Inventory of representative applications in the NFT public chain FLOW ecosystem: NBATopShot, Chainmonsters, and Genies
The Flow network was built by Dapper Labs, the team behind the pioneering blockchain game CryptoKitties.Original Title: "Public Chain Flow Builds NFT Territory"
Author: Tangyuan
The competition among public chains has entered a white-hot phase, with exchange public chains like BSC that are compatible with Ethereum's EVM, as well as new-generation public chains such as Solana, Avalanche, Luna, and Polygon rising in this bull market. Ethereum's own ecosystem is also not to be outdone, with Layer 2 scaling solutions like Near, Arbitrum, Zkysnc, and Optimism entering the market to compete.
New public chains are trying to surpass Ethereum in performance using various technical solutions. Avalanche has innovated with its Avalanche consensus, while Near adopts sharding for scaling. After speeding up and reducing costs, applications like DEX, lending, and liquidity pools have flocked to these new public chains, creating different versions.
Although these public chains have lowered the threshold for using on-chain applications with low GAS fees and high speeds, they have mostly attracted users who overflowed from Ethereum. Overall, the ecosystems of new public chains still resemble copies of Ethereum, entering a bottleneck of homogenization. Some industry insiders believe that these public chains are more about competing for existing users with Ethereum rather than developing the incremental market for blockchain.
How to stand out among numerous similar public chains is a question that all public chain ecosystems need to consider, which means the market requires differentiated competition. Segmenting the track has become one of the "tactics," and the new blockchain network Flow seems to understand this well.
From the outset, the public chain Flow was designed with a different positioning than other public chains. Its vision is not grand, nor does it intend to become an "Ethereum killer." Its main goal is to become the infrastructure for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), applied in commercial fields like blockchain games and art, attempting to become the territory for NFTs.
The Flow network was built by Dapper Labs, the team behind the pioneering blockchain game CryptoKitties. This pet-raising game, created using Ethereum's ERC-721 standard, went viral in 2017, clogging the Ethereum network within hours of its launch. It was precisely because of the performance issues exposed by CryptoKitties that Dapper Labs conceived the idea of developing a separate chain dedicated to NFT construction, leading to the birth of Flow.
To enhance on-chain processing efficiency, Flow employs a unique node management mechanism—a multi-node architecture, where nodes in the network are divided into four roles:
- Collection Nodes—mainly responsible for collecting and processing data;
- Consensus Nodes—verifying the existence of transactions and their order in the block;
- Execution Nodes—executing transaction calculations;
- Verification Nodes—supervising execution nodes to ensure the correctness of transactions.
Most blockchain networks have very complete node functions, where a single node must store information such as smart contracts and account balances while also performing various tasks like transaction verification. This is also a significant reason limiting Ethereum's scalability. Flow has made changes by clearly defining the roles of each node in the network, allowing for verification at different stages of the same transaction. This pipeline design greatly improves the operational efficiency of the network.
In 2020, the Flow public chain officially launched, and Dapper Labs adopted a model of collaborating with top IPs to launch NFT digital collectibles and gaming applications on this chain. The most famous initial application is NBA Top Shot (NBA trading cards), which generated over $700 million in transaction volume within six months of its launch, dominating the NFT trading volume leaderboard for a long time.
The market impact of NBA Top Shot is not limited to the blockchain or crypto community; it has also attracted the attention of traditional media, businesses, and capital. It is reported that only about 20% of users purchasing NBA Top Shot trading cards are crypto users, with the vast majority being ordinary basketball fans or collectors.
Compared to other emerging public chains, Flow has taken a unique path. It collaborates with mainstream IPs and attracts incremental users from the general world through strong ecological support, rather than focusing on the existing battles in the crypto and blockchain circles. Currently, Flow has gathered a group of developers who love NFT applications. This issue of DeFi Hive will review representative applications on Flow.
NFT Star Collectible Card NBA Top Shot
Introduction
NBA Top Shot is a sports collectible NFT game on the Flow chain—transforming star player cards into non-fungible tokens. It allows users to draw and collect cards on-chain, with these NFT player cards having received official IP authorization from the NBA. It is the first officially authorized sports IP digital product on the blockchain.
According to NFT market data platform Cryptoslam, NBA Top Shot has reached a trading volume of $800 million since its launch, with the number of cardholders reaching 610,000, consistently ranking among the top five in the entire NFT digital product market in terms of transaction amount.
NBA Top Shot Official Website
The NBA Top Shot NFTs record iconic moments of some star players, such as game-winning shots, dunks, and milestones, like LeBron James' key block in the finals and Kobe's free throws. Among them, the NFT card recording LeBron James' shot once fetched a staggering price of $208,000.
Unlike traditional printed star cards, NBA Top Shot is issued on the blockchain, with information recorded on-chain, making each player card an NFT asset. Each NFT player card is unique, and the holder has absolute control over it. This prevents the images of player cards from being tampered with or pirated, and of course, they will not fade, oxidize, or deteriorate over time.
