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Only two months after raising $6.9 millionShibuya—a Web3 video platform co-founded by digital artist Emily “pplpleaser” Yang – has revealed its next online video which NFT holders can help shape scene by scene: a stop-motion animated short from electronic musician Steve Aoki and actor Seth Green’s Stoopid Buddy Stoodios.

Aoki and the studio behind the Adult Swim series “Robot Chicken” will bring their “Dominion X: Level 2” project to Shibuya, with a six-week interactive production process that will unfold in collaboration with the community. Each week, NFT holders can vote on how to conclude each new scene, and then the producers will film the segment accordingly.

It will all add up to a single stop-motion animated short film that will be viewable to all via the Shibuya platform, but only NFT holders will be able to vote during its production. These holders will also receive a reward NFT in one of different rarity levels, depending on how much they participated during the process.

For Shibuya, “Dominion X” marks its second IP launch since the platform debuted in March 2022, and it is the first to be developed externally. Pplpleaser told Decrypt that it will bring a different flavor of interactive content creation to users than “White Rabbit,” the anime series that debuted with Shibuya.

“This is very exciting because it’s going to show, as a very first step, where Shibuya is going,” she said, adding that the collaboration was a long time in the works.

“Dominion X” first launched a series of animated scenes sold as Ethereum NFTs in August 2021 through Nifty Gateway, which apparently sells out the collection in seconds. A three-minute “Dominion X: Level 1” short was produced, spotlighting the fuzzy pink main creature (Character X) and other friends via the stop-motion style that the Stoopid Buddy Stoodios are known for.

In September 2022, the partners issued a series of NFTs profile pictures (PFP) based on the project, with each serving as a ticket to a virtual author space and community to help shape the upcoming series. They initially offered 7,777 NFTs at a price of 0.10 ETH each (about $170 at the time), but then cutting the supply to 4000 NFTs at 0.05 ETH ($85) each.

Any holder of an NFT in the larger Replicant X project that includes “Dominion X” can stake (or unlock) the asset within the Shibuya platform to vote on story decisions. Additionally, all Shibuya’s White Rabbit Key NFT holders can do the same. Pplpleaser said she expects potentially thousands of voters in the mix during each step of the production process.

Shibuya grossed $6.9 million in December in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Variant Fund, with notable angel investors such as NBA player Kevin Durant and entertainer Paris Hilton also on board. The startup, which plpleaser co-founded with concept artist Maciej Kuciara, aims to disrupt traditional funding models for video content and bring NFT buyers into the process.

Steve Aoki (left) and artist pplpleasr. Photo: Shibuya

An NFT is a blockchain token that represents a unique item, including things like PFPs, digital artwork, sports and entertainment collectibles, and video game gear. The broader NFT market has yielded organic trade volume worth around $50 billion since the start of 2021, per data from DappRadar, although sales momentum began to drop sharply in mid-2022.

Pplpleasr is a well-known digital artist who came up in the NFT space and created and sell tokenized artwork based on decentralized finance platforms (DeFi), and then designed a Fortune magazine cover which were auctioned as dynamic NFTs which raised over $650,000 for journalistic purposes. She has also collaborated with Aoki to create and collect NFT artwork.

A popular DJ, Aoki has created or collaborated on a number of NFT-powered projects, including his own A0k1verse members cluba Solana-based NFT marketplace with legendary cartoonist Todd McFarlane, and an upcoming CryptoPunks themed music project with the guy Web3 creator and DJ, Justin “3LAU” Blau.

Stoopid Buddy Stoodios has also been making moves in the space, recently receiving funding from Noun NFT project to make a float for the 2023 Rose Parade and shoot a documentary around it. Green, the “Austin Powers” actor, is also working on a show based on his Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT avatar, which was taken from him last year but finally bought back.

Together, they have assembled something of a dream team of notable Web3 creators building around decentralized technologies. Pplpleaser told Decrypt that Shibuya’s north star creates quality content that resonates her previous comments that “web3 content right now is just bad.”

“Dominion X: Level 2” will show whether that mission can be sustained across genres and styles – and with different collaborators also managing the content.

“We all believe in Web3’s ability to transform the existing film industry,” she said.

Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to clarify the type of NFT required to vote.