DAP launches “Sheraton Move” NFT project to raise funds for GE15

Raising funds with NFTs has been a trend, and it appears that political parties are quickly adopting this new method of raising political funds.

Recently, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) announced that it will be raising RM1 million for the next general election by selling 8,888 images related to the controversial “Sheraton Move” as NFTs.

In a press conference, DAP MP Tony Pua said this is probably the first time such a project is launched in Malaysia, perhaps the entire region.

“We have had political parties or politicians’ NFT projects but those are entirely digital,” he explained.

“But we are a bit unique because we are not only offering the NFT as a digital art. We are offering NFT by liberating NFT technology to allow members of the public to co-own one particular asset, in this case, a physical ‘Langkah Sheraton’ painting.”

The images will be open for sale at the price of the virtual currency of 45$MATIC per design, which is about RM175 currently and it will be categorised according to four tiers of rarity.

Tier one is for the ultra-rare, of which there are only 88 designs while the next tier of rare designs amounts to 400 images, followed by 2,400 limited designs and 6,000 original edition designs.

Tony Pua said the images will be made available on Polygon, a decentralised Ethereum scaling platform, as well as major NFT global marketplaces like Opensea.io and Rarible.com.

The Langkah Sheraton NFT Project will be officially open to the public on 31 August 2022, in conjunction with Malaysia’s Independence Day, and will be open for sale until 16 September.

Meanwhile, the physical drawings of “Sheraton Move” which were entirely hand-drawn by Pua himself, will be displayed in Theatre Impian alongside other artworks.

The “Sheraton Move” is the infamous move which led to the historic collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government in 2020.

According to The Rocket, the Langkah Sheraton NFT project will enable the rakyat to own a piece of critically-acclaimed artwork which recorded a pivotal moment in Malaysian political history.

“The Langkah Sheraton NFT is backed by ownership of a physical, rare and critically-acclaimed oil painting of immense historical value which will last for generations to come. The entire proceeds from the Langkah Sheraton NFT sale will go towards DAP, as part of the campaign funds for GE15.”

“For the supporters of democracy and good governance, there can be no more meaningful way to contribute towards the cause of fighting kleptocracy, abuse of power, corruption and cronyism, by owning a piece of history.”

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