Just a few days after its launch on 15th May 2022, CryptoNinja Partners suddenly appeared in the global NFT space. Although already well known in the Japanese market, they were under the radar of most overseas buyers.
So, what are CryptoNinja Partners anyway? What is the reason for its success? Who is behind this collection?
Let’s take a look at what makes CryptoNinja Partners NFTs so special.
- CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) is a 22,222 generative PFP collection released in May 2022
- The vision of the project is to create a new web3 style IP character
- It’s the most actively traded and largest collection by market capitalisation in Japan
- It is backed by the most active and influential NFT community in Japan, NinjaDAO
- The identities of the founder & lead marketer have been disclosed
- The project provides many utilities both in Web3 and in real life.
Full disclosure: I own CNP NFTs at the time of writing.
Please note that the contract migration of the CNP collection took place on 29 April 2023. The collection’s trading volume on OpenSeas was reset at that time.
What are CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) NFTs?
CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) is a 22,222 PFP NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain created by Ninja DAO, the most active and influential NFT community in Japan. Its pre-sale mint began on May 15, 2022, and the entire collection was sold out within 80 minutes.
CNP Information: 26/05/2023 (Source: NFTMarketCap.jp)
| Items | 22,222 |
| Owners | 5,499 |
| Floor Price | 0.8 ETH |
| Volume Traded (since the contract migration on 29/04/23) | 268.48 ETH |
| Market Cap | 18,349.11 ETH |
| Listing Rate | 0.7% |
CNP’s vision is to create a new Web3-style IP character through a super-permissive licensing model and the participation of community members in its growth.
CNP is a fan art project of NinjaDAO’s main collection, CryptoNinja. It was originally created to further expand and strengthen the community and help grow the CryptoNinja IP by providing a large number of generative NFTs at an affordable mint price (0.001ETH).
⚡️CryptoNinja Partners #CNP mint schedule⚡️
Pre-sale & Public sale: 15 May (JST)🥳
09am: Ninja owners & CNP contributors
10am: CNP whitelist holders & CNP ambassadors
12pm: NinjaDao university members6pm : Public sale
💰Price: 0.001ETH
Get ready to mint‼️ pic.twitter.com/qke0m98y79
— Ninja DAO | CryptoNinja (@CryptoNinja_NFT) May 10, 2022
However, due to the massive success of the collection, the team decided to develop CNP as a standalone IP alongside the CryptoNinja IP.
The original artwork had four base characters; Leelee the panda, Mitama the ghost, Narukami the bird, and Orochi the snake – new characters are added to the collection periodically via the BurNin’ mechanism.
CNP: Fans can Become Partners
The theme of the project is “Fans can become partners.” There are two thoughts behind this idea:
- CNP characters are partners of CryptoNinja
- The fans of CNP can also become partners
CNP characters are partners of CryptoNinja
CNP is fan art of CryptoNinja through the use of Ninja sub-characters. For example, one of the CNP characters, Orochi, is a “partner” of No.22 CryptoNinja, Janome.
CNP has developed its own IP by featuring various Ninja sub-characters.
The fans of CNP can also become partners
CNP’s challenge is to develop a Web3-style IP by promoting a new character-fan relationship. Traditionally, fans support the growth of an IP by consuming goods provided by the company. However, CNP welcomes its NFT owners to become partners in the IP by actively participating in the community.
“This is a new way of developing character IPs that hasn’t been done before,” said CNP founder Road in the interview. “Many of our holders use the CNP NFT as a membership badge to participate in the community and be part of the growth of CNP. The team sees all of our holders as our partners, and I believe this relationship has been made possible by the emergence of Web3, including the NFTs.”
Within the NinjaDAO community, there are dedicated CNP holder channels in both Japanese and English, where many discussions take place about CNP development strategies and plans.
CNP uses a super-permissive licensing model that allows creators to produce CNP fan art and earn money from it. This model further encourages the participation of community members. This has resulted in many successful derivative collections such as CNP Jobs and Very Long CNP.
