Loot Adventurer: The crazy phenomenon of NFTs

Last week, a new NFT game on Ethereum was released. It's called Loot (for Adventurer). Translate Loot (for adventurers).

We talk a lot about this game phenomenon for the simple reason that in fact the game does not yet exist. It's unclear if this will be a metaverse, role-playing, or action game. In short, we don't know anything.

The only thing we know is that Loot NFTs sell for thousands of euros. Really, the smallest NFT can sell for no less than a million dollars.

And, I know you're wide-eyed but I haven't told you the main thing yet. The NFTs in question represented texts on a black background. Here I show you what it looked like:

I haven't yet told you about the incredible prices for these NFTs. Some are worth more than $900,000. Yes, you read correctly, I did not add any extra zeros.

I suspect that some of you reading this article have three types of reactions at the moment:

“Honestly, this is crazy, NFTs, this is going too far, are these guys stupid or what?”
"Seriously, at that price? But, don't they have other things to do with that money??"
"I don't understand anything, maybe I need to dig deeper to understand?"

That's it for the teaser.

Now, we will try to clarify this phenomenon which has caused a lot of discussion and you will understand why.

Who is the origin of Loot Adventurer:

This is the latest project from one of Vine's co-founders, Dom Hofmann. Well, even the network has somewhat disappeared from our radar, it was a big project for a while. To refresh your memory, it was a network where we shared very short video formats. Bought by Twitter, Vine was closed due to lack of revenue generated by the platform. In short, Hofman subsequently launched Peach, a social network once again but which did not make much noise. He reworked the Vine model and launched Byte, which also sold out this year.

You will tell me, the guy has nothing to do with the blockchain? Well, now I do.

In fact, this year, we had already heard a lot about Hofmann who had announced Supdrive, a video game platform with NFTs that would be real and “playable”.

Hofmann created Blitmap which would in fact serve as the foundation stone for his Loot project.

For some people, this marks a real turning point in the history of NFTs and video games in general.

What is Loot?

You need to go back to the Blitmap project a little if you want to fully understand Loot.

He collaborated with 16 artists to create 100 images 100 images of 32 x 32 pixels. These images were then "remixed" together to generate 1 "brothers and sisters". The idea was to make these Blitmaps, basic elements for a metaverse universe. Today, the cheapest Blitmap costs around 600 dollars, just that.

This is how he came up with the idea of launching the Loot project.

He thought he would allow future players to create their own items for a future game. Basically, he gave everyone the ability to "mint" NFTs without knowing what they corresponded to in order to use them later. They could thus create bags, accessories, equipment in advance for the game.

This is also not new in the world of NFTs, especially if you know the history of Hashmask, for example.

This is how he suddenly released this enigmatic message on Twitter for novices ( Dom is in fact Dan Hofmann's nickname on Twitter)

LOOT

– randomized adventurer gear
– no images or stats. intentionally omitted for others to interpret
– no fee, just gas
– 8000 bags total

opensea: https://t.co/qSnRJ1FD0n
etherscan: https://t.co/bF9p0RSHX2

available via contract only. not audited. mint at your own risk pic.twitter.com/uLukzFayUK
— dom (@dhof) August 27, 2021

In short, users could therefore mint NFTs and the network costs were therefore their responsibility. Smart contracts weren't even cursed, but that didn't stop its community from flocking to them.

You know FOMO and behaviorAPE, is not it?

Critics saw this as a roundabout way for Hofmann to avoid paying Ethereum network fees. Clever guy, isn't he? His community who follows him on Twitter reached 8000 in just a few hours.

This makes a huge saving especially if you know theEthereum's sometimes exorbitant fees.

That said, we need to go a little further to better understand his approach. This is how we also better understand the Loot phenomenon.

First the NFT, then reality

Thousands of people who minted the NFTs then had a random list of equipment like "Holy Greaves of Giants" "Grim Shout" or "Grave Wand of Skill". The NFTs that received the most value were the "divine ropes", the divine robes. There were only 396 available.

Very quickly, users began to draw concrete images. We started seeing objects like bags. Some drew them themselves and some were generated by algorithms.

SyndicateDAO co-founder Will Papper set up an “Adventure Gold” (AGLD) token that Loot owners could claim for free. This is an ERC-20 token that was released on September 3rd and is traded on various exchanges like FTX For example. They only had to pay the Ethereum fees to collect the 10 tokens.

Evil tongues may say that the generous creator jumped at the opportunity to make a name for himself. But stop being so bad and seeing evil everywhere!

Today, that gives them a little aid of around 18 euros depending on CoinMarketCap. Ah the lucky ones! Wondering why you didn't follow the Vine co-founder? Yes me too.

The goal was to give holders (and future hypothetical players) a transaction currency for the hypothetical game.

Understand what to understand

In fact, what you need to understand in Loot is pure improvisation as the Tweet says.

This is perhaps simply the beginnings of a new form of game which is improvised every second. One wonders what the community will do. Is she going to look into creating a game from there. And if yes, how? Who will develop it?

No one can answer and Hofmann himself has stated that as the project is decentralized, he himself could not take control of it. In Loot's discord, Hofman specifies that he would like a game to be created from there.

Finally, the problem also arises of accessibility. With prices like this, entry is very limited. Who has thousands of dollars to buy an NFT?

Hofmann thought about it and decided to launch a "synthetic Loot" which would be a replica of LOOT and that everyone can claim for free. It's a way to open the "game" to more people without restrictions.

In other words, this guarantees that the Loot community is not limited to the 8000 holders of the original NFTs.

Thinking about the future of games

We can also wonder if NFT Loot holders want to develop a game or if they simply want to speculate and resell their NFTs.

The scenarios at this stage are numerous. The project can collapse just as quickly as it rose to heaven. It's true, no one can know.

That said, as I write this article, giggling but still taking it seriously, the community is trying to build a world on these NFTs. Some create rarity guides and specific tools. Some publish generative art while others create spin-off products like supplies, traditions, etc.

Moreover, everyone can participate and groups have been formed as we can see on the website.

What we ultimately have to understand is that perhaps Loot is just an achetypal version of a certain form of game in the future. A game which is created entirely by a plural community which has no really concrete idea of the final objective.

Vitalik declared in a tweet that Loot was right (in how it worked) and this pushed the community even more to take an interest in it.

Ah!