Latin America’s first highly-curated Iberoamerican NFT marketplace, Carnaval is leveraging Bitcoin’s security to start mining unique artworks on the network. The minting of NFTs was made possible with support from Rootstock (RSK), an open-source platform hosting smart contracts and decentralized applications, and Bitcoin’s third layer protocol, RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF).

As a marketplace for tradable digital assets tokenized as NFTs, Carnaval plans to launch a collection of 210 unique art pieces minted as NFTs curated by Iberoamerican artists, with some of them being tied to physical art. Being on Bitcoin, the marketplace will combine the network’s security and trustworthiness to create a reliable marketplace for NFT traders.

The art will be validated with the help of art museums and galleries who are also sponsors that will allow creators to tap into a new audience. This will bring both traditional and established art world players to put the pieces of art out there for the audience to see.

Carnaval co-founder Connie Ansaldi said: “I’m incredibly excited to be part of this game-changing experience: creating new financial tools built on top of NFTs. This is the shaping of Ownership 3.0. The shaping of a legacy of transcendence. And the most beautiful thing is that we are empowering talented artists as well as reaching new audiences for this art. This opens a rabbit hole as infinite as the imagination can go. And maybe…beyond that, If you wanna make history, you have to be part of the story.”

After its launch, Carnaval will initially be accessible by anyone in the first week of launching to establish a broad community of supporters. During this time, every member can invite a maximum of five new members. It will then become an invite-only platform where NFTs can be bought with BTC or RBTC.

There will be 2 NFT collection drops in the first week of April 2022. The first is the “Bitcoin Genesis Drop” which introduces the first 200 art pieces minted & secured by the Bitcoin network. The second collection is a generative PFP collection that provides numerous benefits to holders across the Carnaval platform.

Carnaval will offer decentralized protocols and services built using RSK smart contracts. RIF’s marketplace engine is an open-source and fully audited suite of SDK libraries that significantly reduces time to market for decentralized marketplaces on Bitcoin. Carnaval has it integrated, which makes it ready to deliver excellent services to NFT traders.

The project was founded by four experienced team members from different backgrounds, including Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar: IOVLabs CEO and Co-Founder of RSK, Koibanx, the Argentine Bitcoin NGO and Bitcoin Latam NGO and Adrian Garelik: Decades of experience in video streaming and online gaming, RSK co-founder, and founder/CEO of Flixxo.

The others are Connie Ansaldi: 25 years of experience in media, startups, international speaker, personal branding expert, CEO of Nuclear Branding, a key figure in the Latam art world and Gus Balbontin: Former Lonely Planet CTO & Executive Director, Director at Neu21, Startup Victoria board member, a key figure in the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem.