From sports IP to the fastest-growing public chain in history, a detailed explanation of the Flow public chain ecosystem and development

Author: kelton

When the Olympics Meets Blockchain, Flow Becomes the "Behind-the-Scenes Hero"

Recently, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics has attracted public attention, with the Winter Olympics mascot "Bing Dwen Dwen" selling out quickly. Not only the mascot is popular, but the official licensed Play To Earn mobile game "Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022," developed by the ecological team nwayplay on the Flow blockchain in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee, has also garnered a lot of fans, achieving over 10,000 downloads in the Android market within just a few days.

Moreover, the "Bing Dwen Dwen digital blind box" based on the Flow blockchain has become "hard to find," and the public chain Flow, which provides the underlying blockchain services, has also gained considerable discussion among users and investors.

Flow - A Public Chain That Is Both Familiar and Strange

When it comes to the Flow public chain, most cryptocurrency investors feel both familiar and strange. The familiarity comes from the fact that the development team behind the Flow blockchain, Dapper Labs, was the creative team behind the popular Ethereum NFT CryptoKitties. Additionally, Dapper Labs' CTO is one of the main creators of the Ethereum ERC721 token standard, which is currently the standard used by most NFTs, highlighting Dapper Labs' influence in the NFT industry.

The popularity of CryptoKitties in 2017 caused congestion on the Ethereum chain, which led the Dapper Labs team to develop the Flow public chain, primarily focusing on NFTs, blockchain games, animations, music, and other ecological products.

Furthermore, the performance of Flow tokens in the cryptocurrency market has been remarkable, with an increase of nearly a hundred times since its public offering on CoinList, attracting significant market attention. Additionally, the NBA-licensed popular IP product NBA Topshot launched by Dapper Labs has sparked discussions once again, and even cryptocurrency investors who are not involved in the Flow ecosystem are aware of Flow.

The unfamiliarity that cryptocurrency investors feel towards Flow mainly stems from its focus on issuing NFTs in collaboration with traditional IP holders and building corresponding ecosystems. Most users in the Flow ecosystem are primarily NBA fans, as well as participants in the crypto art market, NFT trading market, some blockchain games, and projects related to the metaverse.

In other words, the majority of users in the Flow ecosystem are traditional IP users, such as those of NBA Topshot, and there are relatively few speculators in the crypto industry trading Flow ecosystem NFTs. Friends investing in cryptocurrencies tend to focus more on the investability of tokens and pay little attention to the gameplay associated with NFTs in the Flow ecosystem.

Additionally, since the investment return rates in the NFT market are not as straightforward as those of homogeneous tokens like ERC20, the speculative nature of NFTs in the Flow ecosystem is somewhat reduced, making it less attractive to crypto speculators.

However, even with this reduction in speculative attributes, the market's enthusiasm for Flow remains undiminished. This is primarily because the Flow ecosystem targets traditional Web 2.0 IP holders and a large number of ordinary users, such as NBA Topshot, where most users are NBA fans, and only a small portion are cryptocurrency NFT investors.

For sports fans, they are more inclined to hold relevant NFT products long-term, similar to traditional printed NBA promotional collectibles, rather than engaging in speculative trading, which contrasts with the mindset of most NFT speculators in the crypto space.

Flow's IP Ecosystem

The IP ecosystem in traditional industries is a key focus for Flow, with NBA Topshot being the most successful example. In 2020, Flow's development team Dapper Labs obtained official authorization from the NBA and successfully launched NBA Topshot on the Flow public chain, attracting market attention.

As of now, NBA Topshot has nearly 2 million registered users and transaction volumes close to $1 billion. The success of NBA Topshot has made Flow a focal point for many sports IP holders looking to explore blockchain, Web 3.0, and NFT ecosystems.

The success of NBA Topshot has shown many traditional IP brands with large user bases the allure of crypto digital assets, and Flow has naturally become the first choice for these brands. Currently, Flow has established partnerships with several international brands across various fields, including literature, music, sports animation, gaming, and traditional publishing. Below, we provide a brief introduction to some influential collaborative IPs.

