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What should you consider when shopping for collectibles for the first time? Here is the guide to figuring out which NFT to buy!

NFT trading is very popular these days. The NFT market exploded in 2021 – the NFT Golden Year – and non-fungible tokens have now become a cultural phenomenon. This is partly due to the attention NFT’s are getting from celebrities, who can afford to buy blockchain artwork at exorbitant prices to then show them off on their social media. However, there are also people who, despite being intrigued by this technological innovation, do not know where to start when it comes to collecting NFTs. 

Which NFT to choose? If you are a beginner, read on and find out what you should consider before buying a non-fungible token!

Buying NFTs: you don’t necessarily need to spend millions

To give you an idea of the amount of money circulating around the non-fungible token market, just think that the Rare Pepe series piece, ‘Pepenopolous’, which was auctioned for $3.65 million, doesn’t even rank in the top 10 most expensive NFTs! NFTs, however, are not all worth six-figures. Some collections and blockchain artworks are affordable to everyone. It is a good idea to follow some simple rules to make sensible purchases and avoiding buying NFTs blindly, but first of all, you must set your budget. 

Which NFT to choose? The 4 basic questions to ask yourself

When presented with a single piece in the form of a non-fungible token – which can be an image, a video, an audio file and much more – you may ask the questions of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ is its value at that level. You can often find the answers in the project’s presentation pages and sites as well as in their official communication channels, bearing in mind that the NFT community moves mainly on Twitter. 

1) Who created the collection?

If you are a potential buyer and are wondering which NFT to choose to kick off your collection, you should look into the people behind the various projects offering non-fungible tokens. NFTs can be presented by individual artists on popular marketplaces, art collectives, brands or charities. The key thing is to ask yourself about their trustworthiness and mission. After all, you are going to give them your money and it is fair to ask if it is safe. 

If you are interested in an NFT drop, i.e. a new collection launch event, take into consideration the NFT creators’ growth and development goals. Will the creators be able to enhance the work? How do they plan to release the tokens onto the market? What is their strategy?

2) What kind of NFT is it?

Answering the question of ‘what’ will give you a clear idea of the product you are going to buy. What type of NFT is it? Dynamic, PFP, collectible? What does the work consist of? What is the artist’s identity? Also, if you imagine reselling it, to which potential market or audience is the non-fungible token addressed?

3) How and where do you buy the NFT?

The ‘how’ question illustrates the process of buying the NFT. The steps must be described in a simple and transparent manner, without using vague or ambiguous language. This is crucial to further establish the seller’s trustworthiness. Before buying an NFT make sure that both the NFT and the marketplace are trustworthy.

4) What is the NFT’s value?

The value of an NFT can be measured by several parameters such as aesthetics, utility, prestige or rarity of the work. Non-fungible tokens are not all the same, it can be useful to ask yourself about the idea behind a collection, why a certain design is worthy of purchase over others, what its key features are.

How to choose your first NFT: further considerations

Once you have the answers to the initial questions, there are further points you need to consider to make an informed decision on which NFT to buy. If you plan to buy an NFT for future returns, you may ask yourself whether the token in question is capable of maintaining or gaining prestige over the long term. It is not easy to evaluate this aspect, however, you can weigh up the solidity of the project, the existence of an outlined roadmap and the cohesion of the relevant community. For instance, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has built an entire ecosystem – ranging from a Metaverse to the native token, ApeCoin – around its NFT collection, which is why the cult around its works is constantly growing. Another feature that could affect the value of the token is the connection to physical works or artefacts. This is the case with Damien Hirst’s collection The Currency, which has associated paintings to non-fungible tokens. It is also good to investigate the management of artwork ownership – once purchased, can it be resold? As far as Soulbound NFTs are concerned, it might not be possible to transfer ownership.

Finally, if you want to start collecting NFTs, familiarise yourself with the concept of rarity, which is widespread in this industry. Most collections of non-fungible tokens are generated through the mechanisms of Generative Art which randomly combines more or less rare elements. This means that you will find NFTs with different degrees of rarity within the same collection. As you might guess, the rarity of a token raises its price considerably. A very famous example of how rarity works is the CryptoPunks collection, which distinguishes each NFT by the number of occurrences of an attribute. 

These thoughts and considerations will lead you to make an informed purchase and choose your first NFT with full knowledge of the facts. It is essential to keep up to date with the changes and novelties in the ever-changing NFT world to be able to decide which NFT to buy in the multitude of collections that are coming out these months.

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Damien Hirst’s NFT pieces combine his subversive art with blockchain technology – explore the British artist’s pieces and collections

Damien Hirst is one of the most influential contemporary artists of our time, his controversial and provocative artwork has been the symbol of British art since the 1990s. Hirst has distinguished himself in his career by his tendency to break away from the traditional art world channels such as galleries, preferring instead to address the audience directly. Perhaps this is precisely why he decided to experiment with NFTs, which promise to revolutionise the transmission, fruition and market of art. In a recent tweet, Hirst explained that he believes in art in all its forms and that the NFT world is very exciting. For the artist, the Web3 community is doing great things and has exciting ideas. A technology that disrupts the canons of art like NFT can only intrigue such a subversive artist! This article looks at all of Damien Hirst’s NFT pieces and collections.

