A new Louisville company is pairing the longstanding tradition of the Kentucky Derby with the emerging world of web3 via non fungible tokens. What if horses went to the Kentucky Derby as spectators to watch the humans race?
It’s a silly notion, sure. But it quickly evolved into a concept that aims to merge the in-person tradition of the Kentucky Derby with the unestablished, and largely virtual, web3 world.
Party Horses LLC, a new Louisville company, will soon launch a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that will be have tangible, real-world benefits, such as access to rare bottles of bourbon and exclusive events. It’s all part of a larger vision that aims to put Louisville on the map in the Wild West of web3 — a decentralized ecosystem powered by blockchain technology that is projected by its proponents to be the next evolution of the internet — and shift the conversation around NFTs from novelty to utility.
“The Derby is like a great moment of gravity for Kentucky,” said Justin Delaney, co-founder CEO of Party Horses. “It’s a moment in time where everyone kind of looks to Kentucky, comes to Louisville and sees what it’s all about.
“And for us, we felt like if we were going to bring DeFi [decentralized finance] into tradition and tradition into DeFi, it made sense to do it during the Derby when all eyes are on us to show that this can be a place of technology to show this could be a place where you can teach an old horse new tricks.” Serial entrepreneurs and an intrepid investor
Late last year, Delaney, founder of Menguin, was kicking around a handful of ideas after departing from his role as CEO of Buff City Soap. He used his longtime friend Chris Wiedmar, who was working on his own startup at the time, as a sounding board.
The duo kept coming back to cryptocurrency and web3, and Wiedmar quickly pulled Izaak Prats, a senior engineer at Facebook, into the conversation. They all got together for what was supposed to be an hour-long lunch at Drake’s in St. Matthews and ended up talking for four hours. Chris Wiedmar is the chief operating officer of Party Horses LLC. “I think we all kind of looked at each other like, ‘Hey, this is a talented team in our own regards… Let’s put our heads together and see what we’ve got,'” Wiedmar said.
Meanwhile, Delaney was having conversations of his own with Brook Smith, an active investor in Louisville’s startup ecosystem, and Zach Jenkins, a local designer and expert on non fungible tokens.
“Brook owns a lot of racehorses and we were like, ‘That would be interesting to put racehorses on the blockchain and allow people to basically buy tokens in horses,'” Delaney said. “We sat down and we were talking about how to do that, and by the end of it, we decided we were going to do an NFT and throw a massive party at the Derby.”
If you would have asked him last year, Smith would’ve told you that he was against investing in cryptocurrency or anything remotely web3 related. Now, he’s the chairman of Party Horses, and has partnered with Delaney to purchase other NFTs via a fund called Party Horses Vault LLC.
“When [Delaney] started talking crypto, I was like, ‘No f-ing way. I love you buddy, you’re amazing, but I’m not going to do a crypto project with you,'” Smith said. “But as I started thinking about it and learning about it, I realized it is here to stay and it’s still really early.” Brook Smith is a Louisville investor and the chairman of Party Horses LLC. The fund has purchased about 50 NFTs for roughly $1 million so far, including a $319,000 fedora-wearing CryptoPunk, as well as a Bushido , created by Louisville artist and Coinbase Illustrator Jeremy Booth. They are using the fund to build credibility in the marketplace, but the team has bigger plans for that digital art collection, too.
“One thing that I have said during the project, which is a mantra of mine, is, ‘Be foolish,'” Smith said. “That doesn’t mean reckless, but that means don’t be afraid to look foolish because if you don’t take the risk, you’re never going to get anywhere.” Off to the races
The Party Horses team brought on Louisville artist Robby Davis to make the generative NFTs. Generative means that instead of designing 10,000 individual horses, Davis created 50 different attributes, like various hats, clothes and other accessories, that […]
source Horse racing, bourbon and… NFTs? Inside the plan to put Louisville on the map for web3
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