• Literature and Music

In the music sector, Flow has collaborations with well-known music distribution companies Warner Music and Universal Music, planning to launch music-related NFT products in the future, with relevant development ongoing.

In the field of children's literature, Flow has partnered with the popular American children's literature brand Dr. Seuss to launch the NFT collectible app Seussibles, which is now available on Android and Apple app stores.

• Sports

Sports have always been a primary focus for Flow, exemplified by the NBA Topshot launched in 2020. As a typical success story, the success of NBA Topshot has attracted many sports teams to consider issuing related IP works on Flow. Currently, in addition to the noteworthy Winter Olympics Bing Dwen Dwen digital blind box product, American football NFL, ICC Cricket World Cup, UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship, and La Liga are also planning or have already collaborated to launch corresponding NFT products on Flow.

In addition to the sports events projects officially collaborated with Flow, Flow is also a good choice for other sports-related project parties. For example, the legendary sports project Sportsicon, which focuses on sports stars, plans to migrate its issued NFTs to the Flow blockchain, leveraging Flow's significant advantages in the sports IP field to attract more fan communities.

• Gaming

Although Flow has very mature IP and market presence in sports, this does not hinder its development in the gaming sector. Similar to its collaborations with traditional IPs like sports, Flow primarily engages in deep cooperation with mainstream game manufacturers and plans to develop corresponding blockbuster products.

For instance, Flow is collaborating closely with Ubisoft and plans to develop AAA titles on the Flow chain. Ubisoft has years of development experience in the gaming field and has produced several classic game titles, such as "Assassin's Creed" and "Far Cry." The collaboration between Flow and Ubisoft will further enhance the diversity of games within the Flow ecosystem.

In addition to large gaming companies like Ubisoft, Flow also welcomes various styles of blockchain gaming teams to join, such as the crypto version of Pokémon—ChainMonsters, which garnered over 35,000 active users within less than two months of launch, with 10,000 Alpha Access tokens being snapped up immediately.

Moreover, well-known crypto game developers and investment firms like Animoca Brands (investors in popular games like Sandbox) also plan to launch a collectibles gaming platform, MotoGP Ignition, on the Flow public chain. Through MotoGP Ignition, fans can own and trade their favorite MotoGP motorcycle and character collectibles on the blockchain, reflecting the vibrancy of the gaming sector within the Flow ecosystem.

Other Flow ecosystems also include metaverse 3D markets, NFT trading markets, crypto art markets, and traditional publications like CNN, most of which launched last year. Since their launch, the total trading volume of projects has exceeded $1 million, as shown below:

Source: https://www.Flowverse.co/

DeFi and Infrastructure

Other infrastructures include DeFi, liquidity mining, and cross-chain ecosystems for homogeneous tokens.

Although Flow primarily focuses on NFTs and related traditional IP ecosystems, one of the project's goals is to help more cryptocurrency investors recognize and understand it. Dapper Labs will also increase its investment in the DeFi sector and blockchain infrastructure within the Flow blockchain in 2022 to facilitate integration with current mainstream blockchain ecosystems.

For example, recently Flow officially partnered with Circle to introduce USDC into the Flow ecosystem. While Flow has corresponding compliant deposit and withdrawal tools, the US dollar stablecoin still offers users greater choice (especially in countries with strict capital controls).

This can enhance the payment channels for Flow ecosystem users when purchasing NFTs and other digital collectibles, and the introduction of mainstream stablecoins will also accelerate the development of DeFi within the Flow ecosystem.

In addition to USDC, oracles like ChainLink have also begun to support the Flow public chain. As we know, oracles are crucial components in the development stage of DeFi, and ChainLink currently holds a significant market share. For Flow, ChainLink's support will further promote the exploration of DeFi and other financial projects within Flow.

