From small animal shelters to large zoos like Vienna’s Tiergarten Schönbrunn, animal care requires consistent funding. Sponsorships and guardianships offer a sustainable way to support these institutions. Our solution makes it easy and cost-effective to set up a sponsorship system and even incentivize visitors to become sponsors.
This project was developed during the workshop "Smart Contracts: Token creation with ERC20" at the Creative Media Summer School 2025. Over the course of a week, our instructo Markus Angermann gave my team and me an intensive introduction to blockchain technology and smart contracts. In the final one and a half days, we applied our newly acquired knowledge to build a practical application using smart contracts and token issuance. On the last day, we pitched our idea and presented a working proof of concept.
Smart contracts deployed on the blockchain are a powerful technological innovation. They allow logic to be encoded as functions that execute in a public, decentralized, and tamper-proof environment. Building on this foundation, tokens emerge as versatile representations of digital ownership. Whether fungible (like cryptocurrencies) or non-fungible (like NFTs), tokens are cryptographically verifiable representations of value, rights, or assets. Through smart contracts, these tokens can be transparently created and transferred.
While a common use case is issuing NFTs for digital art, we wanted to go beyond that niche. Introducing: the digital Zoo-Sponsorship.
Project Description
Zoo-Sponsorship is a web application that allows users to symbolically adopt animals. Each adoption is represented by an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. We use the ERC-1155 standard, which enables efficient management of multiple token types within a single smart contract.
As part of the sponsorship experience, each supporter receives a unique, visually appealing NFT—designed not only as a digital token, but also as a collectible. These NFTs serve as tamper-proof certificates of sponsorship, permanently recorded on the blockchain. Because our system is built on decentralized infrastructure, every contribution is transparently stored, verifiable, and publicly accessible. This ensures long-term trust without relying on centralized file storage or databases.
Beyond their symbolic and emotional value, these NFTs can also offer real-world utility. For example, they could eventually function as digital admission passes, creating new opportunities for visitor engagement and benefits.
Our solution is built on decentralized infrastructure to guarantee transparency, security, and long-term accessibility without depending on centralized file storage or databases.
Technical Overview
- Token Standard: ERC-1155, enabling multiple unique token types in a single contract.
- Metadata: Each animal has its own metadata file (name, description, image, attributes) stored on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System).
- Adoption Mechanism: When a user adopts an animal, the corresponding token is transferred from the zoo’s wallet to the user’s wallet.
- Wallet Integration: The web app connects to the smart contract via a user wallet (e.g., MetaMask), enabling intuitive and direct interaction.
Tools Used
OpenZeppelin contracts: Collection of building-blocks for the development of smart contracts.
Remix IDE: Web-based environment for writing, compiling, and deploying smart contracts.
Next.js: React-based framework for building the frontend of the application.
Wagmi: React hooks library for interacting with Ethereum wallets and smart contracts.
Hardhat: Local development environment for simulating, testing, and deploying smart contracts.
Pinata: IPFS service used to store NFT metadata and images.
MetaMask Wallet: Browser extension used to manage user wallets and sign blockchain transactions.