One of the most common criticisms leveled against NFTs is that they’re not very attractive. Critics point to pixelated punks and multi-colored apes, and wonder why anyone would want to pay six bucks, let alone a six-figure sum, for ownership of an average-drawn doodle.
Those critics are out of date. While they’ve been staring at avatars on Twitter, the NFT community has been pushing the boundaries of what an NFT can do. The days of simple, static graphics and bold colors sold with artificial scarcity to maximize prices are behind us.
To see the direction that NFTs are now taking, look to Blockchain Heroes, a project from Joel Comm and Travis Wright, hosts of The Nifty Show, a podcast about blockchain and NFTs. The pair launched the series in August 2020 as a set of collectible trading cards featuring leaders in the blockchain space. The packs sold out within half an hour. Follow-up releases, including Stonk Wars, a parody of the Gamestop short-sellers, did equally well.
The latest version, Retro Rebellion, to be released on January 21st, shows just how far NFT collectibles have come.
The differences in Blockchain Heroes: Retro Rebellion start with the sale. Previous NFT sales have limited the number of tokens minted in order to ensure demand and raise prices for secondary sales. The new Blockchain Heroes takes a different approach. Instead of limiting numbers, the project limits sale time. Buyers have two sales windows during which minting will match demand. Bots are unable to snap up all the stock but the true enthusiasts can still sell on a secondary market after the windows have closed.
That new sales approach also affects the scarcity of rare editions. Once the project knows how many cards to mint, all the cards are placed in a pool from which packs are filled randomly. In theory, a buyer could open a five-pack to find five Mythic cards in one pack.
That’s not likely but it would be a huge reward because where Blockchain Heroes really breaks new ground is in the quality of the artwork. In addition to the five artists used in the first editions of the project, Blockchain Heroes hired four new artists and a musician to create an original score for the entire set of cards.
The result is a new level of sophistication for common cards while Mythic and Legendary cards display enough animation to turn a picture of a single character into an entire story. Collectible cards aren’t just desirable because they’re unusual. They’re also desirable because they’re enjoyable to watch, and even to listen to.
The world of collectibles has always been hampered by the need for physical proximity. Statues and cards have to be mailed or sold at fairs and in stores. Digital collectibles make trading easier but at the cost of three dimensions. The development of Blockchain Heroes shows how NFT collecting and trading is using a combination of sophisticated artistry, animation, and even music to more than compensate for the loss of the physicality of real objects. It’s all a long way from a pixelated punk.
Join Blockchain Heros Discord community here https://badco.in/discord