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Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 7: It’s Up To You

Miinded — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 13:37:33 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 7: It’s Up To You

GM! EKCO here, co-Founder of Miinded & lead dev on ChainZoku, which I’m going to talk about again today.

This article follows on from the previous one: Episode 6 — F*ck Gas Fees! Make sure you read it first!
Today we’re going to talk about off-chain and on-chain — the best of both worlds.
But first, if you’re new here, make sure to read the previous chapters and the very thorough Guide to ChainZoku, which will tell you a lot about the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

WARNING! Headache ahead in this article 😏.

I’m going to explain how the Off-chain / On-chain bridge currently works within ChainZoku.
To summarize the previous episode, the solution is to develop ChainZoku entirely off-chain, while adding an opt-in on-chain layer.

A solution with only advantages?

Offering an off-chain solution with a bridge has 3 advantages:

The simplicity of development, evolution, and maintenance.
No gas fees in off-chain usage.
Users can still trade On-Chain Assets on ERC1155-enabled marketplaces, such as OpenSea.

The main and virtually only drawback is that it can be turn-off for some Web3-maxis, as the database is centralized, Web2-style.
But one must remember: what’s the point of having a great project if it can’t grow and evolve due to blockchain limitations or insanely high gas fees for its users?

Dev Glossary

Before going any further, here is a small glossary of the terms I will use:

Minting: The action of creating an NFT that didn’t exist before on the blockchain.
Transfer: The action of transferring an NFT (On-Chain) from one owner to another.
Burn: The action of destroying an NFT that already existed on the blockchain.
Identifier (or ID): A unique string of characters.
Backend: Refers to the ChainZoku server which contains lots of lines of code that do lots of things.
On-chain: Present on the blockchain, each interaction costs money.
Off-chain: Not present on the blockchain, each interaction is free.
Bridge: A service that allows communication between 2 entities that cannot naturally communicate with each other. On-chain information cannot be manipulated outside the blockchain; they are like “locked in”. To manipulate them, a bridge that combines off-chain and on-chain code must be developed.

Introduction

First of all, it’s important to know that the Backend is permanently connected to the Ethereum blockchain. It’s constantly up-to-date with every event happening on the ChainZoku Smart Contracts.
Each interaction with one of the contracts is also stored by the backend, thus ensuring a perfect synchronization between the blockchain and the backend.
All data related to Assets is stored in a (centralized) database and identified by unique IDs. These IDs are common between the backend and the blockchain, allowing us to track each Asset transfer and know in real-time who owns what.
Each Zoku holder has an inventory that groups all the Assets they own or their Zoku owns. For each of them, a unique ID link is created. It connects the user’s wallet to the ID of the Asset they own, which we will call “Inventory ID”.

Example:

The Asset Fuwa Katana has the Asset ID “85d5a53c-55a4–4259-b271–2e5739a0a01d”.
My wallet address is: 0x1234567891234567891234567891234567891234.
I have the Fuwa Katana Asset in my inventory, so I have an Inventory ID: “5fcd0bef-007e-47ff-bffd-058a7e7e17d4” corresponding to the association of my wallet and the Asset ID. If I have 2 Fuwa Katana Assets in my inventory, I will have a second, different, and always unique Inventory ID: “20031385–7043–4c3d-bfe6–9dd874f2a0d0”.

How does it work?

I will mainly talk about the Assets (Zoku Gear), but the same mechanism applies to other Items (Zoku Goods).

We have 4 Smart Contracts managing the On-chain part of Assets and Items: Minting Assets / Items (Off to On-chain), Transferring Assets / Items (On-chain to On-chain), Burning Assets / Items (On to Off-chain), and Airdropping NFTs (On-chain to On-chain).

This bridge functions like any other.
There are 4 possible actions: Mint, Transfer, Burn, and Airdrop (but we won’t talk about the last).

When an action is performed on one of the ChainZoku Smart Contracts, the backend fetches the event and processes it based on its origin (which Smart Contract was used) and its parameters (which action was performed).
Based on this data, the backend updates its database.
Everything is based on the Asset ID and Inventory ID. They allow the backend to track the Assets through the blockchain and keep the data up-to-date: who owns what and when.

To explain the process, I will use practical cases.

