Carnaval - first Latin American NFT marketplace minting on Bitcoin

Gibraltar, United Kingdom, 14th March, 2022,

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have a bright future ahead when leveraging the security of the Bitcoin network. Carnaval is the first highly-curated Iberoamerican NFT marketplace tapping into this level of security, introducing an industry-first for minting unique artworks on Bitcoin.

The minting of NFTs through Carnaval occurred with the help of Rootstock (RSK) and RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF), a third layer protocol on Bitcoin. The Rootstock network is an open-source platform hosting smart contracts and decentralized applications and benefits from Bitcoin’s network security through merged mining. RIF offers decentralized protocols and services built using RSK smart contracts. Carnaval has integrated RIF’s marketplace engine, an open-source and fully audited suite of SDK libraries that significantly reduces time to market for decentralized marketplaces on Bitcoin.

Carnaval is one of the enablers of the ongoing paradigm shift triggered by the introduction of non-fungible tokens. Users gain a new understanding of “ownership” while the Carnaval platform takes us to the next level as some of the NFTs will be related to physical pieces. A marketplace of tradeable digital assets – tokenized as NFTs – on top of Bitcoin combines security and trustworthiness.

Moreover, Carnaval plans to launch a collection of 210 unique art pieces minted as NFTs. These pieces are curated by Iberoamerican artists, with some of them being tied to physical art. In addition, Carnaval has secured sponsors – art museums and galleries – to help validate this art and allow its creators to tap into a new audience. By bringing traditional and established art world players into the fold, the artist’s artwork is put front and center.

Note: For the Bitcoin Genesis Drop people are going to be able to buy NFTs directly with BTC we are integrating the wallets as well as all the ones compatible with RSK such as Defiant.

The team behind Carnaval is a diverse group of founders with distinctively different backgrounds:

Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar: IOVLabs CEO and Co-Founder of RSK, Koibanx, the Argentine Bitcoin NGO and Bitcoin Latam NGO
Adrian Garelik: Decades of experience in video streaming and online gaming, RSK co-founder, and founder/CEO of Flixxo.
Connie Ansaldi: 25 years of experience in media, startups, international speaker, personal branding expert, CEO Nuclear Branding, a key figure in the Latam art world.
Gus Balbontin: Former Lonely Planet CTO & Executive Director, Director at Neu21, Startup Victoria board member, a key figure in the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“Carnaval is one of the most exciting projects in the crypto world today. It combines NFTs, Bitcoin, and the most talented artists of Ibero America under one roof. This venture’s aim is also to set together physical and digital art that is highly curated by Carnaval itself and the most respected museums, art collectors, and gallery owners in the world. Carnaval is NFTs 2.0. This is why all those who buy any of the exclusive 210 art pieces from the Bitcoin Genesis Drop at Bitcoin 2022 at the same time will possess a piece of history.” says Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar.

Carnaval co-founder Connie Ansaldi adds:

“I’m incredibly excited to be part of this game-changing experience: creating new financial tools built on top of NFTs. This is the shaping of Ownership 3.0. The shaping of a legacy of transcendence. And the most beautiful thing is that we are empowering talented artists as well as reaching new audiences for this art. This opens a rabbit hole as infinite as the imagination can go. And maybe…beyond that, If you wanna make history, you have to be part of the story.”

Furthermore, there will be 2 NFT collection drops in the first week of April 2022. One is dubbed the “Bitcoin Genesis Drop” and introduces the first 200 art pieces minted & secured by the Bitcoin network. The second collection is a generative PFP collection providing numerous benefits across the Carnaval platform to holders.

Carnaval will serve as an invite-only platform. However, it will be accessible by anyone in the first week of launching to establish a broad community of supporters. All users who join the platform in the first week can invite a maximum of five new members per person. Additionally, all NFTs on the platform can be purchased with BTC and RBTC.

About RSK

RSK is the most secure smart contract platform in the world, secured by Bitcoin’s unparalleled hash power via merge-mining that adds value and functionality to the bitcoin ecosystem by enabling smart contracts, near-instant payments, and higher scalability.

The network scales to up to 100 transactions per second without sacrificing decentralization and reduces storage and bandwidth using probabilistic verification, fraud detection, and more. RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) is a suite of open and decentralized infrastructure protocols that enable faster, easier and scalable development of distributed applications (dApps) within a unified environment to enable mass adoption of Bitcoin and RSK.