Stone Squad

Hello guys! Today we have another cool mint to take a look at. Stone Squad is a collection of 4,444 3D ancient Greek stones minting onto the Ethereum blockchain.
In addition to clean, crystal clear 3D artwork, the project has an emphasis on community and networking. As a result, the utility on offer boasts NFC smart cards, yacht parties, NFT marketplace and auction house, holder world map and more.

Let’s dive in a little deeper!

Who is Behind the Project

Behind the project, we have founder Christos Fytilis (Boomer).

Christos comes from an architectural design background. He has strong leadership skills having worked in various senior and management positions across the last 10 years.

He is currently working for Masdar, a global clean energy pioneer with over a decade of experience. In his most recent position he has managed the design process for a team of over 50 individuals. Christos prides himself on his ability to innovate and successfully drive a team towards its end-goal.

Team Members

Christos Fytilis (Boomer) – Founder
Riccardo Campus (Ricky) – Marketing Strategist
Karim Moubadder (Kimo) – Community Manager
Abdulrahman Kayasseh (A B) – Lead Developer
Masks – Creative Stone
Dizzy – Operations Stone
Scaryboygfx (Scary) – Lead Artist
Miyu Comics (Monsieur) – Lead Visual Content
Amiko – Lead Animator

The team is comprehensive. You can see that some of the members are doxxed down to the personal level, some are using just an online alias. We also have two fairly popular artists working on the project (25k and 7k respectively on Instagram). Scary seems to specialize in NFT artwork. All positive signs.

About The Collection

The collection’s artwork features ancient greek style stone statues. Each statue features a range of traits, such as variable headwear, eyewear, clothing, facial accessories and more. The artwork gives a very bold, yet refined and sophisticated aesthetic. The team have hit the nail on the head for a collection that prides itself on entrepreneurial social networking and community growth.

The collection doesn’t just stop at artwork though, there are some key benefits the collection purports to offer, let’s take a look.

Stoners Cave

Each NFT will be searchable on “The Cave” on the Stone Squad site. The Cave will give more details on your NFT, including its previous identity and hidden stats. Can we expect a Top Trumps-style game or value attributed to certain stats?

Olympus Virtual Museum & Marketplace

The team wishes to create a web3 VR Auction House style experience where both public and private auctions can be held. Only holders can choose to first exhibit their NFTs and then auction them off to prospective buyers.

Royal Kingdoms

Each Stone has discovered that they have their own Kingdom. At the moment details are limited.

Yolo Emirates Partnership

The team has secured a partnership with Yolo Emirates (a Dubai based travel and tourism business). Confirming upcoming travel discounts. Stone Squad holders are rumored to have access to discounted tickets to an upcoming annual cruise to Norway. All holders can also bring a +1.

Holder Wold Map

As long as you consent and give a city location, you will be displayed on the holder world map. This allows holders to easily see where fellow holders are located and makes it easier for prospective members of the community to come together for real!

Ecommerce & Pop-Up Stores

Cool things will be available for holders only, through a token-gated online store. Secret pop-up stores are also planned in Dubai, LA & London.
The team also wants to go a step further and allow holders to sell their own products on the Stone Squad ecommerce store, allowing them access to up to 95% of the sales revenue.

Smart Networking Card

The team has promised each holder a NFC smart business card. This card is essentially a web-link attached to a NFC chip. Swiping it against NFC activated devices allows the device to access the link.

Networking Events

From conferences to yacht parties, the team has got your back. The project plans a slew of IRL meet-ups. Put your heads together with other like-minded entrepreneurs and holders and get rich together! The first holder meet-up is already planned for September in Dubai. To those that can’t make the IRL events, regular video calls will be an option.

Launchpad

Holders can make an application to have their own project reviewed. Only one project at a time will be managed, making the selection process highly critical, but successful teams will see their idea nurtured with mentorship and investment provided by the Stone Squad founding team and associates.

Charity

The team will be partnering up with Dubai Cares. A percentage (not yet disclosed) of mint revenue will be donated towards “Back to School” initiatives. Helping children gain access to better learning opportunities across the developing world.

Road Map

The road map is very loose and has some key milestones to be achieved, but no dates are provided. We only have an outline of the objectives to be achieved, as well as a notation of the status of the milestone.

Socials

Twitter – 31.5k followers | Joined May 2022 – Medium-large twitter account made for the project. Tweets get good engagement and are fairly regular. Project does collabs and regular giveaways.
Discord – 20.5k Members | 3.4k online – Simple verification and rule acceptance on entry. No bots. No shilling channels. General chat moves along nicely but can be on the slower side depending on your timezone.

Smart Contract

The Smart Contract is not yet available for review.

Price & Mint Date

For pre-sale buyers you can expect a cost of 0.06 ETH per NFT.

For public sale buyers you can expect a cost of 0.069 ETH per NFT.

• Pre-sale mint 18th August 12PM EST
• Public sale mint 19th August 12PM EST

Conclusion

Interesting artwork, I like the statues and the clean cut art-style. There seems to be a lot of variation and the aesthetics of the collection are refined and elegant. For a PFP it makes a clean choice. The added networking utility and other benefits also seem like a nice little touch.
On the other hand, the project seems to be lacking detail. The idea of a new marketplace and VR Auction House is fantastic, but I can’t help but think the idea is immature and hasn’t been examined properly. There are many marketplaces under development with valuable USPs. I am not sure Stone Squad will capture the demand required to run a successful marketplace and auction house.
The holders holiday cruise to Norway that is just a discounted cruise feels inauthentic, I can’t help but feel that the team is just trying to sell cruise tickets under the guise of it “being a great deal and for holder networking”.

All in all, I really do like the artwork, but some of the project’s ideas seem underdeveloped or slightly unrealistic. I would keep your eyes open and see what happens. Consider minting this if you like the artwork, but do not bank too heavily on a speedy release of holder benefits.

As always, please do your own research. This report does not constitute financial advice.