Written by: William M. Peaster, Bankless

Compiled by: intern, Deep Tide TechFlow

"Imagine what it would be like if Star Wars or Game of Thrones were not owned by Disney or HBO, but instead directly guided, developed, and owned by a community of builders, creators, and participants."

This is a quote from Timshel, the creator of The Genesis, a creative enterprise and now one of many businesses built on and around Loot NFTs, collectively referred to as Lootverse.

This statement and Lootverse highlight a growing trend in the NFT ecosystem: community-centered or community-driven world-building projects that are blossoming into new decentralized metaverses.

For me, building metaverse worlds is the most exciting thing happening around NFTs right now.

First, what is world-building?

World-building, in general, is the artistic creation of a new multiverse. It can be a solitary literary act, such as the origins of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe, or a collaborative and commercial endeavor, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) cross-media franchise.

Recently, a style of world-building that combines collaboration and experimentation has emerged in some NFT projects, where the communities are striving to create their own vast imaginary worlds. Notably, NFTs allow community members to exist and own "digital real estate" directly within these universes, which is not possible in traditional world-building projects.

Cellarius, the pioneer of this experiment

"Cellarius Universe is an original cross-media cyberpunk series that leverages blockchain technology and user-generated assets to create a fan-collaborated narrative. Our story begins in the near future and will expand across space and time throughout the galaxy. Text, art, and other media will explore the multifaceted relationship between humanity and sentient superintelligence. Cellarius Universe is essentially a forward-looking mythos, while also being a collective narrative shaped by its community."

This is the introductory guide to Cellarius Universe, and even though the project has been around for 4 years, it still reads like the initial announcement of the current NFT community.

This is a project about cross-media collaborative storytelling, operated by Ethereum infrastructure development company ConsenSys between early 2018 and early 2019, but it went bankrupt. Cellarius was ahead of its time, as the cryptocurrency and NFT ecosystem was in its infancy and unable to support the project's grand vision.

From my personal writing perspective, the foundational knowledge established by the Cellarius team will be (and still is) a great start for collective storytelling. I highlight Cellarius here to illustrate that today's NFT world-building projects are not a brand new trend; rather, they are digging deeper into creativity due to advancements in crypto infrastructure and a surge in NFT experimentation.

5 Notable NFT World-Building Projects

Today's NFT world-building projects come in various shapes and sizes. Some are entirely in the public domain, while others are not. However, what these projects have in common is a community actively dedicated to building a new metaverse. Here are a few examples:

Lootverse

In August 2021, Dom created the text-based crypto project Loot. The project quickly exploded within the community, attracting the attention of many in the NFT ecosystem. Since then, a series of NFT projects have begun to build art, games, and other aspects around Loot NFTs, leading to the organic formation of Lootverse. Lootverse has no central organizing force but continuously works to cultivate and develop its narrative.

Nouns

As 4156 explained last year, "Nouns is a proliferative protocol." Here, his idea is a virtuous cycle:

1. The protocol and generated Noun NFTs fund the treasury and attract innovators.
2. Nouns DAO uses the treasury to fund innovators who want to build on Nouns.
3. The applications and creations of funded innovators attract more capital and more talented innovators, forming a virtuous cycle.

It may seem that Nouns itself is not a world-building project, but in fact, it is. The community-driven development of Nouns culture has led to a flourishing of Nounish art, stories, poetry, and more, sowing the seeds for a vibrant Nouns universe in the future.

Superverse

Sup, led by Dom and other talented NFT masters, is a creative studio building Superverse, which includes the sci-fi CC0 universe project Blitmap, on-chain gaming project Supdrive, and more. Notably, Sup is currently exploring an experimental structure similar to CC0.

Runnerverse

This is another NFT world-building project launched around 10,000 pixelated cyberpunk avatars. The Runners community is collaborating to establish and write Runnerverse, starting with the struggle between Mega City and its rebels against the mysterious authority Somnus. However, the development of the plot will be guided by the community.

Yuga Labs' Otherside

Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, plans to launch their Otherside metaverse project this month. The animated teaser depicts non-Yuga NFTs such as Cool Cats, CrypToadz, Nouns, and World of Women, making it clear that the team has clear world-building ambitions. However, before the launch of Otherside, we can only speculate about what this world-building will look like and how centralized it will be.

Conclusion

World-building projects are rapidly evolving in today's NFT ecosystem, with various narratives beginning to intertwine. I believe that the projects being built today will have an impact on future generations that goes beyond mere speculation, and like Cellarius Universe, they will truly expand and solidify more possibilities for Web3, influencing other projects in the same space in similar ways.