Old Dominion University student and Alpha Phi Alpha member, Ron Holder, is taking charge of his own NFT project. Ron’s project is on an XRP Ledger. Ron’s project is based on the “Divine Nine”, a group of historically black fraternities and sororities that are focused on serving the community. Notable members of the Divine Nine are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Alicia Keys and Kamala Harris. 

What are you trying to do with your NFT project?

I noticed that there was no really real representation of any type of Greek letter organizations on those blockchains. So what I wanted to do was to create a project that not only shows all of the representation of Divine Nine organizations, but also all of the good that they’ve done.

What inspired you to start Divine Nine NFT?

Well, I wanted to create something but I didn’t know what to create. I knew it had to be something that would leave a dent, or at least an impact, on this NFT space…At first, I wasn’t sure since I had nothing to look off of or see how it was done before. I decided to just dive right in. I made mistakes at first but I think that’s normal when you’re starting something new. I didn’t have any particular mindsets like making a bunch of money or anything like that. I just wanted to create something [for the Divine Nine].

A lot of NFTs exist and are purchased through OpenSea. Is your NFT project also going to be purchased through that site with Ethereum?

No, it won’t be. The entire project is moving to the Sologenic NFT marketplace, which is an extension of the XRP ledger. The XRP is a native token of that ledger and that’s the main currency that is used to purchase or trade NFT’s. This decision came from a kind of outward looking perspective when it came to Ethereum. I noticed that the gas fees are getting increasingly higher and that the OpenSea marketplace itself recently got hacked. So that’s not a plus [to using it] either, you know. So when it came to move into the XRP ledger, I saw that this was a new ledger that’s slowly building up its foundations. It has all the tools for everything, for NFT projects to flourish, a good community, and everything. So that made the decision to move to the XRP ledger that much easier.

You said you made mistakes. Were these because of hurdles you encountered?

Yes, the main hurdle I encountered was the technicalities. When you go to create an NFT project on the XRP Ledger, there are a lot of technicalities you need to know if you’re not already a [coding developer] or into the XRP Ledger. I’m not a coding developer or anything like that, but what I did learn was from picking up the things in front of me. I was [looking at the process] and saw that I just needed to learn how to set up a trust line. Then, I was able to create the amount of tokens I want. From there, I just started going ahead with the project. There was a pretty steep learning curve to it.

Could you explain what NFTs are? There are a lot of people today that still don’t understand them.

NFTs stand for non fungible tokens. These tokens, the reason as to why they have value is the fact that there’s code written behind the NFTs. [The code] can only happen once which creates a sense of value. That’s why prices are getting so crazy.

The most popular NFTs are art. What makes NFTs so unique from each other?

Most projects create a trait template or just certain types of traits that they would like to see for the NFTs. So when you go to create a collection, it would randomly generate each image with those different traits. Most are randomized, however, they can be hand-put together. It just really depends on the artist.

What I appreciate about your NFT project is how transparent you are with all the goals you have set for it and everything. I also noticed that you were intending to use part of those profits for scholarship money. Was this the original plan?

I took a look at this project and thought, “I can easily do this.” Mainly because with NFTs in general, you know, I’m not sure where we’ll go but I know that it will go somewhere. I, at least, want some of that to do some type of good and it’s a “giving back” thing. Also, with it being Divine Nine themed, it shows what we’re all about when it comes to encouraging you, building up the youth, and mentoring them.

Ron aspires to do great things with this project he is working on. His website to the project’s main NFT site can be found here. A linktree for all things involving Divine Nine NFTs can be found here.

Be on the lookout for the Mace and Crown’s Spring 2022 Issue! There, we talk about the future of NFTs and more about the man behind the project, Ron.