BAYC to the left, Loot to the right: Exploring the "New Paradigm of NFT" and the Ecological Development of Loot Eight Months After Its Birth

Original Author: Hill, SevenX Ventures

Original Editor: Iris, SevenX Ventures

In the past month, the spotlight of the entire NFT market seems to have been focused on BAYC and its parent company Yuga Labs. Whether it is the acquisition of the two leading blue-chip PFP markets, CryptoPunks and Meebits, or the launch of ApeCoin, this project, which is less than a year old, has successfully positioned itself at the center of discussions. The team's strong capabilities in IP operations have also led the market to expect it to become the "Disney of Web3."

In a widely circulated Pitch Deck among investors, Yuga Labs revealed that it is building a game-centric metaverse called MetaPRG, which will expand the BAYC world while being compatible with a large number of other NFTs. This path of evolution from NFTs to a game-centric metaverse inevitably brings to mind the name that stirred up the NFT market last August—Loot.

From the moment it burst onto the scene, Loot has been labeled in various ways, such as "a social experiment in NFTs" and "a paradigm revolution in NFTs." Loot embodies, in a seemingly abstract manner, the self-cultivation of a foundational infrastructure aimed at nurturing a metaverse. That is, Loot is not a completed work but a more open building block, allowing NFTs to stack like Lego bricks. If BAYC relies on the strong operation and synergy of an IP group to achieve on-chain evolution in the metaverse, then Loot's support lies in the rights fully delegated to the community and the space left for imagination.

However, excellent design has not led to a smooth evolution for Loot; it seems to be gradually fading from people's view, with discussions and analyses largely stagnating at six months ago. Therefore, at this time when BAYC continues to dominate the spotlight, we have re-examined Loot and the Loot ecosystem, which are relatively distant from the center of discussion, and made projections about their prospects and opportunities.

Core Viewpoints of This Article:

The Loot community may be the most creative, imaginative, and collaborative community within the NFT space. The intentional blank space left by dom when creating Loot has attracted creators from all corners of the NFT community, and the continuous building over the past few months has created a unique and rich ecosystem that differs from any other NFT project. While it may not be bustling, there are numerous innovations worth our attention. Given time and enough patience, we are confident that more community collaboration mechanisms, game mechanics, and economic systems will emerge from the Loot ecosystem, providing benchmark innovations for the NFT industry and even the entire cryptocurrency sector.

A Timeline of Loot

Loot is a collaborative media project aimed at creating a decentralized, infinitely expandable sci-fi universe filled with rich stories, games, and multimedia. Loot is a collection of NFTs, games, art, stories, and multimedia supported by an active community of players, builders, artists, writers, and creators.

Since the introduction of Loot by founder dom (@dhof) on Twitter on August 28, 2021, this project has undergone eight months of development. Here, we categorize the development of Loot so far into five stages as shown in the diagram:

At this stage, Loot consists of native Loot and three branches.

Native Loot (OG Loot): 8,000 NFTs released by dom on August 28, 2021

Loot is a set of randomly generated adventurer gear, stored on the blockchain. Statistics, images, and other features are intentionally omitted for others to interpret. Feel free to use Loot in any way.

According to data from NFTGO, there are currently 2,563 holders of native Loot, with a floor price of 1.55 ETH, ranking sixth among all NFT projects by market cap.

* (Data from: https://nftgo.io/)*

Branch One, Synthetic Loot: Loot format metadata that can be generated by any Ethereum address, also released by dom

Synthetic Loot is not an NFT and is non-transferable; currently, no community has built a use case for it.

Branch Two, More Loot: NFTs in Loot format that can be minted infinitely, released by dom on September 4, 2021

Minting can occur at a rate of 1/10 of the current Ethereum block generation speed, with an upper limit of approximately 1.5 million, and around 130,000 have been minted so far.

Branch Three, Genesis Loot: NFTs created by decrypting and reconstructing Loot metadata initiated by timshel, a core community member of Loot

Imagine that the gear described in Loot is dropped and scattered by Genesis Adventurers. Because it requires splitting the gear in Loot for minting and then recombining it, the production process involves cooperation among community members, with a total of 2,540 pieces.

A simple timeline of Genesis Adventurer's progress is as follows:

1. Analyze the hidden information behind the Loot contract, including various traits and the code associations behind them.

2. Issue Genesis Adventurer.

3. Integrate with Loot exchange for trading and connect with LootSwag for visualization.

4. Issue the ATIME token, used for time travel within the Loot story timeline to find lost NFTs (Mana).

5. Collaborate with Divine DAO to write stories before and after the Loot timeline.

6. Integrate with various ecological projects to enter the Loot usage scenarios on an equal footing.

• Rift (completed)

• Ring (completed)

• HyperLoot

• Loot explorer

• The Crypt

The Metaverse Narrative of Loot

What kind of metaverse does Loot want to build? The page of loot.foundation states, "As developers evolve on a unified foundation supported by a set of shared physical and core principles, Lootverse will feel like a cohesive universe connected by a series of interwoven games, legends, art, and stories that enrich and advance each other." The story of Loot is one that spans thousands of generations, about discovery, decentralized actions, and collaboratively building a world.