The Currency, the first of Damien Hirst NFT pieces

Damien Hirst’s first NFT collection is called The Currency. What are NFTs? NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’ and refers to a particular type of token, i.e. an asset registered on the blockchain. NFTs differ from cryptocurrencies in that they are not fungible, i.e. they cannot be exchanged for other equivalent NFTs. Each NFT is unique, which is why they are used to create unique digital products like works of art. The Currency art project takes two different shapes, in that it consists of 10,000 NFTs attached to as many physical art pieces painted by Hirst in 2016. The physical pieces are A4 sheets depicting compositions of polka dots. These paintings were categorised by AI based on four variables: how much the polka dots overlap, the amount of sketching, the texture and the density of the drawings. The same AI also assigned titles to the paintings based on the lyrics of Hirst’s favourite songs. The NFT collection was sold in 2021 at $2,000 per piece.

The Currency is not just artistic expression in two mediums, but an experiment on the public’s perception of digital art – Hirst posed the question of whether people value digital or physical art more. Buyers of The Currency were asked to choose by 27th July 2022 whether to keep the art piece in NFT format only and destroy its physical counterpart, or vice versa, so that they would only have one version of the piece. The experiment resulted in physical art winning out slightly, with 5,149 collectors opting to keep the physical version and 4,851 choosing the NFT version. Hirst then began to ‘burn’ the NFTs and the physical pieces that hadn’t been picked, to destroy them permanently. The practice of ‘burning’ is widespread in the crypto world and involves destroying tokens or cryptocurrencies to increase their scarcity and thus their value. 

NFTs having an economic value is difficult to grasp for some. At the same time, the idea of digital property equating to physical property is still deeply rooted. In this regard, the Injective Protocol project bought Banksy‘s 2006 piece Morons for $95,000, transformed it into NFT and then burned the physical copy. Their aim was to highlight the indestructibility, immutability and uniqueness of NFTs, and encourage the exploration of a new artistic medium. Banksy’s piece NFT was then sold on Opensea for 228.69 ETH. 

One month after its launch, Damien Hirst’s first NFT collection The Currency has generated $25 million in sales. It was the artist himself who announced the milestone on Twitter with a graphic in the shape of a shark – recalling his iconic piece The Physical Impossibility of Death In the Mind Of Someone Living, which depicts a tiger shark preserved in a formaldehyde case. To date, sales of The Currency’s NFTs have reached almost $67 million, with a 50% spike after the late July 2022 burning (data from CryptoSlam). 

Great Expectations, an ode to life’s possibilities

Great Expectations is Damien Hirst’s second NFT collection. The artworks were distributed free of charge in November 2021 to people who already owned at least one of The Currency’s non-fungible tokens. Aesthetically, the Great Expectations digital pieces echo the Certified Lover Boy album cover that Hirst made for American rapper Drake. The NFTs in question are made up of emojis depicting 12 pregnant women, each created using the same sketch and smudge technique. Each NFT features emoji attributes – there are various accessories, backgrounds and physical characteristics such as hair or skin colour. In his own words, Hirst wanted to create ‘An NFT that could communicate to people who haven’t been born yet what’s it’s like for us to be living in the complicated world of today. I figured that everybody loves their mother (well almost everybody), everybody loves babies and the future, everybody loves colour, everybody loves art, everybody loves freedom and everyone loves emojis. What’s life about? If it isn’t about the hope of motherhood?’. The artist imagined the 12 pregnant bellies as 12 gifts representing infinite possibilities, like Pandora’s boxes in which so many different paths can be explored. 

The Empresses: NFT to narrate women of power

Damien Hirst’s most recent NFT collection is The Empresses and it was released in February 2022. The Empresses consists of five prints depicting images of butterflies composed in the guise of mandalas. The prints are named after five sovereigns, the empresses in fact, who exerted a particular influence: Wu Zetian, Nūr Jahān, Theodora, Suiko and Taytu Betul. Their story is rebuilt by the tones of red and the themes such as “life, war, power, anger, love, joy and fortune,” which Hirst chose to represent in the collection. The butterfly has always been one of the most recurring subjects in Hirst’s work; in The Empresses collection, he used it to express female vitality and power through “dazzling visual celebrations.” 

What blockchain are Damien Hirst’s NFTs built on?

To make his NFTs, Damien Hirst relied on Heni, a platform based on the Palm blockchain. It is an Ethereum sidechain specialising in cheap and environmentally friendly NFT minting. 

Damien Hirst has also involved his son in his passion for NFTs – Cassius Hirst is in fact collaborating with Prada on limited edition digital clothing.

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Due to differences in technicalities, applications and purposes, non-fungible tokens are not all the same. Find out about all types of NFTs!

