Shopping for Social Impact 🛍️

HUG’s Merch Shop is open! In March, HUG Creator Guild member, Viki Kosa, led a community fundraising initiative for Women’s History Month. Huggers collaborated to create, iterate, and choose their favorite designs to make it into the shop.

All proceeds from sales will be donated to Girls Who Code to support the next generation of women in tech. Visit the shop, place your orders, and tell a friend to help us drive maximum impact (and to look good while doing it, too).

Special thanks to Viki Kosa, Maria Faith Garcia, RofiB, and Niki Kunos for their time and commitment to this cause.

Gas transactions lead to a time for Tezos

A surge in trading volume for memecoins like $PEPE and $TURBO has led to all-time highs in gas transactions on the Ethereum network. Subsequently, this has led to artists and art collectors alike turning to alternative blockchain networks such as Tezos.

Tezos started gaining popularity as an alternative blockchain to Ethereum over the past 2 years, given that it was more environmentally friendly and cheaper to use. Despite Ethereum being greener now, Tezos still has much lower fees compared to the hefty gas fees seen on Ethereum.

One such example is HUG’s own Head Curator, Lorr, who chose Tezos to launch her genesis collection screen time. Created entirely through mastery of Midjourney AI art, Lorr describes screen time as a "vivid reimagination of history through the lens of screen time addiction"

Celebrate Mother’s Day with a Mint

Power of Women’s genesis collection on the Tezos blockchain will feature two unique artworks: The Mother by Power of Women’s founder and artist, Leah Ibrahim Sams, and its companion piece, Her Child by acclaimed digital and AI artist, Lilyillo.

The collaboration explores the powerful connection that can exist between two artists across different mediums. Beginning with each other’s childhood photos as references, Leah and Lily embarked on a two-week journey drawing inspiration from each other’s photographs, sketches, and unique creative processes - including Lily’s iconic use of AI technology - to create a pair of artworks that are forever entwined.

Released as companion pieces, collectors will first be invited to purchase editions of Leah’s ‘The Mother’ for 16 tez each (ca. $16 USD) from 12pm UTC on Friday 12 May. Lilyillo’s accompanying piece, ‘Her Child’ will then be revealed and airdropped for free to all holders of ‘The Mother’ on Sunday 14 May.

Going to the moon with Artist-in-Residence Nhefertiti

Nhefertiti is a digital illustrator with a background in architecture whose works explore themes of femininity, inner worlds, and feelings. Nhefertiti was recently announced as our Meta Angels x Adobe Artist-in-Residence for May.

To add to the good news, her piece Lunar Bloom was selected as a finalist in World of Women’s Spring Artfest. Nhefertiti’s talents and dedication to her craft is deserving of every accolade, and we look forward to sharing more on her journey as the month progresses. Until then, be sure to visit her HUG profile to explore her portfolio and leave a thoughtful review.

Power of Women x Ilylio

Trending tactics to take you to new heights

The rise of the creator economy has enabled individuals to leverage their creativity and passion to build businesses and monetize their content online. Together with content creation and e-commerce tooling, creators now have unprecedented opportunities to turn their passions into profitable careers.

In our most recent edition of Creator Royalties, our weekly newsletter for Web3(-curious) creatives, we share 5 top creator economy trends we’re seeing so it can inspire you to grow your business and take it to the next level.

Asians leaders to Learn from during AAPI Month

For AAPI Heritage Month, nft now partnered with GoldenDao, the first decentralized initiative to advance AAPI solidarity through collaborative empowerment, to compile a list of outstanding Asian founders in Web3 who are making a difference.

We are honored to share that HUG’s co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Debbie Soon, was selected as one of 10 Asian founders shaping the future of Web3. Read what NFT Now had to say about Debbie’s accomplishments and the other inspirational leaders in the ranks with her.

How Dynamic Are Your Digital Dinner Plans?

We are thrilled that share that HUG is an official partner in Async Art’s Forever Supper! HUG’s expansion pack, A Round of HUGs for the Table, features artwork from jprittee and will be available as a free claim for a limited time.

Forever Supper is the biggest, ongoing digital art collaboration. This is Async Art's first Dynamic Blueprint collection, a homage to First Supper, the world's first programmable, dynamic NFT that was minted in 2020. This collection allows for a completely new way to create, collect, and interact with NFTs.

Everyone starts with an empty room. Over time, Async will release different backgrounds, decor, and characters called Expansion Packs for collectors to pick and decorate their room with. How you customize your room is entirely up to you. Make it your story.