NFT, Metaverse, and Bubble Mart

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特邀专栏作者

2021-03-26 10:55 (UTC+8)

This article is about 6110 words, reading the full article takes about 9 minutes

Dapper Labs is actually Bubble Mart in Metaverse.

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Dapper Labs is actually Bubble Mart in Metaverse.

Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlock beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)Block beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)

, Author: 0x29, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.

No one expected that the out-of-the-box blockchain actually relies on a sector that no one has paid attention to.

The blockchain has been trying to attract more people, tell different stories, create different applications, and strive to make traditional fields understand the advantages brought by technological innovation, but the effect is minimal. What everyone can remember is still the word Bitcoin.

But in 2021, there are some phenomena that prove that Bitcoin is not the only one.

Soulja Boy, a well-known American rapper with 5 million fans on Twitter, issued his own NFT; Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA championship team Dallas Mavericks, issued an NFT; a dunk action by superstar LeBron James was made into an NFT It was later sold for 250,000 US dollars; football giants Barcelona, AC Milan and other top clubs also have their own NFT.

These incidents are stones thrown at various fan circles, causing commotion in different circles. Fans of hip-hop music on Twitter are discussing how to buy idol NFTs; clubhouse's NBA topic is also discussing NBA NFTs; even Hupu, the largest sports forum in China, has begun to have related topics.

The development speed of NFT is beyond everyone's expectations.

The climax came in an auction. On March 11, the famous artist Beeple's NFT works were hammered at Christie's auction, and the price was fixed at 69.34 million US dollars at the last second. This NFT work has become the 53rd most expensive artwork in the world, and Beeple has also entered the top three among the currently living artists.

And the Internet also gave NFT a perfect assist. It is no accident that the two largest social platforms on Odaily, Tencent and Facebook, have paid attention to augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR). Metaverse (metaverse) is a world where virtual and reality can be seamlessly connected, and the word NFT has been discussed many times in the topic of Metaverse, and NFT, which represents ownership, is perfectly adapted in Metaverse.

In just a few months, the term "NFT" has airborne to all parts of the world. The blockchain is rapidly spreading outward through this product, and the scale of sweeping has never been seen before. This is not diffusion from the inside out, but multi-point flowering.

The sense of smell of capital is the keenest, and they have already smelled the blue ocean of NFT.

A brand new market is opening, and all of this is due to the kitten in 2017 and the team behind it.

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NFT origin

Regardless of whether you have invested in Bitcoin or not, in 2017, you must have heard of the madness of Bitcoin. In the overwhelming reports of technology and financial media, the market value of Bitcoin tripled in a very short period of time, becoming the most eye-catching in the world. assets. As Bitcoin became famous in one fell swoop, there is also the blockchain industry behind it. Thousands of projects appear in the market in the form of hype concepts, and there are almost no practical applications of blockchain.

But "encrypted cats" are the most special category.

Through blockchain technology, the kitten's fur color, eyes, markings and other attributes ensure the uniqueness of each kitten. You have this cat that no one else can have.

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It is such an "encrypted cat", which sold for a maximum of 1.2 million RMB

Later, people called this kind of tokens with independent attributes NFT, which is called "Non-Fungible Token (Non-Fungible Token)". More popular explanations can be understood as non-fungible tokens.

The banknotes we use in our daily life are "fungible". Every banknote of the same face value can be exchanged, and there will be no dispute between the two parties, because their value is the same. Corresponding to the encryption field, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are "fungible tokens".

Due to the different contract standards on the chain, a "non-fungible" token has emerged.

It's as if we can't directly exchange "Mona Lisa" for "Girl with a Pearl Earring". Although both are paintings and the material is paper, the two have different values and carry different cultures, resulting in different values. the difference. This is the difference between NFT and ordinary cryptocurrencies. One of your bitcoins can be directly exchanged for one of my bitcoins, but one of your NFTs cannot be directly exchanged for my NFT.

Soon, keeping cats became a trend among players in the crypto space. At that time, being able to own a kitten was as exciting as ordinary people buying a brand-name bag or getting an idol’s signature. Under the crazy pursuit of the encryption circle, this virtual kitten game unexpectedly became The largest single-day daily active application of the largest ecological network "Ethereum" in the blockchain.

This phenomenal game also made everyone know the team behind this kitten, Dapper Labs.

From the perspective of God, turn your eyes to real life. At the same time that CryptoKitties are being sought after in the blockchain industry, in 2017, a recognizable image of a little girl with a pair of blue eyes and a pouting mouth began to appear. It appeared in the topic circle of young people and gradually became popular.

Three years later, when we look back at this "synchronization of the century", we will find that it is inevitable for the times to create a company that can compete with each other in terms of platform, IP, brand, etc. in the virtual world and in the real world.

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make your own platform

The wave of encrypted cats made Dapper Labs see opportunities in this market.