In terms of cross-chain, swaps, and wallets, the Flow ecosystem's Blocto wallet has also launched its own cross-chain bridge and swap features, with other basic cross-chain facilities already in planning. Blocto wallet is the most popular wallet in the Flow ecosystem, providing users with both custodial and non-custodial wallet modes.

The custodial mode is primarily designed for the experience of a large number of ordinary users outside the crypto space, while the non-custodial mode is more suitable for cryptocurrency investors within the crypto space. In addition, the Flow team is also working on collaborations with more wallet developers and plans to enable more cryptocurrency wallets to support the Flow blockchain, including establishing a browser extension wallet similar to Metamask.

In terms of infrastructure, Flow still has considerable room for development. Therefore, Dapper Labs has begun to establish a developer project incentive activity called FLIP Buildation, similar to a crypto hackathon. Developers can use FLIP Buildation to improve the infrastructure of the Flow ecosystem, including wallets, API interfaces, and the development of homogeneous token projects, and receive corresponding token rewards, achieving a win-win situation for Flow and developers.

Flow's Public Chain Architecture

The design of the Flow public chain differs from most blockchains. In the official words, it is a pipeline design approach that significantly enhances the processing capacity of on-chain tasks.

Typically, blockchain nodes we see on public chains like Ethereum include multiple functions such as collecting transaction information, executing contracts, validating, and producing blocks. This places high demands on the performance and stability of blockchain nodes, and such blockchains face many performance bottlenecks.

This is precisely why the release of CryptoKitties by Flow caused congestion on Ethereum, akin to a worker in a workshop performing multiple jobs simultaneously, resulting in very low efficiency.

Flow addresses this by differentiating node functions, primarily dividing them into collection nodes, execution nodes, validation nodes, and consensus nodes. Different nodes perform different tasks based on their resource requirements and hardware configurations. This pipeline approach effectively improves node efficiency while preventing malicious behavior.

Although this design overall increases the complexity of the blockchain system architecture, compared to Ethereum's upcoming upgrade to ETH 2.0 and some current layer 2 scaling solutions, Flow's architecture remains relatively stable.

Additionally, Flow has designed a programming language called Cadence specifically for its public chain. Cadence is a resource-oriented programming language, differing from the object-oriented Solidity used on Ethereum.

In terms of contract language, Flow has optimized smart contracts accordingly, allowing the Flow blockchain to accommodate more transactions and avoid events similar to Ethereum congestion. Thus, Flow can be seen as more suitable for NFTs, the metaverse, and blockchain games with numerous IP collaborations.

While Flow's new smart contract language improves the overall operational efficiency of the Flow blockchain, the relative scarcity of Cadence development talent in the market is also a prominent issue, and auditing has become a concern for many developers. However, the learning cost of Flow's Cadence programming language is relatively low, making it not a difficult task.

After completing project development, developers currently need to submit their project contracts to Flow officials or certified third parties for auditing. In the near future, Flow officials will also increase rewards for developers learning the Cadence programming language and developing corresponding projects, gradually transitioning to a fully permissionless deployment.

Conclusion

For Flow, having numerous top-tier IP partners is a valuable asset, and the collaborative projects within the Flow ecosystem generally maintain a high standard, primarily targeting traditional users, which differs from the paths taken by most public chains.

Clearly, Flow aims to attract Web 2.0 IPs to transition their fans to Web 3.0. This segment of users tends to have a much lower inclination towards the speculation and hype surrounding NFTs compared to chains like Ethereum. Thus, when an NFT bear market arrives, other public chains will be significantly affected, while Flow will experience limited impact.

Moreover, Flow is currently focusing on developing NFTs, the metaverse, and blockchain games, while still having room for development in DeFi, cross-chain, and decentralization. Flow needs to leverage the upcoming sports year (such as the upcoming Super Bowl) to enhance infrastructure development and incentivize ecological projects, ensuring that it can attract top Web 2.0 IPs while also establishing closer ties with other public chains, ultimately promoting the construction and development of the Flow ecosystem.