MoonGorillas is a collection of 10,000 unique gorilla non-fungible tokens (NFTs) inspired by the important work of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Each NFT is a digital extension of the gorillas protected by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, with the total number of MoonGorilla NFTs created being strictly limited to this 10,000 collection.

These 10,000 gorillas have come from the Moon to help their endangered cousins on Earth. They have randomly chosen objects and outfits from Earth to try and fit into the crowd, but they have gotten lost along the way. Adopt them as your NFT nature pet and help them in their mission to save the Earth’s gorillas so they can go back to the moon…

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital asset that represents ownership of digital or real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. NFTs are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy and sell digital artwork, such as MoonGorillas.

NFTs allow buyers to own the original item and contain “built-in authentication”, which serves as proof of ownership secured by blockchain, ensuring that:

• There can only ever be one official owner at a time,
• No one can modify the record of ownership without an owner’s consent, and
• A new NFT of the artwork cannot be copied/pasted into existence (i.e. it is unique and non-replicable).

Each MoonGorilla NFT is a unique digital piece of art and is generated by drawing from more than 300+ separate traits such as headgear, apparel and facial expressions.

You can purchase a MoonGorilla NFT on the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund website https://gorillafund.org/moongorillas-nft/ from 12am EDT (GMT -4) on 2 May to 12am EDT (GMT -4) 6 May.

When you purchase your MoonGorilla, you MUST provide a digital web3 wallet. You will use this wallet to store and trade your MoonGorilla (see below for instructions on how to create a wallet).

A web3 wallet is an essential tool for storing and trading digital assets such as your MoonGorilla NFT. These wallets have what is known as a “public” and “private” key, which are cryptographically generated and allow you to store, use and transfer your NFT.

There are many Web3 wallets, such as Metamask, which equip you with a wallet address, key vault, secure login, and backup options to manage your digital assets securely. We recommend buyers without an existing wallet use a Metamask wallet which is very commonly used (see our instructions on how to download and use a Metamask wallet HERE).

With a digital wallet, you have sole responsibility for your NFT assets and the keys to access them. Your digital assets are only as safe as your keys, so back them up and keep them safe. Never, ever share your password or seed phrase to anyone.

See our instructions on how to download and use a Metamask wallet HERE.

MoonGorillas are USD $120 for this sale period. Secondary market prices will vary in line with demand.

Yes, 100% of the proceeds from the initial sale of these NFTs will go to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

Dian Fossey famously predicted that gorillas would be extinct by the year 2000. But thanks to her legacy of dedication and advocacy through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the world is now aware of their plight. Conservationists and government leaders are working together to find ways to protect them and today, the population of mountain gorillas Fossey set out to study more than 50 years ago has more than doubled. Sadly however, even if we also include a second group of mountain gorillas that live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, there are just over 1,000 gorillas left on the planet.

It’s a conservation success, certainly, but it’s a fragile success. Gorillas still face numerous threats — their small population size and limited habitat, combined with the risks posed by disease, climate change and human encroachment — means that their future is anything but secure.

100% of the proceeds from the initial sale of the MoonGorilla NFTs will go toward the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and their important work to conserve these real-world endangered gorillas. Beyond the initial sale proceeds, a % of future royalties received for the secondary sale of the MoonGorillas will also go to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

This is where MoonGorillas can help their Earth-bound cousins. The sale of these NFTs will make a real and direct impact on the work of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to ensure that these gorillas have a future.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is protecting more than 1,600 sq km of critical gorilla habitat in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda—that is an area twice the size of New York City and one of our planet’s best natural defenses against climate change. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund will use the proceeds from MoonGorillas to continue their daily, intensive, boots-on-the-ground protection of these forests as well as individual gorillas and their families. Proceeds will also fund their critical scientific research, along with their livelihood and food security programs in support of the human communities that surround the gorilla habitat.

All MoonGorilla’s sold will be minted, distributed and revealed within 24-48 hours of purchase.

Once your MoonGorilla is distributed to your wallet after the public sale, you can view it by following the instructions HERE.

