SA Flavor is known for making the hottest Fiesta Medals around, but this year I decided to take it up a notch by introducing the first ever NFT (non-fungible token) Fiesta Medal! A tribute to recently retired news anchor Randy Beamer, the Fiesta Medal is a riff on the popular comedy Anchorman. It features a mustachioed newscaster in that classic burgundy jacket with a quote from Beamer’s pre-retirement profile in the Express-News: “Don’t even pretend to be classy, San Antonio. Just be you!” I felt that quote expressed perfectly who we are as a city and wanted to commemorate it on a medal.
A Primer to Explain an NFT
For those who aren’t super familiar with what an NFT is, or who have only recently become aware of it from news coverage of digital art and basketball card sales, here are three reasons why this blockchain technology is so powerful:
- Provenance and Ownership of Digital Assets. NFTs solve the problem of digital ownership due to the fact that by their very nature, only one person can “own” an NFT. So while you may be able to copy and save a digital asset to your computer, you wouldn’t actually own it. The blockchain serves as a public ledger where the ownership and transfer of an NFT is public and incorruptible.
How this relates to Fiesta Medals: A medal maker could create a purely digital Fiesta Medal collection that exists on the blockchain. I did this, where the Anchorman medal has been rendered in 3D animation on different unique backgrounds. For example, the 1 / 1 gold medal is on a luxe platinum background or the first ten serialized nickel medals are animated in familiar Sci Fi scenes (such as the transporter room from Star Trek or in front of a wall of blinking lights that spell out V-I-V-A a la Stranger Things). However, I felt that medal collectors would want to actually have a physical medal. This leads to the next point. - Digital Token to Authenticate Ownership of a Physical Asset. This is the most exciting thing to me, because an NFT can be tied to a physical asset to prove its authenticity. Consider your car for a moment—sure, you can sell your car to someone, but if you don’t have a clear title to that car there is no way for the buyer to guarantee that the transaction was authentic. Most physical assets in real life will soon have digital tokens that follow them around. I see this happening rather quickly with high-end sneakers. It is not far fetched for Nike to issue a digital token that is transferred to the buyer when they purchase a pair of Cactus Jack Air Jordans. Now, when that sneaker head sells those kicks to another collector, the NFT that was issued by Nike can prove the authenticity of that shoe. There will be no longer the need to have an independent authentication service prove the legitimacy of those shoes.
How this relates to Fiesta Medals: If someone says they are making a “limited” run of medals, how can they actually *prove* it? After all, when the mold is made they could just make more medals and sell without the community knowing how many are in circulation. This aspect of the NFT can authenticate exactly how many medals were created—in addition to having the physical Fiesta Medal you also need to possess the digital token to prove authenticity. This was a point that I feel the SA Current writer missed in the profile piece she wrote about the million dollar medal—she viewed it as something to give buyers pause, but it is actually something that should give them a degree of comfort. You must have both the medal and token to prove it is legitimate and not a copy; I just put that language on the back of the medal because NFTs are in their infancy and folks might not realize that the tokens serve as a digital “title” to the medal. - A Digital Asset AND Digital Authentication of a Physical Asset. This last example is basically a combination of the first two points, and ultimately what I decided to do with the first ever NFT Fiesta Medal. In this case, there is a compelling digital asset along with the authentication and ownership of a physical object.
How this relates to Fiesta Medals. This is perfectly illustrated with this anchorman NFT Fiesta Medal. There are interesting digital assets where the medal is rotating via a 3D animation on different backgrounds. And because there is an actual physical medal, the token serves to authenticate that it is truly one of a kind.
Viewing the First Ever NFT on the Blockchain
Again, this medal is truly unique, blending the first ever NFT Fiesta Medal on blockchain with a physical manifestation of that medal. Using the Ethereum ERC-721 standard, SA Flavor created a unique collection called MEDALS and then minted each of the medals to the blockchain. The first ever medal, the 1 / 1 gold version, can be viewed at www.milliondollarmedal.com. And in real-life, this ultra-luxe medal is plated with 24-karat gold, serialized as 1 / 1 and packaged in a handcrafted walnut box by Richard Grant of Right Hand Woodwork. It has a ribbon topper that proclaims it as the “First Ever NFT Medal,” and it can be attached to your sash in three different ways to make sure it doesn’t fall off while you’re doing the Chicken Dance at NIOSA.
This one-of-one gold version of the medal will be sold on the blockchain at Rarible.com, with 90% of the net proceeds donated to the San Antonio Food Bank. To address the increased demand that the pandemic has placed on food pantries, SA Flavor has created a number of shirts, medals and special sales to benefit the Food Bank. In 2020, SA Flavor donated over $11,000 to the Food Bank, resulting in over 77,000 meals for our local community. For that reason, I wanted the overwhelming majority of the proceeds from the “Million Dollar Medal” to go towards the Food Bank. The buyer who purchases this medal will not only have ultimate bragging rights at every Fiesta shindig in town, they will also be providing the Food Bank with much-needed funds to continue to serve San Antonio.
“We are honored to partner with SA Flavor again this year, and excited to celebrate Fiesta in this creative way. It has been a difficult year for many in our community, including SA Flavor whose business relies on Fiesta. We are grateful for entrepreneur and owner Garret Heath who, despite the struggle this year, still wants to support the San Antonio Food Bank. Every dollar provides seven meals, so every donation makes an impact,” offers Eric Cooper, President and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank.
If there is a person who is interested in purchasing the million dollar medal and wants to ensure that they can get the tax deduction through donating to the Food Bank, they are able to reach out to me at fiesta@saflavor.com and we can figure out a way to do this transaction off the blockchain. This will not only ensure that the donor get that tax deduction, we would also maximize the Food Banks total donation because I wouldn’t have to pay sales tax on that 90%. If the medal is not sold by the end of April for a million dollars, I will accept any price over $100,000. If purchased on the blockchain, the winner will receive a special access code to confirm their purchase and allow them to claim the physical medal.
The other series of nickel medals serialized to 25 are also available online at https://rarible.com/medals. They include the following:
- Serial Number 01 / 25: the medal going to hyperspace
- Serial Number 02 / 25: the medal getting beamed up
- Serial Number 03 / 25: the medal in a wormhole
- Serial Number 04 / 25: the medal in the matrix
- Serial Number 05 / 25: the medal traveling through a chimney via floo powder
- Serial Number 06 / 25: the medal traveling through a portal
- Serial Number 07 / 25: the medal on a synth wave landscape
- Serial Number 08 / 25: the medal with Christmas lights blinking over the letters V-I-V-A
- Serial Number 09 / 25: the medal getting abducted into a UFO
- Serial Number 10 / 25: the medal on a trippy square neon lights background
- Serial Numbers 11 / 25 to 19 / 25: the medal on simple color backgrounds
- Serial Number 20 / 25: this medal is set aside as a retirement gift for Beamer
- Serial Numbers 21 / 25 to 23 / 25: these medals are set aside as giveaways to the Fiesta Medal community—sign up for our newsletter to get info on how to win them!
- Serial Number 24 / 24: the medal is on the SA Flavor chicken on a stick pattern—this is my personal medal!
- Serial Number 25 / 25: the medal on a time lapse of the River Walk
I should be getting the physical medals in a couple of days and look forward to doing a Facebook Live to showcase the medals and answer any questions about NFTs! I know that this may seem a little futuristic, but I am incredibly excited to help bring this blockchain technology to the medal community!
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