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The comeback kid
I think we can all agree that NFTs will not experience the same explosion as the last cycle.
Of course, that doesn’t mean NFTs can’t make some kind of comeback. But it looks like we won’t see CryptoPunk #5822 raise another $23 million (8,000 ETH at the time) like it did a few years ago.
(For reference, CryptoPunk #8135 sold in the last 24 hours for a cool 29 ETH, or $71,000, per CryptoSlam.)
OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer told me at Permissionless that this time it will be a little different. And part of that, he said, is the utility behind NFTs.
“The technology has just gotten better and better,” he said on a panel since the last boom.
The previous cycle caused some problems, even with demand. Gas costs, among other things, were pain points for consumers who simply wanted to purchase an NFT. Finzer said they have “solved” many of these issues since 2021.
“Now you can build all the cool things we’ve always dreamed of, because… scaling is here on Ethereum, for example,” he explained. Although OpenSea continues to work on onboarding and user experience, he said.
Granted, it already seems like any kind of NFT comeback will seem a far cry from what we saw in 2021. everyone will be able to create and successfully sell an NFT.
Source: CryptoSlam!
Finzer said he looks at the number of transactions and users to monitor momentum, setting aside transaction volume. Overall, Finzer said the space is showing a lot of “momentum.”
For example, three use cases become abundantly clear this time around: gaming, physical collectibles linked to a digital collectible, and tokenizing real-life objects (like Galaxy tokenizing a famous violin).
“Gaming is probably the [use case] I’m the most optimistic about it,” Finzer told the crowd at Permissionless. In a close follow-up, Finzer said he’s keeping an eye on physical assets, which includes both tokenized real-life items and digitizing certain things like tickets.
Ubisoft’s announcement of a crypto game – Champions Tactics – launching later this month shows that gaming, a segment that wasn’t booming when Bored Apes sold for millions, shows how demand has changed. The page for the game states that 75,000 playable characters, or Champions, have been minted.
Not to mention Off the Grid, another crypto game that climbed to the top of the charts on the Epic Games store.
But there’s another storm cloud hanging over NFTs right now, and that’s the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sent OpenSea a notice to Wells a few months ago, though no lawsuit has yet been filed.
Finzer hopes that momentum will not be hampered by potential regulatory action, as OpenSea, among others, is “ready to fight when it counts.”
“There is no news about that,” Finzer told me when I asked if they had heard anything from the regulator since the report.
As for where we end up in the medium term, Finzer said he expects a “wild” few years. “I think in five years we may all be living in the metaverse,” he said.
If that’s the case, I hope my mortgage is cheaper.
–Katherine Ross
Data center
- BTC and ETH broke higher this morning, up more than 3% to monthly highs of $64,800 and $2,530 each.
- SUI set a new price record of $2.35 on Sunday evening, after gaining 15% in the past week. Since then, the price has fallen slightly to $2.24 (mcap: $6.19 billion).
- The number of basic transactions has also reached a new peak, according to data from Blockworks Research: 40.82 million in the past week, more than 17% more than in the previous period. Trading bots including Banana Gun are, next to AMM Aerodrome, the largest gas consumers on the network.
- Base’s TVL has achieved a new hit file of $2.455 billion, an increase of 54% in the past month.
- Bitcoin has been the second most popular trading venue for NFT trading in the past month, after Ethereum: Volume of $67.2 million versus $107.8 million.
Off the Grid, on the chain
Off the grid – one of the first true AAA games infused with crypto – is an experiment that deserves your attention.
I spent the weekend (and part of this morning) shooting through as many rounds as I could, earning what appears to be a stand-in tester cryptocurrency for each kill.
And yes, it is actually fun.
The third-person shooter, from Ukrainian-German studio Gunzilla Games, throws the player into a battle royale set in a world ripped straight from dystopian action thrillers Elysium, Chappie And District 9.
That’s to be expected: director Neill Blomkamp is a co-founder of the studio and serves as its creative head.