The term NFT often comes to mind quickly, but it can actually mean many different things. In fact, non-fungible tokens have different nuances and peculiarities. In general, each NFT represents a specific digital asset that has value. The ownership, uniqueness and authenticity of the asset is certified by its inscription on the blockchain. That being said, NFTs can differ from one another in terms of criteria such as their application, their technical characteristics, their applications and finally their price.

In this article you will explore all the main types of NFTs: from PFPs to Blue Chip to dynamic NFTs.

1.   Applications: NFT for all tastes

NFTs have become popular as digital collector’s items, but they can represent many other things: 

•     the ownership of a music file,
•   a photograph
•     a document such as a diploma or the deed to a house,
•     a plane ticket or concert ticket,
•     an object from a video game,
•     a meme,
•     access to exclusive experiences,

The list goes on and on and, as is often said in such cases, the only limits for creating NFTs are the limits of one’s own creativity. The applications of non-fungible tokens are potentially endless.

2.   Technical specifications

NFTs can also be distinguished by their technical characteristics, which in turn determine their properties and make them suitable for different purposes.

• ERC-721 vs ERC-1155 standards

The majority of NFTs follow the Ethereum ERC-721 standard, which unlike ERC-20 does not allow the token to be interchangeable. This means that each token that follows the ERC-721 standard is unique and there will never be an identical one. Since their inception, NFTs have always had this standard as a reference, but the industry is also experimenting with new means. One of these is the use of the ERC-1155 standard, which allows for the creation of semi-fungible tokens. They can be useful for instance when creating a digital work of art in the form of several copies that are equivalent to each other but still limited in number.

NFTs exist on numerous blockchains, not just Ethereum! All major blockchains that support smart contracts can host NFT minting, i.e. the process by which a non-fungible token is created on a blockchain. Among these blockchains are Polygon, Avalanche and Polkadot.

• Soulbound: is NFT ownership forever?

The first to speak about Soulbound NFTs was Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. According to Buterin’s vision, NFTs can only be truly useful if they cannot be transferred in any way. The term ‘soulbound’ was taken from the video game World of Warcraft. Soulbound NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are not tradable and as such guarantee effective, perpetual and non-transferable ownership of what the NFT represents. Buterin finds them particularly useful when it comes to recording personal achievements such as degrees or diplomas on blockchain and for digital identity certification.

• What are dynamic NFTs?

Of all the types of NFTs, another peculiar one from a technical point of view are dynamic NFTs, i.e. tokens that change over time on the basis of characteristics programmable by their developers. In what sense do they change over time? Dynamic NFTs can interact with certain external data and conditions that alter their configuration. For instance, the hat worn by the character in an NFT image may change colour depending on the average daily temperature in Madrid, or the expression of a footballer in an NFT sticker may change based on the results of his last match. In a nutshell, the metadata of dynamic NFTs embedded in smart contracts adapt to information from sources that monitor the outside world such as weather forecasts or sports results. Oracles are very often used to program dynamic NFTs.

One of the most famous examples of a dynamic NFT is Crossroad by Beeple, the artist made the final appearance of his piece dependent on the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. Dynamic NFTs make it possible to have a collection that evolves over time!

3. What are NFTs used for? Use cases and purposes

NFTs started out as collectibles, i.e. items like stamps, figurines or comics. A bit later, when non-fungible tokens encountered the world of art, their use cases also became of an aesthetic nature. Today, NFTs go beyond the world of art. They can be used for many different purposes, even more practical ones such as buying a ticket or keeping a diploma.

• Blue chip NFTs

Some see NFTs as an alternative way to deal with the bear market, in fact even when markets are not the most favourable, some blue chip collections retain their value. In a similar vein to the more general definition for companies, blue chips are NFTs that have proven over time to have a certain price stability and solidity of design. Among such collections are certainly those of Yuga Labs, such as the CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Within these collections, there are NFTs that are seen as more ‘blue chip’ than others, often those with the rarest attributes. Blue chips are considered by some to be the only NFTs that are truly valuable over the long term!

• PFP: Web3 profile images

The term PFP (profile picture) refers to NFTs that are used as profile pictures in social networks. PFPs can be individual NFTs or entire collections designed for this purpose. Typically these collections are based on a common character or theme to be replicated in all works. Among the most famous PFPs is the Bored Ape Yacht Club but also Doodles, World of Women or Meebits. The popularity of using NFTs as profile pictures led Twitter to introduce the possibility of certifying the NFTs used on its platform.

• POAP, NFTs of events

Our list of all types of NFTs would be incomplete without mentioning POAPs! The acronym stands for Proof of Attendance Protocol and represents unique NFTs that are distributed at events to certify people’s attendance. Organisers of courses, conferences, concerts, fairs can make POAPs to distribute to participants. POAPs are considered as the ‘bookmarks of your life’ because they build a map of your experiences and achievements on your wallet. POAPs look like medallions and badges. Their main utility is to ensure people’s involvement in some project or activity.

