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Original source:Honeycomb Tech 

In the recent NFT sales list, the NFT sales of the football card game Sorare are very eye-catching, especially the sales and transaction frequency.

On July 20, the NFT collection data website Cryptoslam showed that the Sorare series of NFTs ranked second with sales of US$1.4019 million, second only to BAYC (Boring Ape) at US$1.9387 million, and the number of Sorare buyers in 24 hours reached 6210 person-times and 16976 transactions. Compared with BAYC and CryptoPunk (cryptopunk), these two NFT series have occupied the top two NFT sales list for a long time, and the number of buyers and transactions does not exceed double digits.

On July 4th, Sorare once surpassed these two top-brand series in terms of sales on the 7th, ranking first. The last NFT series with high sales and activity was NBA Top Shot - an NFT collection featuring NBA star cards.

Sorare's top ranking also once again shows the potential of "sports + NFT".

Sorare refreshes NFT sales ranking with activity

The Ethereum network is the most important carrier of NFT. Since the birth of this homogeneous token on the network in October 2015, its total sales have reached 28.73 billion US dollars, and its monthly sales will reach 40.5 in January 2022. billion dollar peak.

However, entering 2022, NFT has also begun to enter a period of shrinking sales scale with the decline of the encrypted asset market, and hit a new low in June, with sales of only US$722 million, a 73% drop from May.

The second quarter NFT report of Nansen, a blockchain data service organization, tracks 6 major NFT markets based on Ethereum. The data shows that in June, the weekly transaction volume of NFT only reached 600,000 ETH, compared with May The record is about 1.3 million ETH.

When the overall sales of NFTs on Ethereum declined, people were also paying attention to blue-chip NFTs such as BAYC (boring ape) and CryptoPunk (crypto punk). The sales of these two NFT series were also declining, but most of the time they remained at the top of the sales list. The top two, but in July, the NFT series of star cards on the chain game platform Sorare repeatedly broke into the top three of this list.

On July 20, the NFT data website Cryptoslam showed that the Sorare series of NFTs ranked second with 24-hour sales of US$1.4019 million, second only to BAYC (Boring Ape) with US$1.9387 million, the Metaverse launched by the parent company Yuga Labs The plot NFT Otherdeed ranked third with a sales volume of 1.1588 million US dollars, and Cryptopunk ranked fourth.

If monthly sales are used as a dimension, Sorare's NFT sales are in the fourth place on the list, reaching 26.5356 million US dollars. On July 4, the sales of the NFT series within 7 days once rushed to the first place.

Compared with the sales indicators, the number of buyers and the number of transactions of Sorare are more conspicuous. When the number of daily buyers and the number of transactions of BAYC and CryptoPunk remain within 2 digits, these two indicators of Sorare are 6210 respectively And 16976, user activity and transaction frequency are very eye-catching in the entire NFT trading market.

Sorare's NFT system is built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is a sports-themed NFT card game platform, focusing on the two major sports of football and baseball. It displays the players of real clubs or teams in the form of star cards. As a "club manager", the user uses the player card to participate in the game set by the platform, and the winner will be rewarded with an NFT card or ETH.

Compared with the collection attributes of NBA Top Shot star cards, Sorare has stronger game attributes. Player NFT cards are divided into four rarity levels: "Limited", "Rare", "Super Rare" and "Unique". If you want to get the ranking in the in-game season, the rarity of the card alone is not enough. You also need to constantly refresh the combat power of the card based on the actual combat results of the players on the card in real games. strategy etc.

first level title

The value of the Sorare star card is related to the player's record

Take the Sorare NFT secondary market "limited" star cards as an example, the La Liga team Cadiz player Jose Mari's star card is only $0.79, and the corresponding experience value is 77; the Korean professional football league Suwon The club's Zheng Zaiyong star card is priced at US$4.41, and his experience value is 198; while the Dutch player Gullit, who has 261 experience points and has won the honor of World Footballer, is worth US$100.87.

The player's experience value is directly related to their actual field record. It can be seen that the value of Sorare's NFT star card is not only related to the scarcity, but also related to the players' actual game results, popularity and other factors.

Cards of different levels can participate in various competitions set up on the Sorare platform. Players participating in the competition can select 5 cards to participate in the competition according to the rules. Players with the highest scores will receive card NFT or ETH rewards.