It’s a cool twist on the genre that’s become big PUBG, Fortnite And Warzone. Legend has it that players will have their limbs surgically removed to compete on the hyper-violent Teardrop Island – to be replaced by mechanized arms and legs equipped with everything from swords and shields to drones and poison gas.
Freedom of movement is true Off the grid really shines. Jetpacks are standard – so lots of zooming between buildings, cranes and other climbs – while legs can be loaded with ultra-fast or mega-jump capabilities.
It’s super fast and smooth, although the PS5 beta suffers from some optimization issues in the current version.
As for the crypto stuff, it’s not quite live yet.
Weapons and other items such as skins and clothing can be optionally minted NFTs and traded on the in-game marketplace for a native token, GUN. Like a crypto version of the Steam marketplace.
These mechanisms run on an Avalanche subnet (which ultimately prevents transactions from going through Avalanche’s main chain, as is the case with Ethereum rollups and mainnet).
Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund co-led a $30 million funding round for Gunzilla Games in March with CoinFund.
And you can indeed earn GUN by killing enemies, scoring high in matches and extracting so-called HEX cubes: loot boxes that you can then sell for more GUN. Above average items currently cost around 80 to 100 GUN.
Three kills earned me 0.3 GUN, with another 1.2 GUN from the monthly Battle Pass subscription
For now, the GUN token payouts and NFT coins appear to still be taking place on a testnet version of Gunzilla Games’ subnet, GUNZ, although all early access progress will carry over to the full release. I’ve reached out to the team to confirm this and will post a note with their response in a future edition.
Regardless, the testnet has seen more than three million transactions per day over the past three days, with 5.5 million wallet addresses – positively humming along. And in the future, items will be tradable as NFTs on OpenSea, denominated in the GUN token, which the team previously said it plans to list on centralized crypto exchanges.
Aside from capturing Twitch attention, the real key to success will be whether Off the grid can fend off cheaters while maintaining balance in the crypto economy as it develops.
In the meantime, who can argue with pwning noobs to earn crypto?
– David Canellis
The works
- Avalanche Foundation struck a deal to buy back nearly two million tokens sold to Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard, pending court approval.
- Arkham Intelligence is reportedly planning one derivatives exchange.
- Samara Asset Holdings plans to issue a $30 million bond to buy up some bitcoin.
- Copper tapped former Goldman Sachs and SEC employee Amar Kuchinad as its new CEO.
- Horst Jichaa German national accused of a $150 million crypto fraud left his New York City home while out on $5 million bail.
The Reef
Question: Are gamers coming into contact with crypto?
Off the grid will be the best test yet.
To be clear, the game is still largely in beta. But there’s already been a slew of posts complaining about failed transactions for in-game stuff, and blockchain is apparently still very easy to blame.
One Redditor wrote:
“Why on earth does it take 15 tries of 15 different items before I can buy something on marktplaats? Right now I can even buy anything there, like I’ve been locked out by moderators for interfering with their stupid cryptocurrency scam they started. For example, what do you get if you hold on to the rarest items and prevent others from buying them? Only a handful of market gate holders have the majority of the valuables and what does that end up costing them is a few thousand dollars in savings on a video game they probably don’t even play. Fricken vultures man, why don’t they just not use our marketplace to earn crypto money and leave the gaming to gamers…”
Make of that what you will.
– David Canellis
It’s too early to tell.
I don’t think gamers necessarily have anything against crypto (although I understandably think many game developers have a bad taste in their mouths from previous iterations, but that’s a whole different can of worms).
Over-monetizing games can easily burn people out. Remember back in 2017-2018, when loot boxes became more widely used and therefore controversial? I think people just want to avoid that.
I’ll be honest: I’m an avid Sims player, so I know full well how annoying it is to constantly pour money into a game. And I think this is a valid concern for NFT-enabled games. But I hope we have finally found a fair balance.
No one cares if it’s a crypto game as long as it’s good, and you don’t have to empty your bank account to have a good time.
Let’s face it: in the end, it’s the gameplay that really matters.
–Katherine Ross
