The People of NFT - Part 1 🙋
We wrote about NFTs in our last post. Since then, NFTs have exploded. Various crypto funds and research firms have started investing in some rare NFTs.
One of the earliest Gen 0 crypto kitties is being offered for $100,000, but the bid has not been accepted. Few influencers have launched social tokens to offer their time and value on the blockchain. NBA top-shot, a digital NBA moments collectible platform officially launched and already sold out in a few minutes.
So, seeing such progress we believe it is fair to spend some time on understanding the top contributors in the NFT ecosystem. We will cover this in two parts, and cover major projects that have created a positive impact and pushed the creator-led ecosystem forward on the blockchain.
Devin Finzer and Opensea
Opensea is a peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto collectibles. You can discover, buy and sell limited-edition digital goods
They are like the eBay for crypto collectibles
They were one of the first open marketplaces for NFTs to launch after crypto kitties went viral. Since then, they have grown steadily such that they are right now the largest marketplace for NFTs.
They have over 12 million digital items listed and 90,000 ETH in transaction volume to date. Recently, they announced their plans to support Flow blockchain.
What to read?
Roham Gharegozlou and Dapper Labs
Dapper Labs builds consumer-facing blockchain games and is currently launching a new developer-first blockchain - Flow that focuses on user experience and supports digital collectibles.
They are the guys behind crypto kitties, the first Dapp on Ethereum that made NFTs mainstream and popular.
Currently, they launched NBA top-shot in partnership with the NBA that allows you to collect NBA’s most jaw-dropping highlights.
Dieter Shirley, the founder of CryptoKitties, was the creator of the ERC-721, the token standard for NFTs on Ethereum.
Roham Gharegozlou, founder of Dapper Labs and crypto kitties, was Ledger’s 40 under 40 in 2018
What to read?
Peter Kieltyka and Horizon Games
Horizon blockchain games are building a new dimension of gaming that belong to players and creators.
Skyweaver is a free to play trading card game that unifies physical and digital collectible card games. Skyweaver game cards are truly yours like physical cards, but are owned by you on the blockchain.
They are currently in private beta, you can request early access via their community chat on Discord.
Arcadeum is a marketplace for trading those digital collectibles and other virtual goods on Ethereum.
What to read?
You can read this piece by Cass Marshall that explains about Horizon’s ambitious plan to build a new dimension of gaming.
The director of research, Philippe Castonguay, tweets about the insightful things about the Ethereum ecosystem, and has created few Dune analytics dashboards
John Watkinson and Matt Hall - Larva labs
They started Cryptopunks, a limited edition crypto artwork, with proof of ownership on Ethereum as an experiment and now is seen as a movement to scarce digital goods.
They were inspired by the modern cryptoart movement, and created 10,000 cryptopunks digitally on Ethereum. In the secondary market, the all-time average price for each punk is around 1.4 ETH
They are the true OGs of digital art on Ethereum; cryptopunks are available for showcase in an art museum in Germany
What to read?
Read about the idea behind cryptopunks and how the physical model of digital art ownership looks like.
Read about the 2-year anniversary post of cryptopunks
Esteban Ordano and Decentraland
A virtual world with an open standard. No platform lock-in, As PCgamer calls its “Second Life meets libertarianism”
They have built a virtual world where players own the stuff they build or acquire. All the ownership is on the Ethereum blockchain.
They are a great experiment as it allows builders and users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications.
What to read?
The Block’s Steven Zheng wrote a deep dive on Decentraland and Michael Mcsweeney wrote an overview from a user’s perspective. Both offer a good understanding of Decentraland’s ecosystem.
To get a feel of the virtual world on Decentraland, check out this thread.
That was Part 1 of ‘People of NFT’, stay tuned for Part 2 to learn more about thinkers, creators and builders behind the NFT Ecosystem!
You guys forgot about Portion.io
They've been around before all of these others and are migrating to v2. Have done multiple huge airdrops!