We had a great time at the Cardano NFT conference #CNFTcon2022 in Vegas this year! It was a pleasure to meet so many creative minds, hear about interesting things happening in various Metaverses, explore stake pool options, and of course delve in to amazing NFT projects focused on art & utility surrounding the Cardano ecosystem. 

The conference opened up with Charles Hoskinson - Cardano’s founder. Charles is always so great with his ability to elaborate on the big picture in layman’s terms - if you aren’t subscribed to his YouTube channel do yourself a favor & check it out! Plus we love that Charles is so inquisitive and curious with all of the developers and projects. He really wants to see everyone succeed and collaborate together in the best possible way. He took time to thoughtfully answer questions, and although we didn’t get to meet him in person, it’s something we look forward to in the future 🙂

We’ll mention a few companies & projects in this post, but mostly I want to focus on the people we met and some of their inspiring visions. Since the Cardano ecosystem is constantly growing, maybe it will inspire some ideas for you to get involved, too?! Our favorite part of all of this is the community. There are faces and brilliant minds behind these Discord & Twitter screen names.

For example, we loved the concept of the Cardano Caravan…a group of artists and Cardano fans who met up in the Midwest and made their way over to the conference in Vegas. One of the artists best known online as Schhhart did an awesome oil painting of Charles that we just loved. We told them they should make it an annual excursion and next time we want to join in on the roadtrip! 

Another highlight was the Prismatics booth & NFT project. We had the pleasure of doing lunch with the artist, Alexia, her marketing manager ‘Dolphin’ - what a great conversation. Alexia is originally from Switzerland and is full of talent and neat ideas. We talked about the magic a passionate team creates, and how she loves to collaborate on projects. Her booth was well thought out with meditation pillows and pretty crystals - even a photo spot to capture all the community members she met. Kudos!

It was great to meet our friend Srink in person, working on a project surrounding the chakras that will include free yoga & mindfulness sessions for NFT holders. Yes please. His NFT’s were beautiful featuring various yoga poses and utopian type planets that represent the different chakras. Twitter handle is @atomofgod

We loved meeting up with the Proxies crew. To talk about the project and learn some of the backgrounds of its cheerleaders. One moderator is also a HS teacher and he created a Web3 club for his students at the school where he works. He mentioned some students are now planning out their Web3 majors - how neat! He's also creating his own project focused on RPG-style gaming community & choose your own adventure story telling. Twitter handle @CosmicCutiesNFT is minting now

We also made a serendipitous connection with Steve & his wife Angie from Texas, after helping a woman we saw fall & injure herself in the parking lot. We shared in fun, vulnerable & meaningful conversation throughout the weekend. Both investors with exciting ideas for their own project bringing useful utility to the Cardano ecosystem. You can follow their journey on Twitter @steveofw73

They introduced us to Virginia & Jason, who run the XYZ stake pool. Virginia does real estate in Virginia along with fix & flips, so we had lots to talk about. We shared our goals to weave Flower Den & Vow2Save in with DAOs, and we talked about potential options to tie our projects & crowdfunding campaigns in with a stake pool as well. 

Another project we thought was interesting was Faces; it was the first AI art recorded on the Cardano blockchain. He’s currently minting his second run with ‘We the Blinded’, combining famous works of art with masks and blindfolds. Daniel minted one of those in hopes of getting a bonus poster, but no luck - maybe next time! 

Of course we had to stop over to the Nano frames exhibit, because they offer square, round, and mountable digital frame displays that connect with your Cardano wallet, and display your NFT collection. So far, they are the only frame that connects with the Cardano blockchain. Eventually we would like to get one of these in all of the Flower Den Retreats properties, so we can display both digital and fine art. We planned to take one home, but they were out of black frames, so we’ll have to order online. 

The Blockchain education booth was of particular interest - we get so many questions from friends and family about this stuff…and we’re no experts haha! We thought it was a synchronistic partnership they created with the AZ Science Center, and hope to see them in all the science centers across the country someday! Plus the coffee shop they are building is a fabulous non-threatening way to introduce people to blockchain education. They have free downloadable infographics, and you know we’re going to put some of those up in our AirBnB’s. 

All in all our interactions were thought provoking and genuine, which made us love the Cardano community even more. If you’d like to get involved with an NFT project or learn more, join our discord and we can all learn together!