The metatimeline of Lootverse is divided into five parts:

Before Genesis: The Unknown Past—Distant Past

Providing infinite time and creative space for storytellers and builders.

Genesis (Cycle 1)—The Known Earliest History

Genesis represents the earliest recorded history of Lootverse; although its history is not complete, legends, myths, and stories have been passed down through generations.

Age of Exploration (Cycle 2)—The Past

1,000 years of infinite creative space for builders and storytellers to create games and art.

The details of the Age of Exploration remain unknown, but we see scars on items, hear stories and myths passed down through generations, and legends and truths are intertwined.

The Mist (Interlude)—A Quiet Period in Our Entry into Lootverse

1,000 years of infinite creative space for builders and storytellers to work during this misty era.

Age of Adventure (Cycle 3)—The Present and Future

From today to an infinite future: games, art, stories, community, media, books, films, etc., which is also where we are currently located on the timeline.

Panorama of Lootverse

1. Art: NFT Visualization, Art that Can Be Minted with NFTs

HyperLoot

HyperLoot is a second-layer visual building module on top of Loot, consisting of 2D & 3D character images based on items within Loot, MLoot, or Genesis Adventurer packs, with completely open CC0 permissions. Each HyperLoot can enter the Hyperverse.

Loot Explorers

Loot Explorers are 2D character images based on Loot gear, with a total of 8,000 unique explorer characters, each with its own unique level. Loot Explorers are a fusion of interesting art, community, and RPG-style storytelling and game inspiration elements. The developers state that they did not focus on creating a game or a PFP art type project but aimed to create a new world on the Loot timeline.

The Rift

The Rift gives Loot bags XP for gameplay throughout the Loot universe and rewards the most participating bags. It is a solution to the value paradox of Loot. The Rift builds a bridge between derivatives and the Loot bags that interact with it, increasing the value of the most active bags while reserving a gateway for inactive bags.

Rings (for Loot)

3D ring images in the Lootverse, totaling 8,000, each corresponding to a Loot Bag. Rings (for Loot) are divided into four rarity levels: common, epic, legendary, and mythical.

Loot Larp

Loot Larp creates 3D NFT gear for the first real-life role-playing game event based on the Loot ecosystem held at NFT.NYC in 2022.

Lootswag

Loot Swag provides the community with services to customize Loot avatars through skins, applicable to all owners of Loot/Mloot/Synthetic Loot, which can be simply understood as QQ Show. Loot Swag will continuously introduce more skins, allowing people to try different combinations of skins without changing the underlying Loot bags. (If there are two sets of skins, the total possible combinations are 2^8).

M3taLoot

M3taLoot is an open and remixable 3D Loot asset library provided for virtual avatars and game development. They aim to create a collection of interoperable wearable devices that unite the 3D virtual avatar community and platforms.

Lootpunk

Lootpunk is a PFP-type NFT designed to showcase the user's identity as a Loot investor, with a total of 8,000, each uniquely designed based on the rarity of the user's own Loot bags.

2. Games

Quest

Simply put, Quest is a game where players use Loot gear to slay dragons. In the process, players will earn trophies and meet new friends in the form of NFTs. Quest hopes that Loot, mLoot, and fragments from the Lootverse and other metaverses can be utilized more.

The Crypt

The Crypt is a large multiplayer series game where participants need to use Loot and mLoot to cooperate in raiding dungeons to obtain loot. The progress timeline of The Crypt can be simply summarized as follows:

1. Build a game that allows players to cooperate and release it chapter by chapter.

2. Start with simply attacking dungeons with Loot, receiving enthusiastic responses from the community, and completing what was originally expected to take months in just 15 minutes.

3. Increase support for mLoot to allow more players to participate.

4. Continue designing a series of games that enable player cooperation.

Avenluutn

Avenluutn is a text adventure RPG story game. Each season, adventurers seek quests, and their adventure stories are forever recorded on the pages of the guild log, where sponsors can engrave their names by becoming sponsors.

