You can now own NFTs of Malaysian MPs in 8-bit form

About six months ago, we covered the launch of a website called MyMP, which worked to track our Members of Parliament in a fun and engaging way by reimagining them as 8-bit characters kinda like the Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog games of yesteryear. MyMP are now going beyond just that though, by auctioning off some of the 8-bit MPs as NFTs. Introducing MyMP’s first NFT auction, dubbed as the ‘Now, Everyone Can Buy MPs!’ sale.

As part of their first NFT auction, MyMP has gotten together with 10 MPs to take part in this project. These MPs include:

• Ahmad Amzad P036 (PAS)
• June Leow P094 (PKR)
• Ong Kian Ming P102 (DAP)
• Maria Chin P102 (PKR)
• Tony Pua P106 (DAP)
• Sivarasa Rasiah 107 (PKR)
• Fahmi Fadzil P121 (PKR)
• Maszlee Malik P151 (PKR)
• Teo Nie Ching P163 (DAP)
• Larry Soon P209 (PBM)

Now typically NFTs are a pretty divisive topic, but MyMP isn’t doing this for quick gains for cheap thrills. This sale will act as a fundraiser of sorts to help run and improve MyMP. The profits from selling these 8-bit MPs will allow them to hire more staff, get better data visualisation tools, organise volunteer trainings and more. And if your own MP is part of the aforementioned 10, you’ll even be helping out your community as 10% of all profits of the sale will be going back to each MP’s constituencies, allowing each MP more funds to improve their community.

This is just the start of a bigger, more ambitious plan that will see MyMP bid to release a total of 212 MPs, with one NFT of each Malaysian MP. That will only happen once this first phase sees all 10 MP NFTs sold though. Following that, MyMP’s Phase 3 will happen if and when GE13 happens, which typically will see at least some MPs change seats or get replaced by new faces. When that happens, MyMP will be redrawing the MPs’ 8-bit avatars again to auction them off as NFTs. You can find out more details about their long term plans here.

But just to be clear, MyMP’s focus isn’t on NFTs—far from it in fact. You can read our previous article on them here, but essentially, MyMP’s founders are trying to get people to know their MPs better. The MyMP site lets you check on your local representative, and MyMP tracks each MP’s performance via a few metrics such as their work ethic, availability, loyalty, transparency and win rate. MyMP also checks on each MP in other ways, such as if they’ve been caught breaking COVID-19 SOPs, or served time in jail, or even if they’ve jumped between political parties before.

If you’re interested in checking out the MyMP ‘Now, Everyone Can Buy MPs’ NFT auction, you can click here to check out their OpenSea page. Their NFTs will be going on sale from 6pm, 1 April onwards. If you’d rather help out MyMP in other ways, you can also check out their website to find out more on how to donate or volunteer for them.