Chris: Hi there! Please introduce yourself. 

Takure: You can call me Takure. I am the founder of the UGOKI Watches company and The Ugoki Snow Monkeys NFT collection. I’ve had a lifelong obsession with watches since the age of 8. The first thing that attracted me to watches was their beautiful appearance, especially the designer ones. Day after day I’ll browse through mainstream watch magazines such as HODINKEE, WristReview, WatchTime Magazine, WatchPro, ESCAPEMENT Magazine and the likes. I’ll thumb through them just to check out different luxurious watch designs. The trip to the mall was the highlight of my childhood. I loved going to the watch sections to get a live view of the watches I admired on the papers. As I grew older my fascination for watches matured, I got into the mechanisms used to simulate the concept of time and the deeper artistic meaning behind watch designs. I listened to famous watchmakers interviews and dreamed of one day being a famous watch manufacturer. As fate would have it, after finishing my formal education, one thing led to another and next thing I know I’m the founder of UGOKI Watches.

Chris: The Ugoki Snow Monkeys are bringing the Japanese Macaque to the Metaverse. What was the inspiration that led to the creation of the Snow Monkeys as an NFT?

Takure: Being a crypto enthusiast, I was always aware of the new innovations happening within this space. Hence, I was one of the early buyers of NFT collectibles. Soon after, the application of NFTs extended towards real estate – showing proof of ownership for plots of land or buildings – and this is where the inspiration for redeemable NFT collections for real life properties emerged. While considering how physical assets (land) have symbols in the digital world through NFTs, I started to think about reverse engineering the whole process by creating redeemable NFTs – watch designs that are NFTs at first, but possess the ability to come to life some time later. For the watch designs, I decided to add some depth by infusing them with elements or symbols that give a bow to my place of origin: Japan. I wanted users from different parts of the world to feel the ambience and beauty of Japanese cities through my watch creations. To make things more interesting, I and the creative team decided to make another NFT collection that will both complement and serve as models for the UGOKI collection, and that was how The Expeditious Snow Monkeys on the Block NFT collection came to light. And so, the Snow Monkey collection turned out to be the main attraction of our NFT project. This collection gave a more profound nod to Japanese culture. Japanese Macaques, also called Snow Monkeys due to the wintry environments which they habit, are an extremely rare species of primates native to Japan. Their relevance in Japanese culture runs deep, they exist in ancient folklore and have immense religious symbolism in the east. Paying homage to Japanese culture was the goal of this project.

The most important difference between these Snow Monkeys is the UGOKI Watch design featured on their wrist.

Chris: 1000 snow monkeys are coming on Web 3.0. How is each monkey different from the other?

Takure: There are 1000 Snow Monkeys in the Expeditious Snow Monkeys Collection. The collection is partitioned into five groups of Snow Monkeys with different traits, physical appearance, and adorning accessories – making 200 Snow Monkeys in each group.One class of Snow Monkeys have brown skin, icy blue fur, and broken horns as far as physical appearance goes. In terms of accessories, besides the UGOKI Watch, these Snow Monkeys are scantily adorned with thin gold necklaces. For their demeanor, they are sensitive primates, prone to fear. We have primitive warrior Snow Monkeys covered with brownish skins and fiery patterned furs. These primates are adorned with a war bonnet headgear, red headband, and an emerald ring on their index finger. One of the Snow Monkeys are mercenaries: tough and charismatic. They have grey fur and alien blue skin. Aside from the UGOKI watch, they wear bulletproof vests and thin gold necklaces. We also have civil Snow Monkeys covered with fiery-patterned furs, clothed with red check flannel shirts and adorned with gold framed glasses. These Snow Monkeys are level-headed, meticulous, and principled. Last but not the least are the temperamental Snow Monkeys, adorned with an UGOKI-branded bucket hat and a thin gold necklace. These Snow Monkeys have suffered serious physical trauma in an incident that certainly would have led to death but were given a second shot at life as cyborgs. The cyborg Snow Monkeys are edgy and quick to fits of anger: you certainly don’t want to cross them. One out of five UGOKI watch artworks – Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Narita, Nagoya – will appear on  a particular Snow Monkey sub-collection. The watches too will have different physical characteristics. The Tokyo watch features black stainless steel straps, paired with a matching case, a galaxy dial in the same color with glow in the dark numerals and minute/hour hands, and an automatic self-winding movement; Miyota 8205. Kyoto has a polished silver stainless steel body with coordinated numerals and hour/minute markers. Osaka is made up of a rose gold case and white dials. The Narita model features a sleek, gunmetal dark silver case with a blue dial and fine leather straps in a darker, contrasting shade of blue. of a silver case with a green dial and black leather straps. With cleanly defined hour/minute markers, hued silver and a black frame.