Realms/BibliothecaDAO

Initially, Realms was a derivative of Loot bags, with an initial issuance of 8,000 NFT plots. Later, with the addition of Bibliotheca, it began to evolve into an open-source and permissionless game ecosystem. At this stage, the official description is as follows: Realms is an open-source massively multiplayer on-chain composable game (MMOCCG). Realms are the landlords of this world, continuously injecting liquidity into the ever-expanding Lootverse as a primary productive asset. They wage wars on resources through an on-chain raid and plunder game called 'Settling,' forming alliances (and breaking them). Each realm contains combinations of 22 different resources discovered in Lootverse so far, with varying characteristics such as regions, cities, rivers, and ports. There are 50 mythical wonders scattered across various realms, such as the Chaos Pantheon, Azure Relic Chest, and Divine Altar. The progress timeline of Realms can be simply summarized as follows:

1. Issue map NFTs as derivatives.

2. Issue Lords tokens, allowing NFT staking to earn Lords, driving up the floor price.

3. Announce that both NFTs and Lords tokens will migrate to StarkNet, with plans to launch games on StarkNet in the future, where players can obtain resources generated in different regions and trade them on StarkNet's AMM. An NFT marketplace will also be built on StarkNet.

4. Create a visual map that allows players to freely browse the complete picture of all realms pieced together, making it easy to view their plots and neighboring resources atlas.bibliothecadao.xyz.

5. Integrate with crypts & caverns, allowing visibility of multiple C&C distributed across a plot, each with different attributes and resources.

6. In the future, a tower defense mini-game will be launched first, followed by PVP, ultimately forming the realm verse.

3. Map Class

Crypts & Caverns

Crypts & Caverns are 9,000 on-chain dungeon maps generated in the smart contract, supporting 2D, 3D, and text-based representations. Each map is random, with a set of probabilities for various aspects of the map. For example, there is a 70% chance that a dungeon is a "room-based" dungeon (meaning a series of square rooms connected by corridors), and a 30% chance that the map is a "cave-based" dungeon (meaning a series of corridors drilled into walls).

These maps serve as the minimal "Lego" for building adventures and games, with some possible use cases including:

1. Maps can be connected to generation points (consider these as "links" between web pages) to form a more persistent world.

2. Maps can link to larger "world maps" (e.g., realms) to provide structured exploration and adventure in small spaces.

3. Maps may place encounters (enemies, generation points, NPCs, etc.) on top of a 2D grid, which can also be generated/rendered on-chain, allowing for fully programmatic game content.

4. Maps can be queried, allowing game designers to select maps with two or more doors.

5. Maps may belong to "factions" or have different incentive structures.

4. Infrastructure Class

1. DAO

Divine City (DivineDAO)

Similar to FWB (Friends with Benefits), writers, artists, and builders collaborate to construct the storyline of Lootverse.

Banners

Banners are a community-facing social layer that embodies oneself as a faction represented by characters in Lootverse and the goals pursued through banner/NFTs.

Additionally, various rare traits of Loot have formed their own Discord groups, discussing how to empower their respective traits of Loot.

2. Non-NFT Tokens

AGLD

A community that cannot effectively govern a DAO governance is soulless. After the birth of Loot, a project called Adventure Gold airdropped 10,000 AGLD tokens to each Ethereum address holding a Loot bag, granting it the role of a governance token. The total supply of AGLD tokens is 70,170,001, with a market cap exceeding $1.4 billion.

LORDS

LORDS is the native token of Realmverse, used for: purchasing NFTs on the StarkNet marketplace; trading resources on the game's AMM (automated market maker); purchasing assets in the game. The total supply of LORDS tokens is 50,900,000.00, with a market cap of approximately $20 million.

DIVINE

The system token of DivineDAO. Joining DivineDAO requires holding at least 800 $Divine. The total supply of DIVINE tokens is 110,400,000, with a market cap of approximately $1 million.

ATIME

Adventure Time (ATIME) is the native token within the Genesis Loot system, defined as a resource that allows players to manipulate time. Users can use $ATIME to accelerate time, slow down time, traverse time, recover lost items through time travel, glimpse the future, and travel back in time to learn ancient knowledge…

5. NFT Exchanges

Loot Exchange

A zero-fee exchange built by the Loot community, supporting the trading of Loot, mLoot, and Genesis Loot.

Levee

An NFT exchange established by the core developers of Loot Exchange, supporting the trading of over 250 NFTs and incentivizing floor orders based on specific traits of NFT categories.

Additionally, various rare traits of Loot have forked their own exchanges, such as Divine Exchange, which specializes in trading Loot NFTs with Divine Robe.

6. Scaling Solutions

StarkNet

An L2 based on StarkWare's Zk-rollup. Realms and Crypts & Caverns will undergo Beta testing on StarkNet in Q2 2022, awaiting the launch of the StarkNet mainnet.

7. Information Aggregation

Loot.Foundation

LootProject

Three Outlooks and Three Opportunities

Regarding the future of Loot, we believe there are three focal points:

First, the driving force of three core project forms

1. Genesis Adventurer: Led by Timshel, the core Loot community continuously empowers Gloot/GA with community project scenarios. Many derivative projects of the Loot ecosystem now support minting for holders of both OG Loot and Genesis Loot.