4. Why are NFTs so expensive?

A final criterion to distinguish different types of NFTs is the price difference. Although the media puts the spotlight on astronomical sales, there are NFTs for all budgets. Crypto art is worth millions, but not all non-fungible tokens are necessarily expensive. The difference in price depends on factors such as the utility of the token, the quality of the reference project, the size of the metadata, and gas fees. Beyond these right now, the price of NFTs is determined by their rarity and prestige.

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Free to play, open world and play-to-earn, Mirandus is Gala Games’ centrepiece. Read on and explore the GameFi project!

Gala Games’ play-to-earn game Mirandus is among the five most eagerly awaited video games on the GameFi scene. Although the video game is still in development, it has already gathered a very enthusiastic community and its first NFTs have long since sold out. How does the quest-free fantasy role-playing game Mirandus work? 

Gala Games and the GALA token: on-blockchain gaming

Mirandus is developed on Gala Games, a game-making network on blockchain. The Gala Games platform functions as a marketplace where users can explore different video games and purchase game tools and items in the form of NFTs. The Gala Games network runs on GALA, the Ethereum-based utility token.

Most of Gala Games’ video games are in development or testing. The platform does not only host video games by the Gala Games team, but is also open to developers from outside the project. Currently, Gala Games has directly made Mirandus, Town Star and Town Crush. For Gala Games, fun comes first, which implies that the blockchain must be ‘invisible‘ in their play-to-earn games. The complexity of this technology should not be an obstacle for those who want to play, which is why, despite being based on blockchain, the game dynamics are simple and accessible to everyone, even non-experts. Players only need to know that everything they own in the game is also their property outside it. Gala Games boasts great community involvement and aims at full decentralisation based on active user participation – ‘Through decentralisation, players not only own their in-games items, but they have a voice in how the Gala Games roadmap develops’, all through voting mechanisms. 

Mirandus, an unpredictable fantasy Metaverse 

Mirandus is described as a Fantasy RPG and is set in a world ruled by five monarchs, based in five different cities. The play-to-earn video game itself has no quests, missions or levels to overcome. Players are free to venture into the wilderness and try their luck in the Mirandus metaverse. You can participate in the game with your own avatar, you can go on a monster hunt in the forests, lend your services to some knight or run a small village shop. All possibilities are open on Mirandus. All these features make Mirandus by Gala Games an open world. 

How does Mirandus play-to-earn work? 

The peculiarity of a play-to-earn video game like Mirandus is the possibility of obtaining crypto rewards while playing. Gala Games has devised a sophisticated internal economy for Mirandus, based on the two tokens GALA and Materium (MTRM), both ERC-20. While GALA is used to purchase all the NFTs that ‘beautify’ the game, Materium is the token that moves actions and characters in Mirandus. Everyone in the game is looking for Materium, which on a technical level is a token that can also be traded on the free market, but within the game is a powerful ‘mother’ substance. Materium is, indeed, a concentrate of magic with amazing powers that can be used to increase your abilities, prepare spells, create artefacts and teleport. Mirandus populations claim territories and citadels in order to grab the miraculous substance. So, prepare to unearth Materium in every corner of the Metaverse to get your rewards! However, Mirandus is also a play-to-earn because you receive tokens every time you achieve small objectives, such as founding a city or defeating monsters. 

Mirandus’ NFTs

Mirandus is fundamentally a free-to-play crypto game, which means that you do not have to pay a fee or buy components to start playing. Avatars are available as free versions for all players, however, you have the option to buy NFT characters with increased powers – the Exemplars. There are 5 types of Exemplar, the Elves, Halflings, Orcs, Dwarves and Humans. Each category is divided into ‘families’ and each avatar is unique. Orcs are best suited to exploring the wilderness, while Dwarves are the most Materium-hungry. At the time of writing, 90% of the Exemplars have been sold but can be bought on secondary markets. To give you an idea of the average price, an Orc on Gala Games costs about 19 thousand GALA (about €1100), while you can find Humans for 0.06 ETH on OpenSea. 

The game is based on the core principle of resource property, be it land, buildings, or means of transport. NFTs in Mirandus also include land (‘property is power’ on Mirandus), ships and docks. 1650 pieces of land are available and once the game is launched, owners will be able to choose in which geographical area of Mirandus to place theirs. You can build dwellings or offer services on the land, and it is also crucial to have suitable walls to protect yourself from enemies and monsters. At a glance, Mirandus NFTs can be characters, land (Deeds), buildings, docks or ships. Each non-fungible token is distinguishable by characteristics, rarity and ‘value’ within the game. The network has pledged to plant a tree for every purchase on the Gala Games marketplace through the One Tree Planted platform.

The videogame’s release date has not yet been announced. Gala Games’ play-to-earn Mirandus trailer features a mysterious traveller in worn-out clothes and a filthy face, everything about him seemingly screaming ‘strenuous endeavour in progress’. Indeed, everything is yet to be built on Mirandus, and there is nothing more intriguing than the power to create. Unlike other MMORPGs like Warcraft or Final Fantasy, players are not invited to explore cities or places imagined by the developers. Everything on Mirandus is in the hands of the players!

