German Intelligence Agency BND Releases Dog-Themed NFT Collection

German Intelligence Agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) has released a non-fungible token (NFT) collection to recruit talent through a gamified blockchain treasure hunt.

The agency released “Dogs of BND” earlier this month, a collection of 999 generative dog-themed profile pictures (PFPs) donning cyber security-themed wearables. The NFTs can only be acquired by completing a cyber quest and locating a hidden string of characters in order to mint into the collection.

According to its website, German citizens who opt to hunt for the Dogs of BND collection must locate a strong of characters (in this case, a wallet address, transaction hash, block or token number) hidden by the federal agency as a clue. Once players find the correct data, they are given access to mint into the collection.

While the NFT costs less than 1 cent to mint (excluding gas fees), the collection’s floor price on secondary marketplace OpenSea is currently 0.045 ETH, or about $82. There are 999 NFTs in the collection, but only 987 are available for players to mint. The treasure hunt will end when all 987 tokens have been minted.

According to German cryptocurrency publication BTC Echo, the goal of the treasure hunt is to seek out young talent who are fluent in blockchain technology to help mitigate cybercrime. It’s also tapped its Instagram following to do so, aiming to court users who are social media savvy and interested in NFTs.

“We are also looking for talents in the field of cyber security in the future,” the agency told BTC Echo. “So an NFT collection was an obvious new offering for our Instagram community.”

While the BND is integrating NFTs into its recruitment strategy, not all government agencies are suited to incorporate tokenized assets into their strategies. In April 2022, the U.K. government made plans to create an NFT through the Royal Mint. However, in March of this year, it canceled its plans to move forward with the NFT out of concern for speculation and financial risk.