Chibi Dinos Bids for Staying Power in Crowded NFT Market

By Jordan French Jordan French has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team
Published on May 4, 2022

Looking for something a bit different? That’s what the market wants, anyway. Or at least that’s the thinking of Sean Kelly, co-founder of Chibi Dinos, which has teamed up with the likes of PJ Washington and Terance Mann, sporting the brand’s IP on the basketball court. To that end, here’s everything you need to know for a deep-dive on the Chibi Dinos project.

Grit Daily: It’s been six months since “mint day.” Bring us up to speed on what’s happened since then.

Sean Kelly: It’s definitely been a busy six months at Chibi Dinos. Since launch, our community and basketball fans have loved our NBA team Captains, and we’ve continued to grow our presence in that space. Most recently we’ve signed PJ Washington and Terance Mann who have both represented Chibi Dinos on the court through custom sneakers.

With the initial drop being 2 dimensional art, one of the things that excited the community the most was the upcoming 3D render of the Chibi Dinos. We were so happy to work with Infinite World to transform our original 10k collection into playable 3D model assets. We’re really looking forward to releasing these 3D models to our 2D holders in the coming weeks!

Everyone was excited by the soft beta launch of our NBA predictive game, Primal Pick’Em, where players can make guesses on live NBA games to earn prizes. We’ve also continued to reward our holders and active users with things such as NBA tickets and merch. These giveaways really help us emphasize the connection we’re trying to build between the physical world and the metaverse. It is exciting to know that we are all still in the beginnings of the Web3 space. With this in mind, we continuously try to get our community more involved in Web3 through valued partnerships with projects such as Galaxy Fight Club, Pixels, and Antebellum.  

We have been loving and taking advantage of all the in person Web3 events, where we have been lucky enough to create new friendships and widen our user base. Most recently, we were at Miami NFT Week where we had a Chibi Dinos event, and I had the pleasure of speaking in front of 5,000 prospective users and investors. We used this opportunity to release the cinematic trailer for our Primal Hoop game and the response was overwhelmingly positive. People are really excited to see this game come out and it’s only the beginning!

Grit Daily: What’s behind the Chibi Dinos name? 

Sean Kelly: My co-founder and I wanted to create a project that incorporated things we both like! My favorite sport is basketball and I knew I wanted to incorporate a jersey to honor my first company, Jersey Champs, she wanted to put it on some sort of animal. We brainstormed and realized that nobody had really done dinos before and she has always found them so interesting. So we decided to mix Chibis and Dinosaurs together to create the alien creature called a Chibi Dino. We thought this would be appealing to a wide range of audiences because they’re cute but have some unique physical characteristics that make them pretty cool. Our plan was to create a brand with strong community values that is both globally recognizable and loved, and what better way to do that than to include things that bring us and potentially so many others together.

Grit Daily: What in the world are Chibi Dinos? 

Sean Kelly: Some people think they are just people in mascot costumes, but we decided to take the Chibi Dinos to the extreme. Chibi Dinos are actually Alien creatures from a Hoop shaped planet called Planet Hoop. For them, basketball is like a religion and their whole society revolves around these Primal Hoop rituals we recognize as basketball. We figured doing this would give us more room to create exciting and strange new stories that might have been limited if the Chibi Dinos were only mascots.

Grit Daily: How does Chibi Dinos relate to gaming? 

Sean Kelly: The whole backbone of our brand has been built and centers around gaming in the Web 3 space. We’ve really built this brand from the ground up to be focused on gaming in all its forms. From real world basketball to digital gaming, we’re hoping to make Chibi Dinos a gaming lifestyle brand through and through. This of course starts with the great partnerships we’ve been able to build.

The first partner we went public with was GameOn. We were really excited about this because their production officer, Santiago Jaramillo, has been responsible for working on the FIFA franchise for over a decade as well as having worked with Dapper labs to launch NBA Top Shot. GameOn was also really excited to work with us on the game because of our ties to NBA athletes and because we were one of the first NFT projects that they partnered with so closely. 

After lots of great collaboration between GameOn and Chibi Dinos, we’ve been fortunate to launch the world’s first NFT backed NBA predictive game, Primal Pick’Em. This game will give players an opportunity to win prizes from making guesses on the outcomes of live basketball games in the NBA and other professional leagues.