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What is generative art and how can it create NFTs? The blockchain has become a creative tool for artists, a work of art can now be created out of a smart contract

Can art be created on the blockchain? The rise of generative art, artificial intelligence and NFTs demonstrates the development of a new artistic trend that harnesses the latest technologies. The first NFT collections have become popular as sets of very expensive images that differ from each other by a serial number or a single randomly assigned feature. The concept of randomised generative art underpins these collections, but what is generative art and how can it be used to create NFTs?

What is generative art? The artist becomes an algorithm

Generative art is nothing new. In fact, it is an art form that has been around for centuries in music and painting. One of the earliest examples of generative art is a musical game by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dated 1792. The game involved creating a complete piece of music by randomly combining previously composed fragments of music by rolling dice.

We have come a long way from dice, but the concept behind generative art remains the same. This type of art consists in creating a piece by assembling different elements previously prepared by an artist, or at least a human element, in a random manner, by means of autonomous systems that can be mechanical, chemical, computer or robotic. Generative art pieces are produced autonomously but they start from a human idea – the artist may for example indicate colours, shapes, sizes and sounds that an algorithm will then combine into a single piece. Algorithms in generative art make decisions that would normally be up to the artist, which is why this type of art is said to do away with the artist’s intentionality. Although the human element sets up the elements and the process, the realisation is down to the machine. 

Generative art and artificial intelligence

Generative art, images, sounds or any other artistic expression, is very often realised through artificial intelligence. A software that is paving the way for artificial intelligence art is DALL-E, which generates digital images from verbal descriptions. DALL-E was developed by OpenAI and uses 12 billion parameters (or elements) to turn words into images, following the pattern used to associate text and image on the Internet by search engines. DALL-E is currently in beta testing, but its work is already impressive and advanced.

The history of NFTs began with collections generated by the random combination of attributes, such as CryptoKitties or CryptoPunks. NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – are unique digital assets registered on blockchain that certify the uniqueness and ownership of the works of art they represent. For example, for CryptoPunks, the algorithm developed by Larva Labs gave birth to 10,000 unique pieces through the combination of attributes. The algorithm randomly assigned each artwork its attributes in the process of creating the tokens. Essentially, it can be said that NFTs as artworks originated from the concept of generative art. In the early NFT collections, including the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the blockchain was only used to record and store images in the form of NFT but was not directly involved in the creative process. However, smart contracts can also be used to create generative art. 

Creating generative art using smart contracts: the Art Blocks example

The blockchain offers new opportunities for artistic creation – smart contracts can in fact be one of the autonomous systems used by generative art. Instead of using a simple algorithm, some artists have chosen to rely on a smart contract which, from a technical point of view, is a software that automatically triggers actions based on the occurrence of various conditions. In practical terms, the generation of an artwork is triggered by buying a non-fungible token and sending a crypto share to a smart contract. This is how generative art can be used to create NFTs.

Art Blocks is an Ethereum platform for making generative art NFTs. It was founded by one of the first collectors of CryptoPunks, known by his nickname Snowfro. After selling part of his collection of Punks, he used the proceeds to develop a platform where the blockchain would help artists create NFTs. You can not only buy works of generative art on Art Blocks but – and this is the project’s peculiarity – you can interact directly with the algorithm by purchasing instantly created works of generative art. Art Blocks hosts the artists’ codes and smart contracts, so, after choosing a collection or a particular style, you pay the fee and receive an NFT randomly created by the artist-designed algorithm in your Ethereum wallet. This makes each result different and the combinations are almost infinite. To date, Art Blocks has a total sales volume of over $1 billion and is one of the most successful generative art NFT projects. 

Also amongst the best known NFT generative art projects is Autoglyphs, a 2019 project by Larva Labs on Ethereum. Autoglyphs’ algorithm created 512 NFTs for the collection, which is now available on secondary markets and has achieved sales of $48 million.

Monuverse: generative art for cultural heritage 

A further example of the trend to combine generative art and NFTs, is Monuverse. It is an Italian project that aims to build a metaverse in which all the most iconic artistic monuments of the planet can be housed. The first monument chosen to inaugurate the project is the Arco della Pace in Milan. It all started with a live performance at the end of 2021, in which a digital artwork was projected onto the Arco della Pace. From this performance, and thanks to the mechanisms of generative art, Monuverse and the Ouchhh art studio, an NFT collection was created. Although all the non-fungible tokens represent the Milanese monument, each of them is unique. The uniqueness comes from the random combination of a series of graphic elements created by Ouchhh. The collection consisting of 7,777 pieces with seven levels of rarity, will be minted on the 11th of November 2022. Exclusive benefits are reserved for owners of Monuverse NFTs, such as the possibility to select the next monuments to be included in the project, to participate in future whitelisting and the allocation of an avatar for the metaverse currently under construction. 

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Imperium Empires is a new play-to-earn crypto game developed on the Avalanche blockchain. Find out how to join this metaverse!