Since NBA Top Shot is stored on-chain, it offers more presentation methods compared to printed cards. In addition to images and text, NBA Top Shot features three-dimensional dynamic presentations, with each player card containing a short video of a specific highlight moment, similar to a GIF. These elements together constitute a complete NBA Top Shot NFT asset.
Gameplay
NBA Top Shot player cards are divided into three levels: Common, Rare, and Legendary, with prices determined by the star player recorded on the card, the rarity of the shot, and the card number.
Generally speaking, the more famous the player, the higher the card price; the rarer the card, or the one widely regarded as a classic moment in a game, the higher the price.
Players can purchase directly through the NBA Top Shot website, which supports payment methods including BTC, ETH, USDC, and credit cards. Purchased player cards can be directly sold on NFT trading platforms.
NBA Top Shot player cards not only have collectible value, but the team will also develop game features in the future, adding more playability. For example, players can create an NFT-style team based on their collected player cards and participate in online competitions.
"Gold Mining Game" Chainmonsters
Introduction
Chainmonsters, known in Chinese as "连锁怪物," is a large-scale multiplayer online role-playing (RPG) game native to the Flow chain. Players can capture monsters (Chainmons), explore or combine different types of monsters, upgrade abilities, and battle other opponents.
The gameplay of Chainmonsters is similar to the Nintendo-released game "Pokémon," where players search for resources and teammates in designated game maps and then battle monsters.
Chainmonsters Official Website
Unlike the recently popular "P2E (Play-to-Earn)" gold mining games on the chain, in Chainmonsters, players earn not token rewards but equipment and items presented in NFT form within the game. These NFTs are game assets that can be traded directly in the secondary market.
There are no participation barriers for players in Chainmonsters. Unlike the leading chain game Axie Infinity, where players must first purchase three pet creatures "Axie" to participate, in Chainmonsters, players can join the game without preparing any game assets; they can capture monsters directly in the game.
In Axie Infinity, the game rewards players primarily with SLP tokens, which can be monetized in the secondary market. The "gold mine" in Chainmonsters consists of various monsters or game equipment assets like swords and axes that enhance abilities, which can be traded directly in the NFT market.
The operation of Chainmonsters avoids the price risk of game tokens, ensuring that the essence of the experience is based on the game itself.
Gameplay
Chainmonsters sets a story background: in a virtual world, a mysterious disease has made all creatures more aggressive, turning them into monsters. These monsters come from nine different elements (such as fire, water, electricity, air, crystal, etc.). In this setting, players in the game act as "agents" who need to capture monsters (Chainmons). Some monsters can only be found in specific areas, while others appear only during certain time periods, making capturing monsters part of the gameplay.
After capturing a monster, players can feed them using special materials and resources they find, upgrading the monster's level. The process of finding materials and resources is set as game tasks or level unlocks, similar to "match-3" games, where players are rewarded with treasure chests for clearing levels, containing items that can help players progress through higher-level challenges.
Players can also combine different monsters to battle other players for victory and rank improvement. When players reach a certain rank, they can receive additional rewards in the form of game equipment or item assets, including character skins and energy-boosting adventure packs. These items can also be traded in the built-in NFT market of Chainmonsters.
It is important to note that Chainmonsters has not yet issued any tokens.
Virtual Avatar Genies
Introduction
Genies is a technology company that creates 3D virtual avatars. With the rise of the NFT craze, the company has established a trading market for virtual avatars and related products based on the Flow chain.
Genies Official Website
Originally focused on the concept of the metaverse, Genies is a virtual avatar design company that primarily develops a system for users to customize their virtual avatars using artificial intelligence. Users can dress up their avatars based on their preferences and personalities, creating richer designs. Genies has developed 3D virtual avatars for several celebrity artists, such as Justin Bieber and Daniel Wu.
Genies has also established collaborations with the fashion industry. Last year, the company partnered with luxury brand Gucci, allowing users to access Gucci's virtual mall "Gucci wheel," where they can purchase virtual products from the brand for their avatars.
In May of this year, Genies secured $65 million in Series B funding, with investment firms including Dapper Labs, Coinbase Ventures, and Polychain among the crypto venture capitalists.
Having accumulated expertise in virtual avatar design in the internet world, Genies recently announced plans to use blockchain technology to establish an on-chain trading platform for virtual avatars and related products, choosing to build it on the Flow chain. This will allow celebrity avatars, along with their clothing, hairstyles, accessories, and other related products, to be tokenized as NFT assets, enabling users to trade freely.
Additionally, Warner Music has partnered with Genies, allowing its artists to sell exclusive limited-edition digital NFT assets to their fans in the future, commemorating key life moments such as album releases or concert events. Singers and songwriters can also turn their performance moments or artistic creations into NFT products for fans to purchase.
Currently, the virtual avatar NFT asset trading platform by Genies on Flow is still under construction and has not yet been officially launched.
