We recently laid out a series of big announcements coming over the next few weeks — this is the first one in that list, check out the general update here to get up to speed on what’s coming.

Today we’re excited to reveal a brand new element of the VSEA reward ecosystem — the SEA NFT & Governance program. It’s a major advance in how we reward contributors to the Nexus, and a massive expansion of our global impact in terms of conservation, activism and research.

Here’s how it’s going to work: you contribute data to the Nexus, you get rewards in VSEA. We’ve already posted about this a lot, and the details are all available in our learning library. Now — when you get that VSEA, you can use it to buy a SEA NFT. These NFTs are unique artworks made by some of the most famous visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, sound artists and digital creators on the planet — we’re keeping the names under wraps for now, but rest assured you’re going to want these NFTs in your collection!

Now comes the (even more) interesting part — with a SEA NFT in your wallet, you get governance rights. You’ll select a “tribe” to support, and get an NFT with special attributes. Depending on which tribe you choose, you’re supporting a different element of conservation and activism:

Guardian

The focus of this tribe is the creation and governance of new reserves and Marine Protected Areas. You’ll select an area on our interactive map — that’s your slice of reserve. You contribute to governance decisions over that geographical space, with voting power according to the size of your area. If you want to help protect important ecosystems and species, this is the tribe for you.

Pathfinder

This tribe focuses on environmental research projects. You’ll get governance rights to vote on projects to fund, you’ll review early and late stage research, get community input into research projects, access to special discussion forums with project members present, research credits, conference tickets, event invitations and more. If you’re keen to see advances in how we understand our planet, this is your tribe.

Visionary

This tribe supports the creation of culture — enviro-art funding, education campaigns and more. You’ll vote on projects to fund, receive special art benefits and NFT drops, get producer credits, event invitations, tickets and more. If you’re into creativity, education and expanding minds, choose the Visionary tribe.

Warrior

The final tribe works on frontline activism and change-making. You’ll vote on projects to fund, get supporter credits, activist materials, how-to guides and tutorials, invites to special events and more. If you want to be on the front lines in the fight against climate change, this is your tribe.

Freshly minted SEA NFT packs are only available to Nexus contributors — by supporting the Nexus, you get these extra special artworks (and all the governance rights and opportunities they provide) at an extremely discounted price. Once they’re in your wallet, you’re free (of course) to trade these NFTs on the open market.

Those of you who like to take a deep dive into tokenomics might have spotted something interesting in this new use case for VSEA, and you’re totally right. VSEA is a reward token — it gets handed out to people for carrying out a certain action. The trouble with reward tokens is that most people immediately swap them for something more useful — BTC, ETH, BNB, fiat, or whatever. This constant sell pressure isn’t good for token health, and means a consistent downward value trend for most reward tokens with no other use case. Check out some of those charts — even some of the biggest reward tokens are feeling this pressure. But by providing VSEA earners with a financially interesting, environmentally beneficial, and culturally exciting way to recycle their VSEA back into the ecosystem, we sidestep this sell pressure completely. We’ve solved the reward token problem.

We’ll be rolling out the NFT & Governance program as soon as the Nexus is fully launched — there’s so much more to say about each of the four pathways of governance, the MPA creation and support mechanisms, the incredible artists waiting to make NFTs for us — we’ll be getting into greater detail about all that as we launch each element of the program.

Keep your eyes on sea.earth for more updates, and come see us on Telegram or Discord to get involved!