The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), a non-profit founded by Mandela himself in 1999, announced earlier this week the launch of a non-fungible token (NFT) collection in collaboration with the NFT marketplace Glorius Digital. The collection consists of 1,918 NFTs, and the proceeds from their sales will go to the NMF.

Nelson Mandela Foundation Launches NFT Collection Worth $1.91 Million

The Nelson Mandela Foundation teamed up with NFT studio Glorious Digital to launch a digital patronage program consisting of a collection of NFTs. The program, dubbed “Digital Patronage,” offers 1,918 NFTs, each priced at $1,000, for a total value of $1,918,000. The number of NFTs, 1918, honors Mandela’s birth year.

The rollout of Digital Patronage comes ten years after Mandela’s death. The official launch date, May 10, is the same day that Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first president in 1994.

“Each patronage is presented with a unique digital artwork for members to display. Drawing on Nelson Mandela’s personal archive held by the NMF, together with other authorized collections, Nelson Mandela: A Portrait in 27 Colours will commemorate the 27 years Nelson Mandela spent in prison fighting injustice in his country.”

– NMF and Glorius wrote in the announcement.

The archival team of NMF and Glorius Digital will serve as facilitators and wardens of exclusive content and experiences for 1,918 founding members. Additionally, net proceeds secured from NFT sales will go to the foundation.

Digital Patronage Raises Questions in the Crypto Community

It may be surprising that NMF picked Glorious Digital to launch a project of this size. This is because Glorius is a small NFT marketplace compared to the bigwigs such as Opensea and Rarible.

In addition, the NFT studio uses a little-known blockchain CENNZ, which is far less established than major blockchain networks like Polygon, Avalanche, or Fantom. Even layer-2 chains such as Arbitrum and Optimism would be a more logical choice, some argued.

Another thing that raised questions was Glorus’s Web3 wallet extension, which has been removed from the Chrome Web Store. NFTs bought via Glorius’s platform cannot be sold without the extension, given that the firm’s secondary marketplace does not support any other crypto wallet.

Tom Harper, CEO of Glorius Digital, said this is because the extension is being updated. He added that the updated version of the extension will be “available for download within the week.”

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist

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