If you’re interested in the world of play-to-earn games, you can’t miss the new crypto game coming to the Avalanche ecosystem. Avalanche is one of the blockchains where play-to-earn games are becoming more established. After Crabada, Ascenders and Ragnarock, here comes Imperium Empires. Want to join  the Imperium Empires metaverse? Find out how!

Enter the space metaverse of Imperium Empires!

Imperium Empires is a play-to-earn MMO real-time strategy (RTS) game developed on the Avalanche blockchain. The video game is set in a vast cosmic metaverse, populated by fleets of futuristic spaceships (in the form of NFTs) with which players can conquer territories and build their own empire. Guild systems and governance are key to mastering the core game mechanics and truly immersing yourself in the metaverse, Imperium Empires in fact encourages users to team up with each other and thus to share rewards. This mode of interaction has been named by the Imperium Empires as team-to-earn, a reinterpretation of the concept of play-to-earn. Within the crypto game of Imperium Empires, various game combinations coexist. It will be possible to play in single player and PvE (player vs. environment) modes, in which the player will try his hand at mining minerals from asteroids and exploring the Mmtaverse. But there will also be room for PVP (player vs player) game dynamics, in which each player will be able to become a commander in exciting guild battles and earn big loot at the expense of the other players.

NFTs and the tokenomics of Imperium Empires

The sale of the NFT ships, which are indispensable for entering the Imperium Empires metaverse, began in February 2022 and it was only possible to buy them with the IME token, which is also the crypto game’s governance token. During the two sales rounds, it was possible to purchase five different types of spacecraft: Galaxy Scootie, Strekzans, Augear and Aurostar. Each of the four spaceships has different characteristics, and the price and quantity of ships available also varied depending on the category. There are four main characteristics of spaceships: health, speed, rotational speed and cargo capacity. In addition to having different scores for these four characteristics, the NFTs in Imperium Empires are classified by different degrees of rarity. Rarity is related to the number of NFTs available. For example, the Galaxy Scootie spacecrafts, which are common, have 15,000 copies. Meanwhile Aurostar spacecrafts, which have a supreme rarity rating, have only 150 copies. But how do you buy Imperium Empires NFTs?  As soon as the first sale phase was over, it was possible for users to sell and buy NFTs on the secondary marketplace, using the EMI token. To avoid one of the main problems of this type of game, namely the loss of value of NFTs as new ones are issued, the ships can be destroyed during battles against other players.

But how does the play-to-earn model work in Imperium Empires? Its tokenomics involves two tokens that exist within Imperium Empires. The first one is the IME token, which is intended to manage governance mechanisms and to purchase NFTs useful for gameplay. IME can also be sold on Avalanche’s main DEXs, e.g. Trader Joe or Pangolin. To obtain the IME token in Imperium Empires, it is necessary to loot other ships or win seasonal tournaments. The second token is called IMC and, unlike IME, it has no value outside the  metaverse. IMC can be used to repair spaceships or to build a guild, you can receive this token by selling minerals extracted from asteroids.

When will Imperium Empires be released?

In the near future, it will be possible to try out this new crypto game coming soon to Avalanche! The launch of the Alpha, multiplayer version, in which you can engage in guild battles against other players, is set for August 2022.

To date, only the Apollo expansion is available, a web version of the game that aims to test whether the game’s economy was sustainable. Players were able to start obtaining rewards from their NFT spaceships by using their own fleets of spaceships to mine minerals, perform stakeouts and trade the mined resources in the metaverse.

The Alpha version will not be the final one, but it will be very close. The release date for the full version of Imperium Empires has not yet been announced, but there is talk of the last quarter of 2022. In conjunction with the release of the final game, it will be possible to participate in the long-awaited ranked tournaments. In these tournaments, players will be able to compete for rewards with the EMI token. It is almost time, however, to leave the testing lab! We are eager and curious to be able to hurtle through the galaxies of the Imperium Empires Metaverse!

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Why is Web3 decisive and what are its advantages? Discover Chris Dixon’s 5 best tweets about Web3!

Chris Dixon is one of the most influential figures in the Web3 industry and a partner in a16z, a Venture Capital fund active in the crypto world and founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Dixon is known for his commitment as a Web3 popularizer. For years, he has been proposing interpretations and points of view on the evolution of the Internet, also through interesting threads on Twitter. His Twitter profile, cdixon.eth has almost 900,000 followers and is a reference point for enthusiasts in the field. Let’s take a look at Chris Dixon’s 5 best tweets on Web3!

1.   Why is Web3 important?

Presenting Dixon’s best tweets about the Web3, one can only start with ‘Why Web3 matters‘. In this tweet, in order to define the importance of Web3, Dixon begins by presenting the difference between centralised and decentralised companies and the tendency of Web2 companies to create benefits for users only during their first phase of life. After this phase, in Dixon’s view, users become just a ‘greedy source of data’. The main criticism in the tweet relates to the attitude of traditional companies, which according to Chris Dixon discourages innovation. Web3 platforms on the other hand, being totally owned by the users who use them, are not subject to this problem. Users are incentivised and work together with the platforms with the aim of expanding and growing the project of which they are an active part. The tools used to make this happen are tokens, both fungible tokens and NFTs. Chris Dixon firmly believes that it is necessary to redistribute the power and value on the web to users.

