The Mutant Cats story is a purr-fect story, one filled with heroes and villains, controversy and resilience, success and hardship. It all started in October 2021, when a group of strangers banded together and against all odds survived an attempted rug pull. We are not “kitten”, it is one of the most fascinating stories you will come across within the NFT space. Let’s go back a bit and start at the very beginning.

The inception of the Mutant Cats NFT project was 4th of October, 2021. The project was released as a stealth launch and hype quickly rose around social media/discord as Cool Cats were being purr-chased each day. The Mutant Cats NFT was originally created as a way for people priced out of Cool Cats to get exposure to this NFT. At that time, owning a Mutant Cat gave you fractional ownership of all the various assets the project owned. This quickly evolved into purchasing more than just Cool Cats; the DAO began diversifying into other big “blue-chip” NFT projects.

During the first few months, the DAO focused its attention on accumulating “Blue Chip” NFTs. These were the NFTs that the community felt would gain value over time and survive any inevitable bear market. The Mutant Cats DAO purchased Bored Apes, Mutant Apes, Sandbox Land, and many more blue chips as our foundation. Also, during this time the Community stepped up time after time again. A DAO owned vault was created along with a MultiSig team and wallet. This “MultiSig” wallet is an added security measure the DAO to ensure the safety of our assets. These were the first big steps towards our future autonomy.

The original dev team was moving quickly on their roadmap. The Community was hyped! Floor prices continued to rise and rise. They released the second collection called Mutant Gorillas. This was the peak of excitement as a community and ended up becoming a turning point for the project. Time had passed and the community was able to take an honest, self-reflective look at the Mutant Gorillas auction. We concluded that the Gorillas were frankly a money grab for the dev team. This is when the good times came to an unfur-tunante end.

The OG dev team had completed their agenda of raising more ETH for themselves. They quickly went dormant like a mouse hiding from a cat. This was something we unfortunately became accustomed to from the devs. For some reason the dev team (being anonymous) thought it would be a good idea to leave the project in the dark and let our Moderation team deal with the brunt of the community’s questions/ concerns without any information or support. Purrhaps it wasn’t a good idea but it led to something truly great. After many delays, accompanied by lack of communication, the community started to get frustrated. This behavior or lack there of, was the final claw in the Cats back. This was a feeling all to fur-miliar to people in this space. The fear that the Mutant Cats would get rug pulled.

The DAO decided to form a Cat Board and Busy Groups to help organize the DAO and a new and improved Mod Team aligned to push back against the Old Dev Team and try to obtain control of the project for the DAO. Then came the Revolution. Through a coordinated social campaign the DAO was able to apply pressure on the Old Dev’s to release the project’s assets to the DAO. Our Cat Board, known at the time as “Senior Cats”, took it upon themselves to fight for the project's autonomy. Specifically the NFT contracts for the collection, ownership of discord and socials. In a huge victory for the community, the DAO obtained all of the various contracts necessary to save the Mutant Cats from the greedy claws of the anonymous dev team. In January 2022, after a hard fought few weeks, the Mutant Cats gained its InDAOpndance. The Mutant Cats were quite fur-tunate to be saved from being rug pulled! Fur real. We will be forever indebted to the few honorable Cats who saved the project. From that moment on, the Mutant Cats became one of the only projects who are 100% community owned and community led.

The Mutant Cats DAO’s hisstory has not been all sunshine and catnip. The Mutant Cat Community had to overcome a lot of setbacks and adversity, but like a mighty pride, the community always rallied together and became stronger. Above all, the Mutant Cats DAO have proven their resiliency and are now a strong community owned and community led NFT project!