Portion’s 21 Memorable Moments of 2021

Happy holidays and new year!

Looking back on the wild ride we took this year, it has been inspiring to witness Web 3.0 and NFTs become such a dominant force in popular culture. There has been an infinite wave of creativity unleashed by better systems and we feel confident that many pieces of our technology and ecosystem will fully come together in the coming years. Individuals, brands, and organizations will increasingly and significantly embrace NFTs and the metaverse, and this new creative economy will open up the pathways for creativity to spawn at levels never witnessed in history. Portion remains well positioned in the eye of this hurricane.

Our community is vast and rich with passion, talent, and creativity. We'd like to thank all of the amazing creators, collectors, curators, and supporters who have believed in us along the way.

The future is bright! Here's to 2022 🥂

Love,

Portion Team

1) TOHI X Antoni Tudisco

In May, Persian artist, producer and icon, TOHI, dropped his first ever NFT collection in collaboration with legendary artist Antoni Tudisco to celebrate nature and spirituality on the eve of Eid. The collection sold out for 27.33 ETH!

2) Stevie Williams x Virgil Abloh

In June, Stevie Williams dropped his unreleased 000 skate deck and NFT pair as a collaboration with Virgil Abloh.  It was a privilege to be able to work with Stevie and Virgil on this release and we feel deeply honored to have facilitated the sale of Virgil’s first and only official NFT release.

Rest in Peace, Virgil...A true visionary and multi-disciplinary creative genius, he elevated culture and fashion beyond the walls of convention. Virgil inspired an entire generation and he will be deeply missed, cherished, and celebrated by us and all the people and industries that he so profoundly impacted.

3) Digital Art Month Paris 2021

Portion and the Crypto and Digital Art Fair (CADAF) partnered for the Digital Art Month festival in Paris to celebrate the infinite creativity of artists that push boundaries with new mediums in times of social distancing. Throughout the month, over 100 AR and video artworks by 80 artists were showcased throughout various public locations and commercial spaces. The works were placed at select cultural institutions including Centre Pompidou, Monnaie de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, etc., and featured Andy Picci, Ines Alpha, Filippo Soccini, Recycle Group, Kevin Abosch and many more..

4) Street X Pop Art Week

Portion’s Street x Pop Art Week was all about putting disruptive art forms back into the hands of real people, and bringing together many of the world’s most provocative and exciting artists into one place. Five days, 16 artists, and thousands of street x pop art fans —  with no boundaries, no rules, and no reservations.

5) 2 Chainz X GucciGhost Drop NFT to Celebrate Anniversary of PGLTM

2 Chainz in collaboration with Trevor Andrew aka GUCCIGHOST released a 1/1 NFT titled "Pretty Girls Like Trap NFTs," commemorating the 4 year anniversary of 2 Chainz's iconic fourth studio album, "Pretty Girls Like Trap Music." It sold for 10.25 ETH.

6) Grand Opening of Portion Museum in Decentraland

In July, Portion debuted the grand opening of a museum in Decentraland's Voltaire district. Featuring OG and emerging crypto artists with 7 floors of cutting-edge NFT artwork open to the public. The Portion museum has since provided immense benefits for the Portion community and has helped increase the visibility of artwork whilst providing a fun and interactive space for virtual events, auctions, and exhibits, to heighten connectivity between artists, creators, collectors, and fans.

7) SUPAHOTFIRE Turns Viral Meme Into NFT

In 2011, YouTuber MrDeshawnRaw, posted a video titled "The Rap Battle [Parody],” the first installment of a popular series of satirical videos, parodying battle rap. The video gained over 62 Million views in less than two years and has since gone on to garner more than 2 billion views through re-uploads.

The one of a kind NFT “SIKE! (Ohhhh)” featuring Supa Hot Fire vs B- Bone: the most famous scene in the series where two "rappers " battle amongst a crowd, was dropped on Portion and sold for 5 ETH.

8) Be Svendsen X Android Jones X Mikelis

The merge of these artists’ worlds became the storyline of transformational experience. This culminated a Portion exclusive drop that fused Be Svendsen's analogue organic sound and feel, with Android Jones' digital dreamscapes, all directed by Mikelis. With a collection of four NFTs combining video and audio, they introduced the order of the universe: The Circle, Hexagon, Triangle, and Square.

Together the four pieces symbolize the stages of a transformational journey – letting go, surrendering, inner space, outer space, dissolving, spiritual growth and homecoming - the return to essence and form, with a change. The Portion exclusive collection ended up selling for over ~$65K.

9) Release of Portion V3

Portion ushered in the next iteration of the V3 upgrade, coming to resemble what we have always envisioned: a beautiful platform for artists and collectors to transact and prosper. The new interface continues to elevate our auction house up to the Portion standard, making it significantly easier for anybody to interact on the platform and bring in broader adoption for Portion.

The new upgrade included a new gallery view, enhanced filters and sorting options, artist search functionality, seamless self-serve artwork categorization on the Create page, faster load times, enhanced thumbnails, larger displays, and infinite scroll. More optimizations and upgrades to come in 2022!

10) Palm Integration

Portion partnered with Palm to drastically reduce the cost and environmental impact of minting NFTs. By integrating Palm’s scalable infrastructure, Portion now abstracts away many of the complexities and costs for creators and collectors, all while preserving decentralization and the technical integrity of distributed protocols.