This tweet, written in 2021, has become an important testimony in the history of Web3. It is precisely this post that accurately defined the phases of the Internet, allowing, among other things, the interpretation and understanding of what Gavin Wood meant when he first coined the term Web3.

2.   The strengths of Web3: dApps and NFTs

The second tweet is also about the transition from Web2 to Web3. Blockchain, according to Dixon, in this historical period is the equivalent in terms of innovation of mobile applications in the period from 2009 to 2012. Chris Dixon defines dapps on the blockchain as the IT frontier of the millennium. He goes on to say that the strength of dapps is that they can be modified, programmed and improved by third-party actors because they are open source and permissionless. Dixon brings up as an example of dapp’s potential, the DeFi summer of 2020, the period in which the first wave of decentralised applications broke out and which saw the birth of Uniswap and Compound. Creating inclusive, fair and transparent financial services is indeed possible thanks to dApps. Dixon is positive about NFTs, describing them as an opportunity that can offer content creators and developers better economic conditions than what Web2 platforms used to offer. In conclusion, the tweet asks what trends will dominate the immediate future. Web3 social networks, DAOs or metaverses?

3.   Making a start-up by watching a series

This tweet refers to the series ‘Winning Time – The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’ produced by HBO. The series tells the story of the rise of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team starting with the takeover of historic owner Jerry Buss, who through his entrepreneurial skills transforms the team into an unbeatable dream team. More than the prowess of NBA players Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Chris Dixon seems interested in the entrepreneurial component of the TV series. He calls it a great show about start-ups.

4.   Chris Dixon joins the Board of Directors of OpenSea

The tweet announcing the entry of the Web3 popularizer to the board of the world’s most famous and used NFT marketplace could not fail to be part of this selection! The announcement took place right on Twitter, specifically on the profile of OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer.

Opensea’s decision to welcome Dixon is not too surprising, the latter being one of the most famous and respected Web3 disseminators and a venture investor with a lot of experience in the field. Among the projects he has been involved in as a financier and advisor are Uniswap, Avalanche and many others. Through the tweet, he said he was thrilled to be able to join the board of a giant like OpenSea, and that he was very happy to be able to continue working closely with David Finzer. In fact, the two met in 2021, when the fund in which Chris Dixon is a partner, a16z, decided to invest in OpenSea, and since then they have been working closely together, constantly comparing notes.

5.   The controversy with Minecraft: don’t clip the wings of developers

We end Chris Dixon’s list of the top 5 tweets on Web3 with a bang! The entrepreneur commented on the decision of the famous game Minecraft, developed by Microsoft-owned Mojan, to avoid any kind of NFT integration within the game. Dixon stated, in a polemical tone, that apparently Web2 companies can change the rules for developers at any time. Later, in response to his first tweet, he again poked fun at Microsoft, pointing out the inaccuracy of a sentence within the document containing the announcement.

The phrase in question ‘an NFT is a unique, unchangeable digital token that is part of a blockchain and is often purchased with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin’ is indeed inaccurate. NFTs are not typical of networks such as Bitcoin’s, but are instead usually created on blockchains that allow dapp development, such as Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche.

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The Graph announces the abandonment of centralised hosting services, and prepares to decentralise all its operations

The Graph is one of the most innovative and interesting protocols of the entire Web3 world and is used for indexing blockchain data. The Graph is nicknamed ‘the Google of the blockchain’ because it actually performs more or less the same task as the search engine does for the traditional Web, i.e. it indexes the data on the blockchain, making the process of extracting it easier and faster. In this way, it allows Dapps to find the data they need very quickly. The protocol is officially abandoning its centralised hosting service and moving entirely to The Graph’s decentralised network. 

The current situation of The Graph

The Graph’s ecosystem revolves around the relationship between the developers of subgraphs and those who use the data. The former describe how the data is organised, the latter are for example app developers, who are willing to pay to query the data contained in the subgraphs. This data is, for example, the transaction information written within the blockchain as transaction data.  Initially, a centralised hosting service, run by Edge & Node, the team behind The Graph, was created to make The Graph’s network work. To date, this hosting service hosts more than 24,000 subgraphs that will gradually be transferred to the decentralised mainnet. The move to the decentralised mainnet is taking place gradually. The first subgraph was launched on this net in the first quarter of 2021, and as of the 30th of June 2022, the number of active subgraphs was 392.

