James Cirrone

Online virtual social networking site IMVU and Pussy Riot band member Nadya Tolokonnikova announced the launching of a Web3 metaverse community space called Utopia on Wednesday.



Maura Welch, vice president of marketing at IMVU parent company Together Labs, told Blockworks that Tolokonnikova will also launch an NFT collection for use on the platform. The assets will include digital wearables for users to buy and wear in the IMVU community.



Tolokonnikova is a founding member of Pussy Riot, a Russian punk rock band and protest group. She has also embedded herself in the Web3 space, creating <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pussy-riot-founders-unicorndao-to-make-space-for-women-lgbtq-nft-artists">Unicorn DAO</a> in 2022 to challenge the male-dominated landscape and buy NFTs from female artists.



As a part of Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova and four other members staged an anti-Vladimir Putin demonstration in a church in 2012. Two of them, including Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and later convicted of “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-trial/index.html">hooliganism</a>.” The artists, both in their early twenties at the time, were sentenced to two years in prison.



More recently, Russia added Tolokonnikova to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pussy-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova-russia-most-wanted-criminals-1234705647/">its wanted list</a> after Pussy Riot released a short protest film called “Putin’s Ashes.” In the film, a picture of the Russian leader is set on fire. Tolokonnikova also previously released an NFT titled “Virgin Mary, Please Become A Feminist” depicting the famous religious figure from Christianity in the outline of a vagina.



Sticking with the symbolism of what catapulted Pussy Riot into international notoriety, the centerpiece of Utopia will be the Pink Church of Feminism. It will be a building clad in Pussy Riot’s colors of pink, white and black. Participants will be able to use their avatars to engage with one another and roleplay their own punk music performances.



&#8220;It’s very thrilling to launch Utopia in IMVU and make it feminist, queer, diverse and radical. It has always been a dream of mine to create a Pink Church of Feminism,” Tolokonnikova said. “Eventually, I’ll find a way to build it in real life. But the first step is to launch this vision in the metaverse.&#8221;



Utopia markets itself as an inclusive space for “women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ creatives.” Other past metaverse projects have taken on similar inclusive branding in recent months. Decentraland joined up with deodorant company Degree in April 2022 to host a <a href="https://www.lbbonline.com/news/worlds-first-metaverse-marathon-pushes-for-decentraland-dei-change">virtual marathon</a> that catered to wheelchair users with avatars and accessible infrastructure.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The NFT series designed by Tolokonnikova and powered by blockchain asset developer MetaJuice will be showcased Wednesday at an invite-only NFT.NYC event.



Updated April 12, 2023 at 4:48 pm ET: A previous headline referred to Nadya Tolokonnikova as a Pussy Riot alumna. She is a current member.



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IMVU Joins With Pussy Riot Founder To Launch Utopia Metaverse

Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_6286a2e75b70d" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>UnicornDAO raised $4.5 million with contributions from Yuga Labs and ConsenSys Mesh, among others</li>
 <li>Only 5% of NFT sales are generated from female-led projects, according to UnicornDAO</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



A new DAO is challenging the male-dominated NFT and Web3 landscape by funding and empowering women and LGBTQ+ artists.



UnicornDAO, started by Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova, collects NFT (non-fungible token) artwork from such artists and provides them with the platform and funds to continue their creative endeavors.



Tolokonnikova and fellow co-founder John Caldwell were inspired to take action in the space after witnessing the long line of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club “bros” awaiting entry to a yacht party during NFT.NYC in November 2021.



After waiting three hours in line and realizing she was one of a handful of girls in attendance, Tolokonnikova left. Caldwell, head of asset management firm’s Wave Financial’s NFT fund, was struck by the homogeneity of BAYC members at the time and gathered his network to organize a more inclusive Web3 movement.&nbsp;



UnicornDAO can be the instrument that “brings beautiful and cute adoption of NFTs by people who are repulsed right now by bro culture,” Tolokonnikova told Blockworks.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“If you&#8217;re not going to involve women and girls, then mass adoption is never going to happen. Or it&#8217;s going to happen in a really ugly way. Not cute,” she said.</blockquote>



The art collective announced on Thursday that it has raised $4.5 million so far, and has purchased $1.4 million worth of art. Contributors include Yuga Labs, MoonPay, World of Women, Tribute Labs and Beeple, among others. The DAO was <a href="https://consensysmesh.medium.com/investment-spotlight-unicorn-dao-2480df924ff2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">built</a> using the Tribute DAO framework by Tribute Labs, a ConsenSys Mesh-incubated company.&nbsp;



DAO members include musicians Grimes and Sia, NFT artist Beeple and entrepreneur Guy Oseary. Grimes recently joined the board of curators and donated her latest music video to the DAO’s collection.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Donating my video 4 ‘New Gods’ to <a href="https://twitter.com/unicorndao_xxx?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@unicorndao_xxx</a> to help their mission to fund/ develop female and non-binary lead art and projects 🤍🗡<a href="https://t.co/yCJ5NMpAsl">https://t.co/yCJ5NMpAsl</a> <a href="https://t.co/m5mV8LR3yC">pic.twitter.com/m5mV8LR3yC</a>&mdash; 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (⌛️,⏳) ᚷᚱᛁᛗᛖᛋ (@Grimezsz) <a href="https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1525981460561137664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



UnicornDAO’s partnership with crypto payments infrastructure provider MoonPay enables creators to become members of the DAO via a sponsorship program without being hindered by financial barriers to entry.



When asked about other hurdles that may discourage women from working in crypto, Tolokonnikova admitted to being “shamed as a female queer artist” by those in the entertainment industry.



“Girls are just taught from their childhood that they&#8217;re not supposed to be technical. So they just never ended up in places where people adopted crypto early. There are not really a lot of female whales,” she said.



UnicornDAO launched during the South by Southwest conference in March 2022, marking the 10-year anniversary of the co-founder’s arrest in Moscow for her leadership in an anti-Putin protest Punk Prayer and subsequent 2-year jail sentence.



The DAO community will extend its operation to include a political arm, UnicornRiot, to politically organize and fundraise for activist causes. Its current primary focus is reproductive justice in the US.



UnicornRiot will be free to join, but prospective members of UnicornDAO need to apply. The activist branch will implement strategies and lessons learned from UkraineDAO, another of Tolokonnikova and Caldwell’s recent ventures that raised over $7 million in less than one week via an NFT sale to aid Ukrainian citizens during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.



Caldwell said UnicornDAO is not like other communities because it’s “safe, fun, accepting, and there&#8217;s a path towards activism and financial freedom.” He described the organization as a “lighthouse” for those who are crypto- and Web3-curious but may not fit into the space’s traditional communities.



“Behind all the tech, I still think the NFT community is about human connection,” Caldwell said.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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