(Formatting Errors are a result of transitioning from Hive to Read.cash, for original print check out https://peakd.com/opensea/@rob23/cardsharks-whitepaper)

CardSharks Whitepaper

An NFT Project To Support The Fight Against Problem Gambling

DateIssue DescriptionBySaturday January 22nd, 2022First IssueThe CardSharks Team

Contents:

1. Elevator Pitch Summary

2. Project Inspiration

3. Project Basics (NFT Example)

4. Blockchain Information

5. Phase 1

6. Phase 2

7. Transparency

8. Points Of Contact/Social Media Accounts

9. References/Collaborations

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1. Elevator Pitch Summary

CardSharks is an NFT series of animated sharks holding playing cards and wearing other accessories related to casinos and gambling. There are 7777 CardSharks minted in the collection and they will be sold on Opensea.io. As with other NFT projects, the attributes of each character (i.e. the accessories, shark color, etc.) will be of various rarities that will be published in the NFT series description on Opensea.io.

The novelty of this project and what makes it different from other NFT projects is the fundraising mechanism that will be implemented into the projects nature. 10% of the profits from the initial sale and 50% of all royalties received thereafter will be donated to charities aimed at helping problem gamblers (including but not limited to Gamblers Anonymous, National Council on Problem Gambling, Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, and the Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation).

This project seeks to create an endless fundraiser while allowing for the purchase and sale of the asset in parallel to allow buyers to speculate on market value. The process for fundraising transparency will be discussed in this paper and will ultimately culminate in the formation of a non-profit DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) to determine where the community funding is sent. During this phase of the project, your NFT will serve as your membership 'ticket' to the DAO and provide you the ability to vote on funding proposals and provide access to more features yet to be announced.

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2. Project Inspiration

Problem gambling is an issue that is rarely discussed in today's society. According to the Nielsen Corporation's research on television advertising, gambling advertisements have climbed to the 11th most prevalent advertisement on cable. With states lining up in droves to legalize online/sports gambling within their jurisdiction, we can logically expect to see a rise in people who will become problem gamblers.

Problem Gambling (as defined by the National Council on Problem Gambling) refers to all gambling behavior patterns that compromise, disrupt or damage personal, family or vocational pursuits.

It is estimated that 8 million adults in the United States alone suffer with mild to severe problem gambling each year. Once again, it is expected that this number will climb as the number of advertisements and outlets by which to gamble increase, while education on responsible gambling has remained stagnant in growth.

This project seeks to create continuous value to support efforts to increase education about gambling as well as increasing the resources available to help problem gamblers quit.

The CardSharks team has experienced the issues related to problem gambling. It is an issue that we have dealt with on a daily basis for the last five years and will continue to fight with for the foreseeable future. Rather than sitting around idly, feeling bad about this, we are seeking to make a change in the world through this NFT project.

CardSharks is literally an NFT series created by gamblers, for gamblers (though you don't need to have ever gambled to support the cause). We need to make sure that those who choose to gamble do so responsibly and know the risks associated; this is something that is not a given in today's society.

CardSharks is a movement to create a change for a community that may not even know just how much help they need.

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3. Project Basics

The collection will be available here

• 7777 Mints

• Image Size: 1024x1500

• 7 Background Color Options

• 6 Shark Colors with three rarity tiers

• 20 Different Card Options (Blank Option As Well) with six rarity tiers

• 3 Sunglasses Options (Blank Option As Well) with four rarity tiers

• 1 Nose Ring Option (Blank Option As Well) with two rarity tiers

• 6 Tattoo Options (Blank Option as Well) with four rarity tiers

• Possible Permutations: 49,392

• Production Engine: Hashlips_art_engine- 1.1.2_patch_v1

• Blockchain: Polygon

• Metadata Service: NFTPort

• Listing Site: Opensea.io

• Mint Details Revealed After Purchase

• Initial Sale Mint Cost: 0.07 ETH Each

Mint 89 is included at the end of this paper for an example

Timeline

• We are seeking to launch the sale at the end of February (approximately February 24th as our desired launch)

• Phase 1 will run through the entirety of the initial sale

• Phase 2 planning will begin at the end of the initial sale

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4. Blockchain Information

• Polygon Network

• No gas fees on Opensea.io

• Purchase with WETH available on Opensea.io

• Minting on the Polygon network for gas-fee savings purposes while still maintaining ties to Opensea.io

5. Phase 1

In Phase 1 of the project, the CardSharks initial sale will take place. During the days leading up to the sale (projected late February 2022), marketing letters will be sent out to gambling streamers, influencers, organizations and celebrities asking them if they would like to be involved in the project.