More than 90,000 players, the transaction volume of 29.9 million US dollars, which has occupied the first place in history for several consecutive years, over 5 million transfer records, and the highest transaction volume of a single kitten is as high as 1.2 million RMB. All the data prove that this area is used The NFT market created by the contractual nature of blockchain technology has extremely high potential. A kitten has brought such amazing influence, the opportunity of NFT is self-evident.

But the limitations are also extremely obvious. In this niche market, a single game transaction has blocked the world's largest blockchain network platform. For the NFT market that has the potential to have a larger number of users, the performance of the underlying platform is the biggest shortcoming. The application is too advanced, but the premise is that there must be underlying support.

As a result, the Flow plan was put on the agenda.

This is a platform specially created by Dapper Labs for NFT games, a blockchain network dedicated to NFT, the purpose is to allow every player to enjoy the top gaming experience. There is no delay in transactions, no high fees, and players don't even realize that they are playing on a blockchain-based network.

It is not that there are no platforms on the market that perform better than Ethereum, but Dapper Labs still chooses to build its own platform. Facts have proved that this move is crucial. Three years later, Dapper Labs used the NBA's official joint NFT game "NBA Top Shot", which attracted more than 200,000 users and pushed NFT to a new climax.

Compared with the already congested Ethereum network at the same time, Dapper Labs' Flow network has completely carried the number of users several times that of the past. There is no congestion, no handling fees, and it is almost the same as the Internet in terms of user interface and user experience. Hundreds of thousands of players have no idea that this is a blockchain-based game.

Build your own platform and have your own channels, which is similar to Pao Mart in the real world.

If you go to the field to visit, you will find that the domestic supply chain capable of producing high-quality blind box toys is covered by Bubble Mart.

These suppliers are not only the production channels of Pao Mart, but can only be the production channels of Pao Mart. In order to prevent the manufacturer from accepting orders for competing products, Bubble Mart will fully utilize the manufacturer's full productivity. Every production line is producing Bubble Mart products all the time, and there is no possibility of idle productivity. Once the production supplier has the ability to increase production capacity, Pao Mart will rapidly increase the demand.

As long as you walk in the mainstream business circles of first- and second-tier cities, you will basically not miss the showroom of Bubble Mart. In 2019, more than 7 million users in each 200-square-meter exhibition hall and tens of thousands of SKUs contributed nearly 800 million yuan in revenue to Bubble Mart, accounting for nearly 50% of the total revenue from all channels. %.

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In terms of channel selection, both Dapper Labs and Pao Mart have identified the path of their own platforms, and another similarity between them is the recognized brand power.

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Look at the brand from the contracted IP

There are many companies in the market that make games, but Dapper Labs is the only one that makes its own platform, which has also been recognized by capital.

The plan of the Flow platform allowed Dapper Labs to obtain financing of 11.4 million US dollars. The list of investors is extremely shining, including Union Square Ventures (USV), which once invested in Twitter in the A round, Coinbase Ventures, which is well-known in the industry, and the previous round Continued top capital a16z and Samsung.

What brought Dapper Labs brand to a climax is NBA Top Shot, the star card game that cooperated with NBA officials and was recommended by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and top star Durant.

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Such a dunk shot of James just sold for $208,000

There are thousands of IPs in the world, how to choose an IP is an art. If you pay attention to the trendy brand and toy market, you will find that the IP "Cat and Mouse" has suddenly appeared on the market recently, co-branded clothing with trendy brands, and toys produced with blind box brands.

The core reason why so many people choose the IP "Cat and Mouse" is that this IP is an image that almost no one on Odaily does not know, and it is extremely universal.

Looking at the top IPs in the world, such as Hello Kitty and Disney, there is only one reason why they can become the image with the strongest ability to attract money. Everyone knows and loves these IPs.

Of course, it also includes the NBA IP.

This is one of the four major ball leagues in the United States, covering billions of fans around the world. In addition to the official business operations of the NBA and the personal influence of top stars, the name NBA is almost unknown to everyone in the world.

It is of course a very suitable business to co-brand with this extremely universal IP. Not only sports giants like Nike will cooperate with the NBA, but even the most well-known trendy toy brand Bear Brick has jointly launched toys with the NBA IP.

And this is exactly what is lacking in the current cryptocurrency NFT field. Now NFT is too collectible, but the word collection naturally creates a sense of distance, and the market is too small.

In 2020, Art Basel and UBS jointly released a "2020 Art Market Report", data showed that global art sales in 2019 fell by 5% year-on-year to approximately US$64.1 billion, with a transaction volume of 40.5 million , while 2018 was the year with the highest level in the past 10 years, and the data for 2019 has begun to decline.

Compared with the collection market of less than 70 billion US dollars, what is the size of the consumer goods market?

We also use the data of 2019. JD.com’s GMV in 2019 was 299.6 billion US dollars, breaking through the 2 trillion RMB mark for the first time. Annual active users rose to 362 million.

