Premium Subscribers: There’s a good chance the weekend newsletter will come out on Sunday, and from Paragraph. First step of several to move some things on-chain :)
It’s clear that one of the winners of the week has been Nike and its .SWOOSH platform announcement. If you want a breakdown of their announcement, check out my piece from earlier this week.
PS: There seems to be a new link to join the waitlist! You will need a Nike account.
Did you know that Adidas had a big announcement as well?
adidas Originals @adidasoriginals
INTRODUCING ADIDAS VIRTUAL GEAR Unveiling the genesis collection of adidas Virtual Gear 🧵👇1/6
TLDR:
Adidas released a new Virtual Gear NFT collection
There are 8 styles and a total of 16 variations with various rarities
The Virtual Gear is based on ‘impossible’ silhouettes that are made possible in virtual setting
IMPOSSIBLE BOX NFTs were airdropped to Adidas NFT holders. Holders can burn the box to reveal their Virtual Gear or hold them indefinitely.
Following the announcement, the Adidas team held a Twitter Spaces with Gordon and Garga (Yuga founders) to share more details.
TLDR:
More details about utility and interoperable use cases will be announced in the future. This will not just be a NFT.
There was a big music artist that reached out to Adidas on the collection and mentioned they would rock some of the items in their world tour if available.
Virtual Gear can and will likely be tweaked and adjusted over time.
The Adidas x BAYC deal was made before Gordon and Garga were doxxed. While negotiating, both were questioning whether the other side was serious, lol
This is particularly interesting, I think this will become more common in the future.
Adidas will be launching a profile tool to get ‘dressed’ with Virtual Gear.
Adidas will be working with developers for Virtual Gear interoperability ‘as early as next week’
Another snapshot will be happening soon.
They will be going IRL, not just virtual. TBD on details.
As a fan of what the fashion industry is doing to push Web3 forward, we have the top two footwear (much more than footwear these days) brands moving beyond NFT collections.
We’re now able to observe similarities and differences with their respective approaches:
Audience: .SWOOSH is focusing on Web3 adjacent audiences while Adidas is focusing on Web3 native audience via their NFT airdrops. I imagine this is possible in part due to the Nike acquisition of RTFKT, which focuses on the Web3 Native audience.
Style: Adidas explicitly stated that the inspiration for the collection were based on ‘impossible’ designs. However, there may be ways to actually create physical version of this gear through the ability to dynamically adjust the Virtual Gear and based on community feedback.
Terminology: This one is pretty clear, especially with my analysis on why .SWOOSH chose the term Virtual Creations. Adidas honed in the on ‘Virtual’ term as well. Coincidence? Inspiration? Collaboration?
Not sure, but there is a new term to keep in mind as large brands continue to forge their respective paths into Web3 and the Metaverse. I’m curious to see who chooses ‘Digital’ vs. ‘Virtual’. It’s possible that physical brands choose Virtual moving forward because they have the means to turn those assets into physical creations.
Partnerships: Nike seems to be focused internally with their efforts, especially with RTFKT being part of the family, On the other hand, Adidas has forged external partnerships with Web3 native brands like BAYC, gmoney, and Punks Comic.
I imagine .SWOOSH’s external partnerships will focus on athlete partners since their target market is the Web3 curious.
I’m excited to see what both brands cook up as their roll out their respective efforts. The battle for repping brands on your physical self is moving into the virtual self.
Lastly, RTFKT is holding a giveaway for a free (plus gas) Footballverse Jersey drop!
Through the wormhole ☄️ RTFKT Clone X 🧬 in the Footballverse 🌐 with @nikefootball legends ⚽ 👇
Anyone can enter, and this will be forged into a physical item. Register at rtfkt.com/register to enter. After you create your account, you can enter on the inventory tab.
Draw entry from 16-21 Nov 3,333 allowlist and 10k waitlist Mint+forge ⚒️ on 23 Nov 1 unique RTFKT acct AND wallet address per draw entry Create your acct here: rtfkt.com/register
Have you worn something from Adidas or Nike before? If so, share or subscribe!
Prometheans: The mint that never ends?
Amid all the chaos of news headlines and Twitter potentially burning down, a new NFT collection was announced.
What is @prometheansxyz? It's a free on-chain game that can last forever. Here's how it works:
TLDR:
The Prometheans are an order of monks that dedicate themselves to keeping a flame alive
The flame must be tended to at least once every 15 minutes by minting a monk. If a monk isn’t minted within this timeframe, the flame dies and the game ends.
Monks watch over the fire for 72 hours (aka: are non-transferrable) after being minted.
Any monks watching the fire when the flame extinguishes will remain non-transferrable forever.
There are 16 monks that can be minted based on when the timer is reset.
15 minutes left = Monk 1
1 minute left = Monk 16
Monks recruited when the countdown is lower will naturally be rarer than when the countdown is higher
Monk supply is TBD due to the mechanics described above. The game could hypothetically last forever.
The mint is pay what you want: You can mint for 0, 0.04, or 0.09 ETH + gas. Those that mint for 0.04 or more will receive future perks from the Zero.fun team.
So what does the Prometheans experience look like so far?
The flame has been lit for 2+ days, with 25k+ monks minted. 3 out of the 16 monks have been revealed, meaning the timer has not gone lower than 12 minutes.
This reminds me of a game Young TPan played at Summer Camp:
A group, let’s say 10 of us, are in a circle and close our eyes
We have to count to 100 (any number really) without interrupting each other
If more than one person blurts out the next number together the group starts over
Prometheans is a decentralized version of this game with a MUCH larger group of participants.
It seems that the Zero.fun team has more to reveal with this game, so we’ll see what the next phase(s) of this may look like…
Cute project TPan. What does this have to do with anything.
This is where it gets fun. Storytelling, game theory, and novel engagement mechanics are the name of the game these days. How do you get your audience to get excited about you?
Imagine you’re a smaller Web3 game company looking to grow your player base. The earliest users could be rewarded with a similar mechanic since there are less players.
The likelihood of minting rarer items or characters is much higher when there are only 10 active players vs. 1,000 or 100,000 as the game grows.
Imagine you’re an e-comm brand that is gamifying their discount strategy. Prize wheels are great, how can we get more creative?
Incorporate game theory with higher discounts if everyone holds out on minting a less valuable discount
If the flame ‘dies out’, maybe it will unlock another offer for the audience
Imagine you’re music artist where your fans can only listen to your new album by minting each song.
Each song in the album can be unlocked only if all fans don’t mint the previous songs for a period of time.
These aren’t the best examples, but you can see where I’m going with this.
On top of that, these activities are on-chain. You’ll be able to better understand the minting wallets and their respective behaviors.
Who’s consistently minting and engaging?
Who joins in on the fun at a later point?
Who is waiting to snipe the rarer item?
Kudos to the Zero.fun team for an engaging and thought-provoking mechanic.
See you next week!
💥 PS: If you or anyone you know prefers shorter takes on Web3 news and analysis, check out my LinkedIn. I’ll be creating a weekly newsletter that summarizes my takes and is an easier entry point into Web3. LinkedIn is a sleeping giant for Web3 🙂
