Sneaker Designer Mache to Launch First NFTs on Infinite by Suku
Dan Gamache, the artist and sneaker designer better known as Mache, on Wednesday will launch his first NFT exclusively on Infinite NFT Marketplace by Suku.
The design is a digital version of his original Mache Runner sneaker in the “Badlands” colorway inspired by the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The physical sneaker was released for preorder on May 14 for 72 hours.
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“The NFT is a totally digital Badlands release,” Mache said. “We put a lot of work into creating and telling the story of the shoe. In the future, we’re planning to add tangible things to it. It’s going to be exciting to see how people receive this.”
Mache, who has designed sneakers for athletes such as LeBron James and Jarvis Landry, among others, began working on his Runner a one year ago. Having customized sneakers for close to 20 years, Mache set out to make his own, though he was apprehensive about the idea at first. He created the Runner silhouette and used the style to tell different stories about different destinations and attractions in the U.S. that he describes as “hidden gems.”
He launched the Runner last August in the Centralia colorway, inspired by the mining town with a highway formerly covered in graffiti, and later the teal Dry Tortugas colorway inspired by the Florida Keys.
As Mache learned more about NFTs, he grew interested in the medium and decided to take part with this launch and with Infinite.
“As an old school artist, I move away from delving into things I’m not too familiar with,” he said. “I spoke to friends like Steve Aoki and Ben Baller who told me how it works. I was asked if I was interested but it takes a team. Getting linked with Infinite to turn this idea in my head into something is awesome.”
Infinite is a one-stop shop for NFTs made by Suku, technology companies Dreamview and Oasis Digital Studios. In addition to Mache’s NFT launch, the platform is supporting launches by multiplatinum recording artist Jeezy and Oasis Digital Studios that teamed to drop the rapper’s snowman logo as a limited-edition series of animated and AR-enhanced NFTs, and artist May Pang releasing John Lennon’s Lost Weekend Experience, The “Walls and Bridges” NFT Collection, in partnership with McCartney Multimedia and Oasis Digital Studios, a collection of 15 photographic and animated NFTs.
Infinite is a carbon negative marketplace where the a brand or artist minting an NFT purchases carbon credits that are leveraged toward supporting a climate-certified, carbon emissions-reducing project like planting trees in the Amazon rainforest. Each transaction can be tracked and traced transparently on the Hedera Hashgraph public distributed ledger.
“NFTs allow artists, brands and other creators to sell digital products online. Unfortunately, most NFT marketplaces often require inordinate amounts of electricity and contribute significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere while minting these NFTS,” said Yonathan Lapchik, chief executive officer of Suku. “A recent study showed that the average NFT has a carbon footprint equivalent to more than a month’s worth of electricity used by a person living in the EU.”
He continued, “There are alternatives that use dramatically less energy with a much lower impact on the planet, such as Hedera Hashgraph, the protocol we used at Infinite by Suku NFT Marketplace. “At Infinite, we recognized the need for carbon negative NFTs so that our community of artists can reach new audiences in the digital sphere without negatively impacting the environment by using the high energy necessary for many NFT marketplaces.”
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