The community members of Genesis Loot highly overlap with those of other projects in the Loot ecosystem. Given that the emergence of Genesis Loot in the Lootverse story timeline predates others, minting a Genesis Loot requires cooperation among community members, making it more costly in terms of funds and time compared to acquiring Loot, thus making it relatively rarer. The closer alignment with characters rather than gear bags gives Genesis Loot a better chance to participate in future games and applications launched within the Loot ecosystem.

2. DivineDAO: The main contributing DAO to the Lootverse storyline and timeline. The purpose of DivineDAO is to produce stories and visual media for the Loot ecosystem in the form of a collaborative content community. Currently, DAO members contribute research results to the Loot ecosystem from various aspects, including technical development, visual arts and media, historical story exploration and writing, community maintenance, and economic and governance system design. Tools and storylines such as Lore Development Kit, Genesis Scrolls Program, Tower Defense, and The 16 Orders of Loot have already been developed for use as building blocks by the community. As the core creative brainpower of the community, they provide a continuous flow of knowledge and output.

3. The Bibliotheca DAO: A DAO focused on building a game ecosystem based on Loot. Based on the plots of Realms, The Bibliotheca DAO subsequently created resource narratives based on the plots and future game roadmaps. They designed an MMOCCG game system and economic model while also integrating Crypts & Caverns. The game world they created on StarkNet allows Loot to roam within it, presenting parts of the Loot timeline's future through gameplay, which is currently the main form recognized by the community as the age of adventure.

Second, the economic model of AGLD

AGLD, as a 100% airdrop and fairly launched token project, has transformed from the initially discussed Loot governance token into an economic experiment centered around an incentive system. Its economic design has the following core points and empowerment channels:

1. Adopts a Bitcoin-like halving logic for issuance, with a 10% increase in the first year, halving each subsequent year, ultimately approaching a hard cap of 20% issuance.

2. The increase will be allocated to Loot ecosystem NFTs through non-custodial staking, initially supporting Loot and mLoot.

• By employing a design similar to Universal Basic Income, the NFTs in the Loot ecosystem will be transformed into income-generating NFTs, providing a continuous income stream and establishing a cash flow foundation for future practical scenarios.

1. The total rewards that different NFTs can receive are determined by the average weekly floor market value of that NFT.

• Encourages communities to continuously empower NFTs, maintaining floor prices while promoting healthy competition.

1. Non-custodial staking requires weekly check-ins to receive rewards, provided that the NFTs are not transferred out.

• Promotes and maintains community activity, enhancing community stickiness. Creates a channel for capturing value for the Loot ecosystem through high-quality community engagement.

1. A bonding design similar to OHM allows non-NFT holders to sell NFTs to the AGLD protocol.

• Provides an exit channel for inactive NFTs and concentrates usage, avoiding idle core assets.

• Offers consumption scenarios for AGLD, maintaining yield expectations.

• Binds the interests of AGLD and the Loot ecosystem, promoting community cooperation.

Third, the economic benefits generated by the continuous gathering of Builders

1. Loot has exploded in multiple dimensions from a single NFT, with other NFTs emerging in parallel, each issuing their own games (treasure, realms, the crypts, Avenluutn, etc.), developing a timeline based on speculations about hidden data causes, allowing the community to imagine across multiple temporal dimensions (such as stories before Loot appeared, designing plots and corresponding NFT economies and interaction systems). In terms of presentation, it has transitioned from text to 2D to 3D visualization, achieving coverage from low-dimensional imaginative space to high-dimensional imaginative space, where Hyperloot follows the IP route, developing visual building blocks, while Realms builds game and metaverse real estate narratives through land.

2. Community projects issue their own tokens, adopting different economic systems, financializing social experiments, and not limiting themselves to pure imagination but endowing each imagination with its own value (mint NFTs, claim tokens).

3. AGLD promotes community maintenance of asset value through UBI + competitive incentives, providing development incentives and attracting community traffic.

The future opportunities for Loot also exist in three aspects:

First, highly sticky game projects generated through player collaboration.

Second, innovative economic systems emerging from continuous trial and error.

Third, the butterfly effect generated by timeline explosions that can interconnect in different parallel universes.

That is, a game or project in a certain part of the future timeline, through community influence, causes a change in a factor from the past part of the timeline, leading to many unforeseen changes in projects along the entire timeline, as the communities and project economic systems along the timeline may highly overlap.

In Conclusion

Regardless of the market's voice about Loot, it can undoubtedly be called a pioneer in expanding the boundaries of NFT thought and ideology. What kind of metaverse Lootverse can evolve into will be revealed by time.