Last week, we reported an abundance of aptly-themed Chinese New Year NFTs in the forms of tigers and zodiacs. (That being said, welcome back to work and we hope you had a great CNY!)
This week, it seems like that trend has fizzled out (though the existing NFTs are still being sold), and instead, we discovered a few more interesting NFT and metaverse projects happening on our shores.
Did you know we had an NFT school?
Neither did I. Though perhaps not officially registered as one (does such a licence even exist?), Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Sungai Rual in Kelantan now calls itself a “School of NFT”, stating that it is the first Asli school in Malaysia to be actively involved in NFTs.
The School of NFT is born from a collaboration between SK Sungai Rual and Tigerpunks, a local NFT project aiming to create an impact on Malayan tiger conservation and the education of young children.
Based on research, it appears that the aim of the School of NFT is to foster young creative talents through digital art and NFT classes. In November 2021, the classes already had over 100 students.
Though I thought that the concept of NFTs would’ve been too complex for such young minds to grasp, it appears I may be mistaken.
Instead, one of the biggest challenges the rural school faces is actually with its internet connection, which can be weakened depending on the weather. This delays the NFT classes at times, especially when the school has a guest artist educating the children via Google Meet.
Just recently, it had its fourth session, and with Malaysia’s NFT trend on the rise, it’s likely we’ll see these classes continue.
If the classes succeed (however the success metrics are determined), it could get the ball rolling for more Malaysian schools and universities to play increasingly active roles in growing the NFT space.
Meet Malaysia’s up-and-coming NFT adventurer
This one’s a project that’s still hush-hush until late February. Called Tiny Cekil, this NFT project is from Haizeel, who’s also the creator of the Pelempunk series that features various characters getting slapped. All of his work is available on Pentas.io.
Taking a detour from that angle though, he is now going down the wholesome route by having Tiny Cekil go on adventures around Malaysia.
To put it simply, Tiny Cekil is an adventurous 2D character that aims to explore real-life locations such as heritage and cultural sites.
The NFTs will likely be photos, clips, or even gifs of Tiny Cekil imposed into backgrounds of real places, all of which Haizeel has physically visited for the project. But that’s just the start.
On Twitter, Haizeel revealed that he has bigger plans for Tiny Cekil and expressed that he hopes one day it can be a cartoon series of sorts too.
Interested in buying prop— ahem, virtual property?
We can’t verify if Mega-babyverse (yes, that’s the project’s name) is really Malaysia’s first metaverse, but it’s certainly the first fleshed out one that this author has seen so far. It’s created by OVR Token X Network.
It’s part of a much bigger project, but most exciting is actually Mega-babyverse itself, where the buildings in the virtual city will have their units sold as NFTs.
As of now, they’ve already launched a VR shopping mall in the metaverse with 150 shop lots that they’re seeking tenants for. Tenants who buy the units will then be able to set up a 3D virtual store that customers can “visit” and purchase things from.
Next on their agenda appears to be a residential condominium in the metaverse with 980 fully furnished units per block.
Other projects by the team include:
- An NFT marketplace where they’ll do business and property tokenisation via NFTs as well as the trading of metaverse based virtual lands and buildings;
- One2Earn, an initiative tied to their VR shopping mall where they help support local businesses via a 360-degree virtual tour feature; and
- Play2Earn, a mini game that lets you earn their OVR Token X (OTX).
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These are all projects that are still in their infancy, so it’ll definitely be an interesting journey to see where they go.
According to a November report from Finder.com, a comparison website, its survey on NFT statistics found that Malaysia had the third highest number of NFT owners (24%) out of 20 countries surveyed.
Other countries included Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, UK, US, Argentina, and more. However, Finder only polled 28,723 users across the 20 countries and had a sample size of 1,502 from Malaysia, so its survey results should not be taken as a representative of the nation’s behaviour.
Nonetheless, it still points to Malaysia having a growing population that’s interested in NFTs, and if they’re not already buyers, they’re clearly keeping an eye on the space to see where it goes from here.
- Read more NFT content we’ve written here.
Featured Image Credit: OVR Token X Network / Tiny Cekil