Chibi Dinos were also fortunate to connect with our partners, Infinite World, who recreated our 2D NFTs into 3D models that can be used all over the Metaverse. With these 3D models, annyone will be able to participate in a wide range of traditional games, whether they’re arcade style, RPG, fighting, strategy, or other games that are being built out by our many NFT partner projects. With the 3D Chibi Dino model you’re not limited to just having access to one game, but rather you will have access to a whole ecosystem that has multiple games with multiple different earning opportunities. 

Grit Daily: What else is in store for its community? 

Sean Kelly: These next few months are going to be crazy. I’ve already mentioned how we released our beta version of the world’s first NFT backed predictive game, Primal Pick’Em, but on May 9th it will be open for everyone to play. 

Around that time, we’re also going to officially launch our governance token HOOP, which will be available on 2 launchpads: GameStarter and Ignition. This will truly mark the beginning of our gaming ecosystem, since the HOOP token will be the main governance token for the Chibi Dinos Metaverse. 

As we get closer to the beta for our arcade game, we’re also going to allow people who have our 2D Chibi Dinos to redeem their 3D Chibi Dinos. This way, community members can start to use their Chibi Dinos in the Metaverse and also play in the beta of Primal Hoop, which is scheduled to launch in Q3. 

As the year moves forward we’re also going to be announcing other partnerships and great opportunities for our community. We’ll be at NFT NYC and have some exciting events planned for guests and Chibi Dino holders. 

Grit Daily: What other NFT projects have you collaborated with?

Sean Kelly: Right now our three biggest and closest partnerships are with Galaxy Fight Club, Pixels.online, and Antebellum. We’re selective about who we partner with, but I’m sure as more great projects come into the space we’ll be growing our list of quality partners.

Grit Daily: How can people best engage with the Chibi Dinos community? 

Sean Kelly: The best way to be part of the Chibi Dinos community right now is to join our discord. That’s where we have the most up to date announcements and information, as well as a thriving community of friends and partners that are always around to chat and just hang out. We’d love to see you there!

Grit Daily: What kind of benefits can you get from holding a Chibi Dino NFT? 

Sean Kelly: There’s lots of things to say about the benefits of holding a Chibi Dino NFT, but one of my favorite parts has definitely been becoming part of a community. We’re always here to help each other out, give advice, teach each other new things, or just joke around. I’m really proud of how great our community is and am hopeful that it will continue to grow and spread positive and helpful attitudes in the Web 3 space.

In addition to the community, there’s an obvious benefit to holding 2D Chibi Dino NFTs because they’ll give you access to the 3D Chibi Dino models that will be used in all our games and the Metaverse. With these you’ll be able to participate in Play and Earn gaming both in the Chibi Dinos ecosystem and our NFT partner’s ecosystems, along with the potential to earn additional Chibi Dinos, Gear (Chibi asset) NFTs, and participate in staking.

We also want to continue to provide our Chibi Dino holders with real world benefits for holding our NFTs, whether it’s discounts, merch, real-world access to events and clubs, access to exclusive content, or meet and greets. We’re constantly trying to add as much value, benefits, and utility to our project so that our community always knows how thankful we are for their support and engagements.

Grit Daily: What’s been your favorite Chibi Dino’s hosted event so far? 

Sean Kelly: Miami was a great time. We met lots of exciting projects and made some awesome connections in the space. It was a great opportunity for us to meet with people face to face, and we even had Chibi Dino themed ice cream to hand out!

Grit Daily: Do Chibi Dinos always wear their jerseys?

Sean Kelly: Not necessarily. Each Jersey represents a different land in the Chibi Dino’s world, but some Chibi Dinos might choose to wear regular clothes, or even none at all. In the first issue of our comic none of the Chibis are wearing gear and we learned why some of the gear they wear is special. 

Grit Daily: Where can people find more information about the project and future updates?

Sean Kelly: The best way to learn about Chibi Dinos is at our website, and join us on Discord to really get a feel for what it’s like to be part of the community.

By Jordan French Jordan French has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team

Journalist verified by Muck Rack verified

Jordan French is the Founder and Executive Editor of Grit Daily. The champion of live journalism, Grit Daily's team hails from ABC, CBS, CNN, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes, Fox, PopSugar, SF Chronicle, VentureBeat, Verge, Vice, and Vox. An award-winning journalist, he is on the editorial staff at TheStreet.com and a Fast 50 and Inc. 500-ranked entrepreneur with one sale. Formerly an engineer and intellectual-property attorney, his third company, BeeHex, rose to fame for its "3D printed pizza for astronauts" and is now a military contractor. A prolific investor, he's invested in 40+ early stage startups through 2021.

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