John Phillips/ Getty images
- Vitalik Buterin plays spirit guide Lord Catsington on the "Stoner Cats" animated series, which needs an NFT to watch.
- The cast, which includes Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Rock and Jane Fonda, will be paid in ether.
- Swearing in the show, which aims to educate people about crypto, was edited out to suit the ethereum founder.
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Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin will play a monocle-wearing spirit guide in "Stoner Cats", a new adult animation series that is crowdfunding using non-fungible tokens (NFTs), according to the show's website.
Buterin, who will provide the voice of "Lord Catsington", joins a cast of actors and comedians, including Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Rock, Jane Fonda and "Family Guy" creator Seth Macfarlane.
Those celebrity participants will be paid in ether – the ethereum network's native token – for their work. Viewers will need to purchase an NFT to unlock all the available content. In five-minute episodes, the show will attempt to educate its audience about cryptocurrencies.
The "Stoner Cats" team needs to reach at least 50% of its funding goal of 10,420 NFTs to finish the season, according to a report on Sunday from Coindesk. Even if the team managed to fully fund the project at an estimated $7.5 million, the cast would only get half of what they could expect to make from a traditional show, Coindesk reported.
"We see this as an opportunity to educate people [about crypto] and bring them into the fold. I personally think a lot of crypto resources are daunting," Morgan Beller, a team member and general partner at venture firm NFX, was quoted by Coindesk as saying.
"We need people and faces and voices that non-crypto people recognize and trust to start explaining these concepts. Even if this fails, we can make that happen."
NFTs are unique pieces of data that run on a blockchain. They can represent real-world assets such as images, video, music or even digital pets. They cannot be copied or exchanged in a like-for-like swap, like a traditional cryptocurrency can.
A growing number of artists and celebrities have embraced NFTs as a means of crowdfunding, raising money for charity or funding new ventures of their own.
Buterin was added after the show was written and his cat was originally going to swear, but the writers removed any expletives to suit the ethereum founder.
Earlier this month, Buterin featured in a documentary that required NFT crowdfunding. "Ethereum: The Infinite Garden" raised 1,000 ether coins, each one of which is worth around $2,200 now.