First practical case:

A user wants to mint a Legendary Asset they won during a quest, to sell it:

When the user claims their quest rewards, the backend creates a link between their wallet and the Asset won. This link certifies that the user owns this Asset and can mint it (this is the famous Inventory ID). It is considered Off-chain because it was created only by the backend.
After validation and signature by the user on the site, the backend retrieves the Inventory ID and sends it to the Smart Contract, which validates that the Inventory ID has never been used, the user who owns the Asset is the one making the transaction, and the quantities transmitted are valid.
The user then validates the transaction and pays gas fees for the mint.
The Smart Contract rechecks everything, then mints the Asset in the Zoku Gear contract. Once the process is complete, the Smart Contract emits an event on the blockchain containing the Inventory ID, the Asset ID, and the user’s wallet.
This event is captured by the backend in real-time. It retrieves the 3 transmitted pieces of information that allow it to identify with certainty which Asset was manipulated. It “consumes” the used Inventory ID, which can never be used again. The item is removed from the user’s inventory.
But instantly after, the backend creates a new Inventory ID linking the wallet, the Asset, and the mint transaction just performed. The user has the Asset back in their inventory, but it is considered Minted, so they can’t mint it again.
The Asset is now On-chain, visible in their wallet, and they can list it for sale on OpenSea for 69 ETH.

Another practical case:

A user buys an Asset on OpenSea:

During the purchase transaction, the Zoku Gear Smart Contract sends an event on the blockchain with the Asset ID transferred, the old Owner, and the new Owner.
From this information, we can deduce with certainty the Inventory ID that needs to be consumed. Each Zoku Gears NFT must have an Inventory ID because the Smart Contract cannot mint an Asset without an Inventory ID, so it must exist.
The Inventory ID is consumed, the old Owner sees the item disappear from their inventory, and a new Inventory ID is created with the Asset ID, the new Owner’s wallet, and the transaction. The item is still On-chain.

One last practical case:

A user wants to add an On-chain Asset to their Zoku:

In this case, it is necessary to Burn the NFT of the Asset because once equipped, the item must disappear from the user’s inventory (so they can’t resell it or equip it on another Zoku).
After validation and signature by the user on the site, the backend retrieves the Asset’s Inventory ID. It sends it to the Smart Contract to check that it hasn’t been burned, the user is the owner of the NFT, and they have the NFT in their wallet.
The user then validates the transaction and pays gas fees for the Burn.
The Smart Contract rechecks all the data, Burns the NFT, and sends an event on the blockchain containing the Inventory ID and the user’s wallet.
This event is captured by the backend, which consumes the On-chain Asset’s Inventory ID. The item disappears from their inventory and instantly creates a new Off-chain Inventory ID. The item reappears in the user’s inventory Off-chain.
The user can then validate the addition of their Asset to their Zoku (see Episode 5 for the rest of the process).

This solution offers many advantages because a user who never wants to trade will never pay gas fees. Likewise, if a user wants to resell an Asset, they can!

But this solution also has a major disadvantage…

Security

Unfortunately, Off-chain implies data centralization. Therefore, there are risks of hacking. We are fully aware of this and have implemented all the necessary measures.

I will not go into detail about our security measures for… obvious security reasons.
Now you know that when you buy a Zoku Gear on OpenSea, a whole process of tracking blockchain events with Inventory ID tracking is executed in a fraction of a second in a Parisian Data Center. Computers are magical…

In the next (and final) article, I will talk about ChainZoku Smart Contracts and conclude this wonderful 8-chapter story.

The end in the next episode.

EKCO

-Every simple solution has its limits-

About Miinded

Miinded is a French-based multi-disciplinary web3 studio founded in 2021. We focus on creating unique experiences for creators and guide brands in their transition to web3. We offer a range of services to assist you develop, launch and scale your innovative projects, with our team providing expertise and guidance needed to make it a sucess.

We believe that blockchain lies at the core of this new era of data interaction and digital experience creation. Web3 represents the future of web development, going beyond apps to create a comprehensive ecosystem that supports our digital world.

Our services include custom smart contracts developed using the latest blockchain technologies, UX/UI design focused on intuitive user experiences, webdesign and development tailored to individual project needs, strategic consulting to ensure effective planning, and hosting services that meet specific requirements.

Our last collaborations include Pudgy Penguins, The Sandbox, Snoop Dogg, MekaVerse, and ChainZoku, which highlight the fusion of blockchain technology, digital tokens, and creative concepts to offer immersive digital experiences.

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 6: F*ck Gas fees

Miinded — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 12:06:38 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 6: F*ck Gas fees

GM!

EKCO here, co-Founder of Miinded & lead dev on ChainZoku, which I’m going to talk about again today. This article follows on from the previous one: Episode 5 — Not Your Usual Render Farm. Make sure you read it first!