The reason that we believe we can recruit members of the gambling community to participate is because they have an inherent social responsibility to express to their fans and/or viewership that they need to gamble responsibly. Many streamers and celebrities go on record during their shows and tell their viewers that gambling will result in a loss in the long term; some even going as far as recommending to viewers that they not gamble at all.

These streamers will be offered the ability to mint their NFT's at cost and use them in on-stream giveaways to spread awareness and involve their fanbase in the CardSharks project.

100 Mints will be set aside for these purposes. 5 Mints will be set aside for the team. This leaves a minimum of 7,672 Mints for sale on Opensea.io when phase one launches.

During this phase, there will not yet be a DAO or automated mechanism for the donation funds. Again, 10% of the initial sale profits and 50% of all royalties generated thereafter will be donated to charity. During phase 1 there will be transparency reports shared with the community each month, as well as a view-only communal Google Sheet to track how much money is being donated and where it was going (this will be further discussed in the transparency section of this paper).

6. Phase 2

During this phase of the project, profits will be reinvested at a rate determined necessary by the team to research on and construct a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) that will be called the CardSharks DAO. This DAO will hold all the funds generated from royalties on Opensea.io and will store them in a transparent vault.

The purpose of this DAO will to provide further utility to your CardSharks NFT(s). The NFT will serve as your 'ticket' into the DAO, where you will have the ability to vote on funding proposals submitted by the community as well as other features yet to be announced.

The DAO will help to provide transparency and peace of mind to token-holders as they will be able to track and view every aspect of the funding and donation process as well as gaining a say in where the funds go.

The CardSharks DAO is seeking to be one of the first fully-democratized NFT communities and will hopefully be a place for innovation and philanthropic success.

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7. Transparency

As mentioned, one of the issues regarding phase one of the project is the ability to remain fully transparent. This is of course not an issue in phase two as all members of the DAO would be able to track what is happening within the funding vault. For that reason, it is very important that communication is clear and constant from the team in order to retain our integrity and the project's overall reputation.

As this is an issue that hits near home for the team, we really want to make sure that the community knows exactly what is happening at all times.

Our plan is to do the following:

• Create a Google sheet that includes blockchain data, images of royalty receipts from Opensea.io and a full list of the amount of money that each NFT has generated for the charity program.

• Publish receipts of our donations through our social media accounts and receive verifiable proof from the non-profits we donated to that they have received our donations (i.e. tax forms, invoice receipts, etc.).

We welcome the community to submit ideas on how to further improve our transparency as a project and reserve the right to adjust this whitepaper accordingly to reflect those ideas (This would be announced before anything was changed or implemented via social media and a mailing list to be created at a later time).

Transparency is incredibly important in a fundraising-involved project. We hope that this plan will serve to be sufficient for our purposes.

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8. Points of Contact/Social Media

Collection: https://opensea.io/collection/cardsharks
Email: NFTCardSharks@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NFTCardSharks?s=20 (@ NFTCardSharks)
Telegram: https://t.me/+n3XqXquTBHg5NmFh
Discord: https://discord.gg/KRQjyFey
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/CardSharks

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9. References/Collaborations

• We used the Hashlips_art_engine- 1.1.2_patch_v1 in the production process of the NFT's.

• We used nftport.xyz in the compilation of metadata to the blockchain

• We are using Opensea.io as the platform to host our sale

• Certain aspects of the NFT's are sourced from shutterstock.com using the licenses required by law

• We reserve the right to add any influencers who decide to join the project to this list at a later time.

• We Used The Hive Blockchain to publish this whitepaper, check out hive.io for more information on this web 3.0. ecosystem.