You can use your MoonGorilla NFT in the same way you can any piece of collectible art, including for personal enjoyment, commercial purposes and/or trade with other NFT collectors and enthusiasts.

MoonGorilla NFTs will also be the first full collection in the world that also has an augmented reality (AR) effect using pioneering technology developed by Spark AR Studio.

Each MoonGorilla NFT will have Spark AR effects allowing you to interact with your NFT in creative ways. Users will be able to scan a code using a Meta family app (e.g. Facebook or Instagram) to access and share the AR effect on their MoonGorilla. For example, when you view your gorilla, it will create a 3D effect and move and shift on the page as you move your device, unlike a static photograph or image.

The SparkAR effects will be the first deliverable from the MoonGorilla team and is scheduled to go live from mid-April. Full instructions on how to view the SparkAR effects once they are live for your MoonGorilla will be posted on the dedicated MoonGorilla page

Spark AR Studio is an augmented reality (AR) platform owned by Meta (Facebook) that allows users to create AR effects for mobile cameras. You can think of it like Photoshop or Sketch, but for AR. Its pioneering tech and tools are focused on bridging the gap between the real world and virtual worlds (like the rapidly expanding metaverse).

This is a community-driven project led by PERL.eco with a goal to integrate MoonGorillas into a wider metaverse where people can engage and contribute to real-world solutions to environmental problems. This will include the ability for MoonGorilla owners to participate in games, initiatives and communities focused on social and environmental work in the metaverse for real-world impact. The project will also give priority access to pioneering new on-chain carbon offset, monitoring and market trading mechanisms for our community and the crypto and NFT ecosystems.These will provide a powerful new set of tools for NFT projects to ensure they are “green” and sustainable.

You can find the MoonGorilla Project Roadmap on the MoonGorilla page and learn more by joining the MoonGorillas Discord Community.

A hard capped maximum of 10,000 MoonGorilla NFTs will be generated for the collection. A minimum of 8,888 is reserved for the initial public sale for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, with 100% of proceeds going to them.

The MoonGorilla Project Team will reserve the remaining 1,112 in a treasury fund to help build, maintain and grow a thriving self-sustaining community focused on real-world impact. This fighting fund will also be used to develop future utility for the MoonGorillas and drive other important activities, including:

• Incentives for early adopters and active community members
• Marketing and partnerships with corporate sponsors, celebrities and influencers committed to philanthropic causes
• Innovative initiatives for social and environmental impact
• Long-term funding for the Project team.

Join the MoonGorillas Discord community to learn more and get updates.

Yes, 20 ultra-rare MoonGorillas have been specially designed with a nod to the Reddit conservation community that so generously supported the Gorilla Fund back in March 2021. Other special features—rockets, stocks, 3D glasses—have been added throughout the total collection of 10,000 MoonGorillas.

It’s important to understand that all conservation projects and initiatives will have an emissions footprint. Eco-tourism, which is a central to many fundraising and education efforts, often has a substantial emissions footprint (e.g., air travel is the easiest and most impactful to consider). These emissions are carefully balanced against the powerful benefits it can bring for worthy causes.

In this context, we acknowledge that NFT projects can sometimes lead to poor environmental outcomes if creators don’t carefully consider how they are executed. That’s why we’ve tried to learn from past missteps and to come up with future best practices.

With all that in mind, we’re doing five key things to ensure that MoonGorillas have a clear and compelling net positive impact on the environment. This includes:

1. Use of Polygon, a low emissions blockchain network, to support our NFTs.
2. Calculation of total emissions based on reliable third-party resources such as Digiconomist
3. Donation of 10 times the carbon credits required to completely offset the minting and distribution of our NFTs
4. Donation of a further % of any royalties our NFTs receive to ensure that any future blockchain activity is offset (in addition to the royalties going to the Gorilla Fund)
5. Developing a Carbon Backer blockchain tool allowing all NFT projects to transparently offset emissions.

You can find more detail on each of these steps below.

Emissions from NFT transactions depend on the blockchain they use. Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains consume substantially more energy than Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains (a recent study demonstrated that PoS blockchains consume less than 0.001% of PoW blockchains like Bitcoin).