Today we’re going to be going over how amazingly useful gas fees are within an NFT project… or not.

But first, if you’re new here, make sure to read the previous chapters and the very thorough Guide to ChainZoku, which will tell you a lot about the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

Today’s article is shorter and easier to grasp.

A simple wish, a complex application

In the ChainZoku universe, there’s a lot of interactions between different components within the project. Each Zoku is registered on the Ethereum blockchain. But they don’t come empty-handed; they have a lot of different assets that follow them everywhere. They also carry a wallet full of Goens, the ecosystem currency, which are used everyday in a Zoku’s life.

This makes for a thorough and immersive ecosystem, but it does have consequences.

The initial wish of the entire ChainZoku team was that Assets (Zoku Gear, Zoku Goods, etc.) should be tradable on OpenSea, and with the lowest possible gas fees for the end user.

To achieve this, our first idea was to build a hybrid system between several blockchains.

Zokus would be minted on Ethereum
Assets would be minted on Polygon
Goens would be Off-chain

Gas fees on Polygon being very low, the ChainZoku team wanted to assume the cost for everyone?

So we were going to develop a massive ETH / POLYGON / Off-chain bridge.

A simple idea on paper, but one that quickly reached its limits…

The Impossible Bridge

Here we were, developing a super complex bridge, sprawling several blockchains, and off-chain. This wasn’t our first time, but it was still more difficult than the others.

The fact that a Zoku’s assets are transferred with the Zoku requires a lot of transfer and verification. The slightest error on the blockchain being irreversible, our code had to be perfect.

For those in the know, ERC6551 didn’t exist at the time, which is a shame, because it would have made our lives a lot easier. We were ahead of our time.

After several weeks of meetings, development and testing, we were beginning to doubt our good idea… The code was very complex, difficult to maintain, and the slightest error had serious consequences… But we carried on.

Until one day….

Following a meeting with the whole dev team, we took a closer look at the bridge. We looked at it from every angle and came across a major problem: a critical security flaw.

The bane of every web3 developer’s existence.

Without going into too much detail, it was possible, under certain conditions, to spend more Goens than you owned. The conditions for achieving this were very difficult, but not impossible for anyone who really wanted to.

To correct the flaw, we would have had to change a lot of code, making the bridge even more complex.

So we decided to scrap it and find a simpler solution, albeit one that might look a bit less fancy.

Looking back, it’s actually a good thing we didn’t make a bridge on Polygon. The project wouldn’t have evolved as quickly, and each new feature would have taken 2 to 3 times as long.

Back to basics

The initial idea was that assets should be tradable and that there should be as little gas fees as possible.

There weren’t many options left:

Everything Off-chain: we developed an Off-chain Marketplace so that people could “trade”. Not very sexy for a Web3 project, and then we’d lose the visibility that OpenSea can offer.
All On-chain on ETH: A single blockchain to manage would simplify the bridge, but gas costs would soar, as each time a Zoku is transferred, each Asset would also have to be transferred individually.
Counting $500 in gas fees at 10 gwei to transfer a Zoku…. impossible for users to accept, understandably.

How about a bit of both?

Sure! A solution where the asset is both on-chain and off-chain! Schrodinger’s NFT! Ok, I’m getting a bit carried away…

That’s why ChainZoku isn’t on an L2, and why Goens are Off-chain.

In the next article, I’ll get to the heart of the matter! Prepare the aspirin, it’s gonna get complicated…

See you in the next chapter!

EKCO

-Every simple solution has its limits-

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 5: Not Your Usual Render Farm

Miinded — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:38:56 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 5: Not Your Usual Render Farm

GM! EKCO here again, co-Founder of Miinded & lead dev on ChainZoku, which I’m going to talk about again today. This article follows on from the previous one: Episode 4 — Expectations VS Reality. Make sure you read it first!

Today we’re going to talk about the real-time renderer, simply put…

If you’re new here, make sure to read the previous chapters and the very thorough Guide to ChainZoku, which will tell you a lot about the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

Please note that this article is more technical and will require more attention.

What’s the best solution?

As seen in previous chapters, a Zoku can be modified at any time by the holders themselves. When a Zoku is modified, we need to re-generate the Zoku’s 2D image in order to display it on the different marketplaces as well as the My Zoku page. The goal and challenge here is to do it in as little time as possible, so that there are as few differences as possible between the NFT and its matching image.

Creating an image from 3D Assets is much more complicated than with 2D Assets. As all the assets have been created in Blender, it simply made sense to use Blender to create the renderings.