And Alibaba's data is even more astonishing. Its consumer business business reached RMB 7.07 trillion, or US$1.014 trillion, making it the world's first platform with a GMV of more than US$1 trillion.

This is only the data of China's consumer goods market. The global art market is only a fraction of that of a single consumer goods platform. Compared with the declining trend of the collection art market, the data of the consumer goods market is still on the rise.

Going back to Bubble Mart, in 2019, Bubble Mart generated 1.683 billion yuan in revenue, which is about 300 million US dollars in revenue, and the revenue growth rate was as high as 227%. Again, the field doesn't stop growing.

As of the end of 2019, there were about 260 million people in Generation Z, accounting for 16% of the total population. This is a completely different generation. The Internet is self-taught and more inclined to spiritual consumer thinking. They have their own fashion and aesthetics. The way I express my identity and status makes the trendy play field still have huge development potential.

In 2019, the global trendy game market size is 19.8 billion US dollars, and the Chinese scale is 20.7 billion yuan. Founder Securities predicts that by 2024, the global trendy game market still has 17% room for growth, while the Chinese trendy game market still has more than 17% growth potential. With a 20% growth space, it can reach 76.3 billion yuan in 2024.

This is also the potential of the NFT field.

NFT is indeed very popular now, and many people do not recognize it. They think it is hype, FOMO, and NFT has no real use.

But they may not have thought about the existence of NFT from the perspective of the times.

Before the 1980s, there was no Internet, so everyone was educated at that time that Leonardo da Vinci's paintings were called art, Jingdezhen's porcelain was called art, and that only real objects were art, and gold was a value preservation and a hedge. With this way of thinking, it is difficult to recognize that an NFT on the chain can be valuable.

But time is slowly advancing, and the post-80s have accepted that the equipment in the game can be worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. Takashi Murakami's sunflower is the current art.

And in the current Z era, they have accepted that Bitcoin is better than gold, and they regard virtual characters as idols. They may not understand Da Vinci's paintings, but in their thinking, NFT may be their era. Art.

In an all-digital world like Metaverse in the future, the existence of NFT is more self-consistent and reasonable. In the virtual world, maybe the furniture we buy at IKEA is also NFT, and the clothes we buy at the mall are also NFT. This may be the normal state of NFT in the future.

This field now emphasizes more on art collections. Use the already niche art circles to put on a more niche cryptocurrency circle. The intersection of the two niche circles is the support of the NFT field. It is impossible to get out of the circle. developed. Dapper Labs chose NBA IP, completely breaking the original inherent impression of NFT.

The NBA game created by Dapper Labs is not a simple card collection game at all. The word collection naturally isolates most of it. What Dapper Labs creates is a community and gathering place for NBA fans, which is similar to the way Bubble Mart plays. Also complement each other.

Molly's original paintings are originally very artistic, and each painting uses artistic techniques to express the artist's desire for expression. This method is destined not to be accepted by the public.

Therefore, after signing the IP contract, Bubble Mart will personally drastically remodel the IP, discarding all art-related elements and leaving the most acceptable elements.

To put it more bluntly, what Bubble Mart does is not collectibles. Collections have a natural sense of distance from ordinary people. Bubble Mart makes consumer products, which are consumer products like Heytea and McDonald’s, not as small as Bear Brick. public collections. So we see that the IP of Bubble Mart is extremely universal, either it is Disney, which already has a high coverage rate, or it is the transformed Molly.

They signed a contract with Disney in order to enter into the Disney park and expand their sales channels. Likewise, Dapper Labs signed with the NBA to expand its own user base.

And such a strategy highlights the brand value. The signing of IP is not the only one. The NBA can sign a contract with Dapper Labs, as well as other NFT brands. Disney can sign a contract with Bubble Mart, and it can also sign contracts with other brands.

But why can Dapper Labs be authorized by the NBA? The core is that Dapper Labs has become a top brand in the NFT field in the past years of development.

Just like when we mentioned the figure of Iron Man, the first brand that comes to mind must be Hot Toys, because their head carving design and the quality of alloy materials are the first among all similar products; when we mention the blind box, it is You must think of Bubble Mart, because the design and quality of Bubble Mart are the top of all similar products.

Similarly, when we mention NFT, the brand that pops up in our mind must be Dapper Labs. Rhythm itself can also make an NBA NFT game, but it will definitely not be more valuable than the one designed by Dapper Labs.

Because they have top-level VC blessings, the most loyal players and users, and their own platform, these have converged into the brand power of Dapper Labs, which is enough for everyone who knows NFT to understand Dapper Labs, enough for their NFT, which has more attention than other brands, has become the "Bubble Mart" in the Metaverse field.

“We want to show the world that there are more practical uses for cryptocurrencies than just transactions and finance,” Dapper Labs co-founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou said in an interview. Now, the NFT represented by Dapper Labs has completely transcended the blockchain and Bitcoin.

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