After exhaustive research and analysis, we landed on the Polygon Network (a PoS blockchain), which is substantially less energy intensive but still widely adopted worldwide. We believe Polygon strikes the right balance between minimising emissions while still ensuring as many NFT buyers as possible can participate and own a MoonGorilla.

We understand and accept that Polygon is a “sidechain” that still relies on the Ethereum PoW blockchain to function, and is therefore still more carbon-intensive than a purely POS blockchain. That’s why we’re pioneering some innovative world-first mechanisms to address the remaining carbon footprint.

Using third-party tools (such as those provided by Digiconomist), we have carefully calculated the emissions arising for all blockchain transactions required on both Polygon and Ethereum. If you’d like to see our calculations and assumptions, you can find the open source NFT carbon calculator we created.

Based on this, we’ve calculated that the total carbon footprint for the minting and distribution of MoonGorilla NFTs to be around four metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to the emissions of slightly less than one car in a year (see U.S. EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator). It is also the equivalent of the carbon sequestered by 5 acres of U.S. forest in a year. The Fossey Fund is currently working to protect 400,000 acres of forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which, given its rich plant biodiversity, is estimated to hold more than 125,000,000 tons of carbon and is continuing to expand this work. The support of projects like MoonGorillas will help ensure that this vital work to save one of our best natural defenses against climate change will continue.

To be even more ultra-conservative, we’ve then multiplied this carbon footprint by a factor of x10 to ensure there’s absolutely no chance we’ve underestimated the emissions.

To ensure that the MoonGorilla NFTs are inarguably carbon positive, our team will donate 10 times the carbon credits needed to offset the entire minting and distribution process. That’s enough carbon credits to offset 40 metric tons of emissions.

Additionally, we have further limited any emissions directly attributable to the initial sale by allowing collectors to purchase MoonGorillas using fiat currency on the Dian Fossey Fund website, rather than in cryptocurrency.

We understand that future blockchain transactions from the trading and transfer of MoonGorilla NFTs will create new emissions. To address this, a % of any royalties received on the secondary market will be donated to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and 5% will go to purchase further carbon offsets.

We will continuously monitor and offset these emissions in a transparent and accountable way for as long as the MoonGorillas continue to actively trade – which we hope is forever.

Our PERL.eco partners are also in the final stages of developing the Carbon Backer tool. The Carbon Backer has been designed as a gold standard for how projects and collectors can easily and transparently offset their NFT-based emissions. Once the tool is deployed live, we’ll lead by example and onboard the MoonGorillas to future-proof them against all emissions.

You can join the PERL.eco community on Twitter, Discord or Telegram to learn more and get updates on the Carbon Backer.

The reality is that vital projects like the DFGF need ongoing funding to continue doing their important conservation work. Without this, NGOs, not-for-profits and charities would simply cease to exist. The very real risk in many cases may be that entire species, like the fragile remaining population of mountain gorillas, are lost to the world forever.

Ultimately, we are balancing emissions against extinction.

By proactively and aggressively mitigating the carbon impacts of this project, we believe that not just the MoonGorilla NFTs but all conservation-focused NFTs can now be used as a powerful new non-traditional fundraising tool. We are leading by example to set an industry precedent for all future NFT projects raising critical funds for conservation initiatives.

From the start of the MoonGorillas project we have been actively aware of the potential for creating carbon emissions from technology used to deliver the NFTs and working on solutions to mitigate any impact. We are actively addressing this by going beyond and off-set utilising carbon credits. We will actually off-set more carbon that is created by a significant factor so that MoonGorillas are net-positive.

But we’re not stopping there. We’ll also be future-proofing MoonGorillas by donating a % of royalties on secondary sales to ensure future transactions on the blockchain are also offset.

Beyond this, we have further invested in creating a technology solution with our partners at PERL.eco, Carbon Backer, which allows owners to easily and transparently offset their NFT-based emissions. Once the tool is deployed live, we’ll lead by example and onboard the MoonGorillas to future-proof them against all emissions. We planned to go beyond any other NFT project in actively addressing the potential for emissions impact and we will carry this ethos forward and the MoonGorilla project grows.