Sorare gathers collectors, players and fans

Sorare's top ranking also once again shows the potential of "sports + NFT". The last NFT series with high sales and activity was NBA Top Shot, an NFT collection series featuring NBA star cards.

Compared with NBA Top Shot, Sorare's team has been in the field of blockchain games and NFT for a longer time.

Sorare, headquartered in France, initially had only 3 people. The co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia is a serial entrepreneur in the blockchain industry. He started planning this blockchain sports game in 2018, and Sorare was launched in December of that year. From the very beginning, the Sorare team embarked on the business of obtaining licenses from professional clubs, which laid the foundation for the development of this game.

Not long after its inception, Sorare signed its first contract with the Belgian Football Federation, which has 24 professional clubs and 600 football players. The team set a goal at the time, to sign contracts with clubs in major European leagues such as the Premier League and Ligue 1, to obtain authorizations such as the player's portrait rights, and to make NFT star cards for them.

At that time, NFT was still a niche product in the field of encrypted assets. CryptoKitties, which became popular because of blocking the Ethereum network, was the scene when people first met NFTs. Players who rushed into CryptoKitties were still the audience of encrypted asset circles. And Sorare, a platform that combines NFT and football, attempts to bring fans into the world of encrypted assets.

By March 2019, Spanish football clubs Atlético de Madrid, Valencia and German football club Schalke 04 had signed licensing agreements with Sorare. Club names in La Liga and Bundesliga brought Sorare the first round of exposure.

At present, Sorare has obtained the authorization of 280 football clubs, covering well-known clubs in football leagues such as Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Champions League, such as Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich, Juventus Si et al.

Sorare Expands Star Cards From Soccer to Baseball

Compared with encrypted asset users, the fan base is more extensive, but for a chain game platform, how to make fans without blockchain knowledge understand NFT? This is a question of user threshold.

To this end, Sorare adopts a Web2-style registration method. A game account can be created with an email address and a set of passwords, and you can choose whether to bind an encrypted wallet; in the game, the user’s identity is the manager of the virtual club; at the moment of registration, the user You can get 10 free ordinary player cards. These players in the form of pictures will represent the manager's club to participate in the relatively elementary games in the game. Users have the opportunity to obtain NFT player card rewards with game points in these games. These The NFT player card will expand the user's club lineup and participate in higher-level competitions.

It can be said that NFT rewards have brought ordinary card holders into the world of blockchain games. With the emergence of NFT rewards, some users have gradually learned about the use of encrypted wallets, player card trading markets and other chain game tools such as asset managers.

For the attraction of interested users, Sorare not only relies on recommendations to attract traffic, but also begins to expand the game player market by cooperating with well-known game manufacturers.

In 2021, Sorare will cooperate with the strategic innovation laboratory of the game manufacturer Ubisoft to develop its own card battle as an off-chain game, launch the beta version of One Shot League, and provide a limited edition for the daily game winners in this version NFT player card rewards, which can be used in games on both platforms. The press release of the cooperation between the two parties used PR words such as "exploring interoperability", but this cooperation will undoubtedly bring new traffic to Sorare from traditional games.

Entering 2022, Sorare expanded its football field while extending its hand to the baseball market. In May of this year, the platform signed a cooperation agreement with the Major League Baseball (MLB), and has now obtained the official authorization of 30 MLB clubs. It will replicate its NFT operating experience in the football market.

Although Sorare has more game attributes than NBA Top Shot, due to the strategy of the card game, the player's sense of competition is not strong, which makes its game experience static.

Nicolas, the founder of the platform, seems to have noticed this, and began to deliberately lay out the ecology related to sports games. In April of this year, he personally participated in the seed round investment of the Web3 football game Goals. This game not only joins the economic system of digital assets. Judging from the demo video released so far, the game is a truly practical competitive sports game . Currently, Goals is still in the development stage and has not been officially launched.

Public data shows that Sorare already has 1.8 million registered users in 184 countries, which is still far behind traditional games, but it has already begun to take shape in the field of chain games. Judging from its expansion route to the baseball market, this platform may accommodate more sports in the future.

(Disclaimer: Readers are requested to strictly abide by local laws and regulations, this article does not represent any investment advice)