The complete migration to the mainnet and its phases

The migration of all functionalities to the main net of The Graph is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. At that point, the centralised hosting service will be completely disabled and it will only be possible to access the data on the subgraphs in a decentralised manner. But let us see through which steps this will take place specifically:

1. During the first phase, which already started at the beginning of the third quarter of 2022, the development of new subgraphs on the centralised hosting service ceased. It is still possible to update the remaining subgraphs on the hosting service but not to build new ones. We are currently in this phase;
2. In the second phase, all updates to the subgraphs are to be made via Subgraph Studio, an isolated and secure development environment created specifically for testing subgraphs. Once tested, they are to be published on the decentralised network. It will then no longer be possible to update subgraphs on the centralised host service;
3. In the third and final phase, the subgraphs located on the centralised hosting service will be completely removed. This should take place by the first quarter of 2023 and will be taken care of by the engineers and developers of The Graph’s official team.

The decentralisation of the entire infrastructure will allow those using the service offered by The Graph’s ecosystem to build fully decentralised dapps.

Collaboration with Silicon Kruger and Good Work foundation

One of The Graph’s latest projects was developed through a collaboration with Silicon Kruger, an innovation centre set up to facilitate access to the Web3 for developing countries on the African continent. Silicon Kruger and The Graph have developed the first indexer for African dapps called Index Africa. The indexer aggregates dapp data and retains a portion of the rewards generated by its node, which are then allocated to a funding programme for students in rural Africa. This is made possible by Index Africa’s non-profit partner, the Good Work Foundation, a South African organisation that has been providing access to education for young African students since 2005.

Will developers be able to complete the migration in the allotted time? And will The Graph’s network attract applications that aspire to be fully decentralised? Follow us so you don’t miss the next updates!

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Football NFTs, Barça and Socios, and tickets can be bought in BTC. Football and cryptocurrencies are getting closer and closer!

The world of football is one of the sectors in which Web3 technologies are becoming more established. One of the main reasons for this is certainly the strong following, and consequently the high visibility, that blockchain companies can achieve through sports-themed initiatives and collaborations. Fan tokens, sponsorships, Sorare’s NFT fantasy football. In short, the Web3 is interested in football! Is this attraction mutual? Let’s see it in the article!

NFT football market. The Crawley Town F.C. and WAGMI United affair

Would you like to be able to pick transfer targets for your favourite team? For Crawley Town fans, it was possible! On the 15th June 2022, supporters of the team, which plays in the English fourth division, were able to vote for a new player to be bought and included in the squad. The vote took place on WAGMI United‘s Discord channel, and was restricted to all NFT owners of the brand. The player who was chosen was Jayden Davis, a 20-year-old midfielder who joined the team on a free transfer deal.

But what is WAGMI United? The term WAGMI stands for “We’re all gonna make it” and is a very famous motto in the crypto world. WAGMI United is an American Web3 brand that aims to revolutionise the way fans interact with their favourite team. The company bought the small English team in April for a price of $20 million, with Gary Vaynerchuk and the president of the NBA team Philadelphia 76, Darly Moery, among the most prominent investors. WAGMI United calls itself ‘the internet team’ and aims to build a new kind of fan base that crosses geographical boundaries. Among the group’s partners is none other than Adidas, which has taken charge of designing and producing the club’s shirts. The famous brand’s slogan: ‘Impossible is nothing’ seems to be shared by the young company, the ultimate goal is indeed more than ambitious. To take Crawley Town to the Premier League!

Barcelona studios sells 24.5% stake to Socios

Barcelona wants to join the Web3 scene and win more and more fans around the world. The Spanish club announced on Monday the 1st of August 2022 the sale of a 24.5 per cent stake in Barça Studios to Socios.com for $100 million. Barça studios is the division of the football club responsible for creating multimedia content for supporters. It will therefore be Socios from now on that will take care of the development of the brand’s Web3 initiatives, thanks to the support of the blockchain Chillz. The partnership between the two brands, however, is not really new. In fact, the collaboration had already begun in February 2020 for the launch of the $BAR Fan Token on Socios.com. Since then, over $39 million worth of fan tokens have been sold. What will the Web3 projects of FC Barcelona and Socios mainly focus on? Obviously NFTs and maybe even a metaverse. Socios and Chillz are establishing themselves as one of the most interesting realities in the ‘football and cryptocurrency’ scene also through illustrious brand ambassadors such as Del Piero and Lionel Messi.

Buy match tickets in BTC through the Lightning Network

Oxford City Football Club, a team from England’s sixth division, recently partnered with CoinCorner, a company specialising in Bitcoin payments using the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a decentralised network of nodes that allows a very high number of transactions to be sent instantaneously.This network is parallel to the Bitcoin blockchain, performs some transactions on the blockchain and some off-chain, and was created to solve the scalability problems of the network. If you want to learn more about it, have a look at our Academy article! The Oxford City initiative is not only about tickets. Within the RAW Charging Stadium (the club’s home ground), it will also be possible to buy food and drinks in BTC! The Bitcoin logo will also appear on the players’ shirts as a sponsor, alongside CoinCorner. Justin Merritt, the British club’s sports director, says the initiative aims to increase the education and adoption of Bitcoin in the UK.The popularity of cryptocurrencies in the UK has increased dramatically: a third of Britons are interested in the subject, and around 3.3 million citizens own BTC. So the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the article is yes! The football industry loves crypto!

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