While folks in web3 are fixated on new use cases and reaching mass adoption, this technology also promises opportunity and ownership unlike ever before for people outcast from society – the incarcerated. 

There are approximately 1.9 million people incarcerated in the United States – more prisoners per capita than any other nation. The number of Americans directly affected by a family member in jail is three times this figure. For the newly free, reintegrating into society with employment, education and a sense of purpose remains a systemic problem, but one that web3 can help to solve. 

Elise Swopes, a top-selling nonfungible token (NFT) artist and one of the original Instagram influencers, has made it her calling to use crypto and web3 tools to help fix problems in the world. 

From her early years being home-schooled to later becoming homeless, Swopes’ life journey has helped her see the world differently. Her love for everything digital helped her ‘accidentally’ build a personal brand, which led to partnerships with the world’s most recognizable names and celebrities. She’s vacationed with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, been to dinner with Kanye West, and worked with the likes of Apple, Google and Adidas. 

Although she enjoyed success as an NFT artist, and was reinvesting her profits into collectors and causes meaningful to her, something was missing. 

“One of my best friends had a brother and a cousin who were incarcerated, and she created something called the Pin Pal Initiative,” Swopes said to me recently. “The initial reasoning for starting that was to help her relatives get paid their Covid cheques just like everybody else, which she was able to do for them.” 

But beyond that, Swopes’s friend realized the inmates needed much more than money – they needed people to talk to, friendships and “being heard in general,” she said. “I got connected with her cousin, Damien, and we started talking all the time. I got to learn about his life. I was teaching him about web3, NFTs, and what it all means. 

Damien asked if he could contribute some of his poems and his friend’s drawings to the Night on the Yard collection, which gives incarcerated artists a platform to sell their work and spark new possibilities upon release. Half of the funds are distributed to artists and their families, and 20 percent goes to support organizations. 

Swopes said the education piece is just as important as the financial opportunities, especially given how fast web3 moves. “I tell them this is a technology that can be utilized for safe exchanges of trust, for meeting new collectors, and networking. But it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme.” Once they sell their art, she advises them to put it into fiat, rather than invest it or use crypto. 

Night on the Yard was partially funded by her friend and NFT photographer Drifter Shoots. He had previously been incarcerated and the pair had long shared thoughts about the difficulties facing artists. “Drift” was imprisoned for scaling skyscrapers, bridges and structures in the name of art – defying heights and stereotypes of the “criminal.” 

“Being an incarcerated artist himself, he saw the initiative that we wanted to take to connect inside artists to the outside opportunities that were laying in front of them,” Swopes added.

Although a prisoner’s physical freedom is taken away, web3 introduces new variations of freedom that haven’t been possible until now. A way to express, educate and earn, while giving society a deeper understanding into the minds of people who are imprisoned. 

“We need more people to care, because being good doesn’t sell,” she said. “I’ve seen recently that 95 percent of all NFTs went to zero. What are we doing? I love collectables and NFTs, but we need to start with what’s not working and utilize this tool to make it better. That’s what this is all about.”