’s been in the crypto market since 2016, and like most of us, he started with Bitcoin.

In 2017 he joined the company ICORating at the CMO and CBDO. It took only a year for him to build up the company, scale it by 25x, hire more than 100 people worldwide, and gain 60% market share. The ICO boom was awesome, and companies were popping up all over the place. The mission of ICORating was to bring transparency to the blockchain market. They did in-depth research on each project so all the accredited investors can understand all pros and cons when selecting projects. The business was booming, but John knew it was time to leave and create his own company.

In 2018 John founded SMC Capital and started investing in blockchain-related companies (tokens of public chains, payment solutions, etc.) and then moved into DeFi in 2019 and NFT’s 2020. Their thesis is based on two areas that can be solved with blockchain:

1. DeFi — solving the broken financial world
2. NFTs — creating endless opportunities from gaming to legal contracts to digital art and lease agreements.

SMC Capital is a midsize fund that has completed over 100 deals in DeFi, NFT, and Blockchain startups.

New Idea:

In the fall of 2018, John was speaking at a conference in SF and was on a panel with Michael Arrington, founder of Tech Crunch and VC firm ArringtonXRP. They talked about opportunities in the DeFi and NFT space. They both agreed that NFTs are a great use case for blockchain, and it’s definitely the future of the market. On the flight back to NYC, John developed a plan to solve the problems he saw in the NFT space. Once he landed, he texted a few friends to help him find co-founders for his new project.

Enter Josh Murchie

Josh is the founder of the blockchain charity organization Little Phil. They use blockchain to get donations to projects that need them the most. John and Josh knew each other a few years before founding ProjectX, but that time they both were busy with their own projects, and the timing wasn’t right. So they put the idea on hold.

Two years later

Josh and John met again and picked up where they left off. John smoothed out his approach to the NFT market, and they both agreed it was time to get this new company off the ground. Josh brought in Matt Shipman as CTO, and the project was off and running.

It’s been a long road, but we are only getting started. Join our conversation on Telegram.

Why the name ProjectX?

We’ve thought about our name for weeks, because of our focus on making a big splash, we like keeping things secret. We wanted to keep it mysterious, interesting and involve our community. We decided to call it ProjectX and let our community vote on the name they liked the most. X is the opportunity. As it turns out, the community loved the name, and the rest is history.

Why the Charity Aspect?

One of our top priorities in building ProjectX was to give back to the community and help make the world a better place. NFT’s have that potential (especially because of perpetual royalties), but frequently charities and celebrities don’t know how to use them. We reached out to a long list of celebrities and asked how we could help their charities. Through our platform, they will issue special edition NFT’s, and we will assign the royalties to go to their charities forever. These limited edition items will fund important causes every time they are sold.

We have signed deals with major celebrities in entertainment and sports. Lots more coming this summer, so Follow us on Twitter to get the latest news and updates!