Please note that CNP derivative collections are separate projects from CNP with different founders – they do not share any utilities.
The Team Behind CryptoNinja Partners
There are three key members who have led the collection to its success.
Road is an entrepreneur and the founder of a web marketing company, Bucket, providing the crowdfunding subscription service, Fanclove, in Japan. Komesuke is an up-and-coming creator who has won many illustrating competitions such as Elf Masters and Flower Lolita. Ikehaya, the founder of NinjaDAO, is a business and web marketing influencer with over 500,000 social media followers.
Under their lead, over 100 DAO members got involved with the project contributing to making CNP the No.1 NFT collection in Japan.
“I’m proud to say that CNP is the first major project done by our community, and its success shows the true potential of DAO as an organization,” said Ikehaya.
CryptoNinja Partners: Utilities & Roadmap
Since its release in May 2022, the CNP team has delivered many of the utilities and services that were in the original roadmap and more, including:
- BurNin’ – NFT exchange mechanism
- Makimono (Ninja scroll) NFT free mint
- CNP Friends – smartphone app
- CNP Owners – offers discounts for restaurants, shops, and hotels in Japan
- LINE NFTs – release of the CNP sub-collections on the LINE blockchain
- Furusato CNP – collaboration with Japanese regional governments
- Virtual Tokyo Dome Campaign – collaboration with Tokyo Dome City
- Access to the pre-sale mints for other Japanese NFT collections
Examples of projects in discussion and progress are:
- Development of NFT trading platform, Xinobi
- Development of the smarphone game, BurNin Wars
- Web3 Collaboration with SoftBank Corp.
- Development of CNP Land in the Metaverse
“CNP is the most exciting NFT available in the market, especially for long-term buyers,” Ikehaya says. “As well as providing Web3 entertainment for our owners through utilities such as BurNin’ and Makimono NFTs, we also offer real life utilities such as CNP Owners and CNP Friends, allowing you to enjoy them in your everyday life. ”
Read more about CNP’s utilities below:
NFTs are starting to provide many more benefits to their owners. When you buy a profile picture NFT (PFP), what types o[…]
CNP’s rapid business development since its release can be attributed to founder Road. Road’s business development skills have been recognised by the NFT communities and his daily AMA session on Twitter Spaces consistently attracts a large audience.
CryptoNinja Partners Analysis
In this section, I would like to share my thoughts and analysis with you as an owner of CNP and a member of the NinjaDAO community.
CNP’s lead marketer, Ikehaya, is regarded as the most influential marketer in the Japanese NFT sector. His marketing strategy for the CNP collection, which is to become No.1 in Japan and build a solid fan base and community there first, has proven to be very successful.
“Japan is the land of content creators like anime and manga, and we Japanese know how to enjoy and nurture characters,” said Ikehaya. “Given our unique creative culture, building a strong position here in Japan first will give us an edge in the global market in the future, just as it did for Pokémon and Naruto.”
CNP is currently focusing on expanding the overall Japanese NFT market and raising the profile of CNP as an IP through initiatives such as LINE NFT and the mobile application game BurNin Wars.
You can read more about LINE NFT and CNP’s strategy below.
If you have been following the Japanese NFT market, you have probably heard of LINE NFT and wondered what it is and how […]
One thing that the team didn’t anticipate was that CNP would be discovered by overseas buyers at this early stage. Only a few days after its initial mint, its OpenSea ranking started to go up, and now CNP is regularly in the top 100.
As a result, the percentage of overseas holders started to increase, though the majority are still Japanese holders.
With exciting utilities, a strong community, and a highly effective business and marketing strategy, the CNP project is clearly on the right path. Besides, who could ignore those cute Ninja characters coming from the country of Anime?
*CryptoNinja Partners Useful Links
The content is for informational purposes only. Investment/financial opinions expressed by Web3 Zen.com are not recommendations. As always, please do your own research prior to making any investment decisions.
