German Intel Uses NFTs to Recruit
German Intel has some new recruitment methods. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) play a major role in them.
The German Intelligence Agency, Bundesnachrichtendiens, has decided to attract new talent. To do that, it launched a NFT collection named Dogs of BND, inspired by Pullach branch service dogs Inka and Alex.
Minted on the Ethereum blockchain and available on OpenSea with a floor price of 0.045 ETH, the collection looks to attract tech-savvy individuals who are also well-versed in blockchain and NFTs. The goal is to bring in new people to fight cybercrime.
At the time of writing, the NFT collection has 196 owners, 20% of them unique. A total of 999 tokens have been minted.
A Dog of BND. Source: OpenSea
However, you can’t get these NFTs simply by buying them. The agency requires that the users participate in a cryptographic treasure hunt, the rules of which are available via this link. The primary objective of this hunt is to foster the development of cybersecurity-oriented problem-solving abilities.
A corresponding announcement was made on German Intel’s Instagram handle.
Dogs of the BND collection Source: OpenSea page
The users will have to discover puzzles, with the agency providing clues. By successfully deciphering these puzzles, they will uncover crucial information such as an address, transaction hash, block, or token number. Once they have accomplished this, they will be eligible to mint the NFTs and add them to the collection.
The unusual recruitment method sparked a debate on social media. While some users overall liked the idea, others were more wary of it. For example, Lefteris Karapetsas, commenting under a tweet by CEM who called the NFTs “horrible artwork”, suggested that this move could be a honey pot.
Lefteris Karapetsas’s tweet. Source: Twitter
Previously, Gagarin News reported that actor William Shatner, best known for his role as Star Trek's Captain, had launched NFT collections.
