We’ve got quite a few fantasy league players in our community. Some like to play the field with Congress, others cricket, and techies – startups. As we saw with Visionaire, NFTs and fantasy leagues are a good fit. The scarcity around NFTs adds a new dimension of interest and rewards fans who are passionate and invested.
While makers are getting creative with leagues, classic sports have been one of the main entry points for NFTs into the mainstream media (see: NBA Top Shot). If you’re up to date on this, it may come as no surprise to hear of a startup called Sorare that just raised a $680M Series B for NFT fantasy football (or "soccer" but this is a France-based startup). It’s the largest Series B in Europe to date, according to co-founder Nicolas Julia.
If this is all a little bit on the nose for you (sports memorabilia always gets the headliners), let’s look at a much more unique application of NFTs which left some scratching their heads.
Loot has become a virtual phenomenon in crypto and gaming communities. It was created by serial founder (see: Vine, Peach, Byte) Dom Hofmann, who — cutting right to the chase — created 8,000 “bags” of randomized gear words and put them up for purchase as NFTs on OpenSea.
Creatives did what they do best. They got their words/NFTs and ran with them like an improv group with a scene suggestion. They put a picture to the words in their loot bag, designing them using whatever format they wanted. They created guilds or sub-communities among those with like-items. They also created their own smart contracts to sell the individual items in their bag. Earlier this month, Coindesk reported Loot had achieved $46M in sales.
Hoffman himself is unsure of what’s next with Loot. There are still no actual adventures or players – just gear. Maybe he will choose to create a gaming universe, eventually, but loot on its own is not exactly limiting in this space. Gamers are expecting a day they can buy a sword that works across the whole metaverse, made possible by blockchain tech.
At the end of the day, NFTs, like Loot bags, are still artificially scarce which is why many people proceed with caution in this space. Tomorrow, everyone can decide they are worth nothing.
But if you can count on two hyped communities to continue driving demand in these platforms, gamers and sports fans are probably it. Plus, they're having a lot of fun out there building their fantasies.
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