THE DIGITAL SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS: PRAYING HANDS CLUB

Praying Hands Club (PHC) NFT is the digital face of homelessness recovery. The first of it’s kind, this charity based NFT brand built on Ethereum will dedicate 5% of initial mint, 1% of secondary sales from Opensea AND 11% of all royalties from their national retailer partnership sales to homelessness recovery and prevention programs. This includes the NTWRK, a highly popular social media shopping experience, and it doesn’t stop there. Consumers will be able to download & collect their Praying Hands Club (PHC) merchandise as a digital wearable for the Metaverse. Fill your digital wardrobe with PHC Metamerch, get paid in BLE$$ token, the Praying Hands Club utility token and join the club. It’s all about the Metaclout.

We are bearing witness to a new reality. One that offers vastly divergent experiences to its users based upon socioeconomic status. Until now, the technology, art and financial spaces have provided increasingly infinite opportunity to the upper class while paying minimal mind to the doors closed on those in need. In no place is this more visible than on the impeccably manufactured, perpetually sunkissed, luxury-sedan trafficked streets of Los Angeles, California. Teeming with promise for those that turn a blind eye to the ever growing population living at ground level, those who have been abandoned, renounced and forgotten – until now.

Relocating to the US 10+ years ago, entrepreneur and Creative Director Jai Snowdon, was quickly introduced to and immediately repulsed by this dichotomy but like many of us, failed to develop a plan that could impact the problem at scale. It wasn’t until Q3 of 2021, after consistently coming up short, and believing himself to be exhausting his last resources, that he created what is proving to be an executable, futureproof solution in the form of an *NFT called the Praying Hands Club (PHC). If you’re already familiar with NFTs please forget everything you know as you read on and if you’re just seeing this pairing of letters for the first time, please allow the below to serve as a blueprint for your actions in the space.

Heavily rooted in Australian culture, creative brand building and storytelling, Snowdon set out to change the current face of the NFT market. Appreciating the existing creativity and comradery but feeling a lack of empathy he envisioned a collective offering focused on giving back and lending a helping hand beyond oneself. And ultimately, a symbol of hope and community was brought to life in the form of the immensely popular praying hands digital silhouette under the moniker, Praying Hands Club (PHC).

Praying Hands Club (PHC) was set into action with a plan to deliver an 11,111 piece generative set of one-of-a-kind images with varying degrees of rarity and therefore value. Through a partnership with LA born and based illustrator Ethan Silva (of Bad Lucky Studio) the unique icons include attributes and traits like skin types, accessories and backgrounds brought together to build 1/1 images with all ownership rights transferred to the specific holder.

But as mentioned, Praying Hands Club (PHC) is about more than the art. It transcends the digital space and in order to achieve the goals of total community involvement, charitable donations and incentives for Hand Holders, it has required explosive expansion from a staffing standpoint with a current team of 35+ individuals from across the globe. A key piece of this growth has been the addition of the team behind Volume Digital, who bring years of experience charting artists with all major labels and will be the catalyst in merging the digital and physical realms through BLE$$ & Blessed Experiences.

The BLE$$ token is core to the Praying Hands Club (PHC) ecosystem and is to be implemented as the utility token in future project voting, breeding, staking, purchasing and charitable gifting. BLE$$ can be accumulated in a number of methods. Genesis Hand Holders will yield 11 BLE$$ / day for 11 years and will be airdropped BLE$$ monthly as a split share between holders from 11% of the Praying Hands Club’s partnership merchandise deals with multinational retailers including our first partner, social media shopping from the NTWRK. Most importantly, through BLE$$, charitable donations will be autonomously gifted every month to a new target organization where Praying Hands Club and their community can ensure the funds are being used properly.

‘We believe focusing on the smaller institutions to deliver the aid that is needed is more beneficial than a multinational or global group,’ says Snowdon. ‘Praying Hands Club will also be donating 11% of their national merchandise and 1% of all secondary sales on Opensea to provide the source of funding to be placed in a Praying Hands Club Helping Hands DAO that will also provide compounding interest.’ Win win. ‘Our NY based e-commerce and risk management partner Richard, from his years of work founding and running a **charity focused e-commerce brand, will be providing strategy and wisdom across the project, most directly in the charity space. With Richard’s knowledge we know our dollars are going to be placed in the right hands,’ he continues.

Blessed Experiences are the next iteration of the Praying Hands Club universe and will give the gift of travel to one community member on the 11th of each month – providing holders with accommodations, per diem and support to visit a religious destination anywhere around the world. From the Wailing Wall to the Pyramids Of Giza to Ayres Rock in Australia, these destinations bring hope, peace, prosperity and a sense of community that will blend worlds and provide a window into the experience of another through an integrated blog and chat inside the ecosystem.

And finally (for now) because let’s face it, our wardrobes could always use a helping hand – Praying Hands Club merchandise & meta-merch. Consisting of regular seasonal offerings and unique, collaborative drops, these collections of wardrobe staples (like hoodies, tees & caps) are adorned with the unique imprints of the NFT series and function as well IRL as they do in the metaverse. Plus, the purchase of the merch not only lends a hand to your closet, it also contributes 11% to the monthly charity partner. Give back and claim meta-clout (yeah, you heard it here first).

If you’ve sensed a lack of charity across the NFT space, PHC is for you. Praying Hands Club is leading the charge of blending the digital world of NFTs and cryptocurrency with meaningful IRL activations that in turn help the community as a whole from our down and out to our hand holders.

*If you’re asking what’s an NFT, it’s a non fungible token. Simply put, any digital or physical asset that can be assigned value and ownership and then sold as a smart contract on a blockchain network.

**NY Richard’s e-comm based clothing brand has donated over $2 million to charitable causes since 2015.

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