We became the first decentralized open NFT platform to offer support for both Ethereum and Palm networks, in turn lowering the barriers to entry for creators, while continuing to offer them up to 100% of the proceeds from the sales of their work.

11) Kevin Abosch's "Spider-Stan" Resells for 61 ETH on Portion

The famed conceptual artist Kevin Abosch's ‘Spider-Stan’ NFT  resold for over $191,000 (61 ETH) on Portion's secondary market! It first sold on Portion for 61 ETH back in February 2021, or $88K at the time. This portrait of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee by Kevin Abosch was taken in Los Angeles in 1996 and is scheduled to land on the moon on NASA’s United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.

12) NYC Blue Gallery Show

Portion was proud to sponsor a gallery show at the Blue Gallery in Midtown East, NYC. The show featured a fantastic collection of art from Liana Finck, Tommy Siegel, and Cal Kearns.

13) A Month-Long AR exhibit on Fifth Ave in NYC!

Portion partnered with CADAF for Digital Art Month NYC to create an AR exhibit on Fifth Avenue for the entire month of October! Digital Art Month showcased an array of dynamic, interactive, and sculptural site-specific AR effects in NYC. Portion's interactive AR fashion-themed exhibits displayed on banners lining Fifth Avenue and viewers were able to scan QR codes, taking them to the collectable AR NFTs on Portion, as well as to special filter effects on Instagram.

14) Digital Fashion Month

Throughout the month of October, Portion hosted Digital Fashion Month, an exhibition highlighting leading artists and creators specializing in the new frontier of digital fashion as we were seeking to explore what fashion would look like in the digital age and how it might evolve in the Metaverse. We had the honor of featuring 50+ creators and hosted fashion events across the metaverse!

15) The Fabricant Made Significant Strides Building the Wardrobe of the Metaverse

Portion had the pleasure of holding an exclusive auction for digital fashion trendsetter, The Fabricant, and their Pluriform collection, advocating for gender diversity and inclusion in the digital fashion space. The Fabricant is the world’s first digital-only fashion house with design garments only existing digitally that collectors' avatars can "wear" on social media platforms, in gaming environments, and in virtual worlds ("the metaverse").

16) Wiz Khalifa Drops His First NFT Collection in Collaboration with Antoni Tudisco

Multi-platinum GRAMMY & Golden Globe nominated recording artist Wiz Khalifa expanded his prolific creative output into the NFT space by partnering with renowned 3D artist Antoni Tudisco for a limited edition collection consisting of 100 NFTS, which sold out within 24 hours.

17) First Indian Dress NFT Sold by Ravi Guru Singh

Ravi Guru Singh, a Brooklyn based lawyer and digital creator, minted the first traditional Indian fashion NFT collection. His Indian dress NFT was the first of its kind to be displayed in Decentraland and crossed over in real life via AR. The minted lehenga choli became a cultural milestone for a country of 1.3 billion people.

18) NFT.NYC

Portion attended the sprawling New York City wide event, NFT.NYC, and took part in panel discussions and official parties with thousands of eager cryptocurrency enthusiasts. In addition, Portion co-hosted an epic GN NFT.NYC art gallery at Capitale, a historic bank in a former life alongside 25+ artists’ work on display and many NFT experiences throughout the venue.

19) Art Basel (aka NFT Basel)

This is the first time NFTs had a major presence at Art Basel and Portion was there to make an appearance! As the digital and physical worlds merge and become harmonious with one another, we wanted to extend a welcome hand to those in the traditional world. For many of them, this was their first time meeting and engaging with the NFT community outside of crazy headlines.

Portion took part in and hosted 4 amazing events including The Temporal Gallery, SLS South Beach Miami Hotel, a gallery party on a yacht, and Factory Town, helping us meet our community full of creators and collectors.

20) MetaMilliners Teressa Foglia & Tyler Hays Sell the First-Ever NFT Hat on Portion

Artist Ty Hays and Milliner Teressa Foglia sold the first ever NFT hat, "It's All in Your Head," for 2 ETH on Portion! This genesis piece included a digital NFT, physical artwork, and bespoke 1/1 physical hat.

21) Portion Partners with Publicis Sapient to Build Out the Metaverse

Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company, announced its partnership with Portion, to collaborate on two initiatives that will allow Publicis Sapient’s clients to extend their brands into Web 3.0, including the metaverse, and evolve the customer experience.

Publicis Sapient and Portion will architect a first-of-its-kind metaverse-based experience that will act as a conduit for legacy channels to expand their brands into this new digital frontier. The collaboration will officially pilot in 2022!

Thank You Portion Community!

The past year may be remembered as one of the most challenging yet technologically disruptive times in recent history. The collective isolation and the absence of public spaces meant more people turned to digital communities. The internet and digital assets became essential and many began to rethink notions of value, especially as it relates to creative labor. We’ve watched the NFT space go mainstream and artists become increasingly collaborative and creative in how they support each other’s work digitally. The pace of discovery and innovation is beyond what we could have ever imagined when we first started building this technology in 2016.

While this has been amazing to see, we are still so early. The NFT space has opened up a whole lot of opportunities for creators and these opportunities will only continue to expand. It's difficult to predict the future, but for Portion, you haven't even imagined the extent of what will emerge in 2022.

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