Chris: Also, there is a whitelist that goes up for sale some hours before the public minting. How can one go up on that list? What will be the minting cost for the whitelisted members?

Takure: We will give 250 out of the 1000 Snow Monkey to whilelisted persons. To get on the list, users are required to do some online engagements like sharing content about our project on various social media channels, and actively participating in our Discord community. When the time comes, selected users will be able to mint one of the five different Snow Monkeys at random for a 33% discount at 0.3 ETH. Afterwards, the remaining 750 Snow Monkeys will be up for public sale. Buyers on public sale pay the full price of 0.45 ETH. The Expeditious Snow Monkeys on the Block collection is set to launch on the 1st of May. 

Chris: Consequently, each person redeeming a Ugoki Snow Monkey would be eligible for a physical copy of the token. What will the investors receive as a real-life token?

Takure: As you’ll notice, every Snow Monkey on the collection has an UGOKI Watch on. Any Snow Monkey owner that redeems their NFT will receive a care package containing the physical watch with the same design appearing on the NFT and an UGOKI-branded t-shirt. Our community members already decided on the t-shirt design they would like from a selection of alternatives which we presented earlier. 

Chris: Similarly, what are the other benefits of becoming a holder of the Expeditious Snow Monkey NFT?

Takure: Besides acquiring a physical token, Snow Monkey holders unlock some amazing features in the UGOKI ecosystem. Persons that redeemed their NFTs for a physical become full-fledged members of the UGOKI community. They gain access to also sort of exclusive offerings reserved for members only: exclusive personalised merch airdrops, a pass to the UGOKI Snow Monkey Art Gallery, entrance to exclusive physical networking events, and a whilelist on upcoming NFT collections like the UGOKI Super-mutant. 

Chris: The investors want to be at the top of things with the Expeditious Snow Monkeys. What are your official channels of communication?

Takure: A primary hub is on our Discord server. Through consequent announcements, we keep the community updated on our recent moves and upcoming developments via this channel. However, you can also reach us on Twitter. 

Chris: Lastly, what is your roadmap for 2022? What are the plans for the NFT after the completion of the public sale?

Takure: We have loads of activities planned out after the public sale. The Snow Monkey public sale is more or less our way of introducing UGOKI to the world, so many other NFTs will follow, with the UGOKI Super-mutant set to release soon after. On completion of the minting process, we’ll set up the mechanisms for redeeming UGOKI Watches immediately and issue Certificates of Authenticity (COA) to the watch owners. There will be an airdrop event in collaboration with our partners ANGO, where ANGO-UGOKI watch design NFTs will be given away to community members on ANGO’s ecosystem. By July, we’ll start shipping  out the UGOKI physical watches to their respective owners. Next, we will be airdropping merch to our community members. This will contain an UGOKI branded t-shirt with a design of the communities choosing. By September, we’ll have our UGOKI Snow Monkey Art Gallery established on the Metaverse via Sandbox. Exclusive art exhibitions of Snow Monkeys will take place here. Community members will be able to make new friends, show off their NFTs for one another and discover people they share things in common with. Then the UGOKI Mutant airdrop will follow: bizarre remixes of the Snow Monkeys design with only 100 units available. A quarter of the total supply will be distributed freely to whilelisted users. Up next, we open up our platform for users who would like to stake their NFTs and earn rewards. Before this year runs out, UGOKI holders will be able to access the Metaverse using their NFTs as avatars.