California wildfires are out of control. Over 4 million acres have burned in 2020 and 2021 alone — marking the highest recorded number in history.
To combat this climate change nightmare, YML built and launched FIREWATCH, a first-of-its-kind NFT platform designed to protect the landscape by preventing wildfire.
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10KSquare miles protected in California
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200MImpressions from press in 24 hours
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3.03Minutes spent on average per user
Key Takeaways
Built a bespoke Web3 marketplace
Created 1000 carbon-neutral NFTs
Launched in 5 months
Sustainable Web3 meets climate change relief
FIREWATCH transforms the California map into 1004 NFTs, each representing a 16x16 square mile footprint of the state. Every NFT purchase directly funds wildfire protection efforts — from fuel reduction to reforestation and wildlife protection — through our non-profit partner, One Tree Planted.
“Only in America can you adopt a highway, but not a forest. Until now.”
See how we built it
Listen to Ilia Karasin, YML’s Staff Architect, share the technology strategy and execution that fueled FIREWATCH.
Crafting California with code
No apes or cryptopunks here. Most NFT projects are essentially digital storefronts, but FIREWATCH is an immersive, web3 experience that leverages renderings from Google Maps, NASA imagery, California’s diverse habitat topography, and CalFire’s open data API — all expressed in a web3 application.
Educating users with custom iconography
In partnership with One Tree Planted, we illustrated a custom set of icons to demonstrate the various risks to the diverse landscapes across California, and how a purchase would make a measurable impact.
Fully carbon-offset with Solana
NFTs have a bad reputation. Some transactions use over 340 kilowatt hours of energy (which is more than 1/3 of the typical American home per month). In the spirit of combating climate change, we minted exclusively on Solana, an eco-friendly blockchain that ensured every NFT purchase was carbon offset.
Built to scale at speed
Not only are we now able to offer fully-custom Web3 experiences, but we can quickly launch and execute for the future with reusable IP.
How we did it
Design
- UI / UX
- Visual design
- Motion design
- Copywriting
- Storyboarding
Engineering
- Front-end development
- Back-end development
- Dev-ops
- Automated and Manual QA
- ADA accessibility
- CI/CD
Technology and Integrations
- Next (Back-end)
- Solana (Minting)
- Node (Back-end)
- React (Front-end)
- AWS (Hosting)
- Leaflet (Mapping)