While brainstorming on the project, we explored several avenues for generating Zoku images in real time:

Paying a human to do the rendering manually? An extremely simple solution that has no advantages, is very expensive, no fun, and very time-consuming. We needed to create a tool that would allow us to create a Zoku while minimizing human error. So obviously, this idea was instantly abandoned (never actually considered, in case you missed the joke).
Buy a beast of PC dedicated solely to rendering, and put it in the home of a ChainZoku team member with a good Internet connection? This was the cheapest solution, but involved other problems: requiring a physical presence in the event of a problem, difficulty in updating, risk in the event of a power or internet cut… We considered it if no other solution was possible.
Using a “render farm”, i.e. large servers in a datacenter dedicated solely to rendering an image. This solution was very expensive, around €1 per image (i.e. €20,000 for the initial generation of 10,000 Zoku with 2 images). What’s more, as the servers were used by a huge number of people, it was very likely that waiting times for renders would skyrocket.
Create our own “Render Farm”. LMAO! Yeah, sure, let’s to create our own Render Farm! It’s a good one…

Creating our own Render Farm

First, we looked for a datacenter that offered servers with large, high-performance graphics cards at a reasonable price. We opted for Scaleway, our French hosting provider based in Paris. At the time, they only offered one type of server with an NVidia RTX 3070 8GB, 8-core CPU, 16GB RAM, running Linux (Debian). The price wasn’t cheap: €1.20 / hour, or €865 / month.

But with this solution, we can manage our own rendering queue and optimize our scripts to perfection. And if we need to deploy a second server in case of heavy demand, we can do so in a matter of minutes.

We’ve done some benchmarking on the server to get an idea of average rendering times and evaluate the total monthly cost.

It takes between 30s and 3min to render the 2 images of a Zoku (portrait and profile). That’s an average of 40 Zoku per hour, or €0.03 per Zoku. Totally acceptable. To do better would have been far too expensive. To render the initial 10,000 Zoku, we had planned to use 2 rendering servers to generate the collection in less than 3 days. In the end, we only used one server.

24/7 rendering

Having our own rendering server is cool, but expensive. It could render 28,800 Zoku per month at full load and justify the cost of 0.03 € / Zoku.

BUT…

There aren’t 28,800 Zoku to return per month…. In our busiest month, we returned around 2,500 Zoku, and on average we render 350 Zoku per month. This gives an average price of 1.7 € / Zoku (just a small difference of 5600%).

There’s no point in keeping the server running 24/7 when it’s only used 9 hours a month on average.

So we developed a script that starts the server when there’s a rendering request, and stops it when the rendering is complete and the queue is empty. When the server is off, nothing is charged. As a result, we were able to divide the cost of the server by 5, to 0.35 € / Zoku. This is still 10 times more than the initial target, but more bearable in the long run.

Communication is the key to a good relationship

What better way to explain an intra-server communication system than with a good diagram?

Glossary :

ChainZoku Backend: the server where all raw data is stored.
RabbitMQ: the queue management system.
Miinded Render Farm: Miinded’s 3D render management server.
Render Server: The 3D rendering server(s).

To summarize:

The user makes a modification to his Zoku, ChainZoku Backend verifies, processes and stores the information.
ChainZoku Backend contacts Miinded Render Farm to request a render with all Zoku information formatted in JSON.
Miinded Render Farm processes the information and adds a render to the RabbitMQ queue with the Zoku information.
Render Server constantly asks RabbitMQ if there’s anything to render. If so, it retrieves the Zoku information stored in RabbitMQ and launches its rendering mill (I’ll explain this later).
Once rendering is complete, Render Farm Server contacts Miinded Render Farm to let it know that rendering is complete. It then uploads the images to ChainZoku’s CDN, which stores, compresses and makes them public.
Finally, Miinded Render Farm confirms that the rendering is complete, deletes the task from RabbitMQ and contacts ChainZoku Backend to tell them that the rendering is finished.
ChainZoku Backend then contacts OpenSea to tell it that the image for this NFT has changed, OpenSea downloads the new image and displays it in the list.
Finally, the user is notified on the site that the rendering is complete, and the site uploads the new image.

Steps 1 to 4 take a total of around 0.5 seconds. Step 5 takes between 30s and 3min depending on the Zoku’s complexity. Steps 6 and 7 take a total of around 5 seconds. Finally, step 8 can take between 0 and 15 seconds.

In the end, from the moment the user clicks on “Validate” to the moment the user is notified that the image has been rendered, it takes between 1 and 4 minutes. We think that’s fair. Definitely hard to beat this without having the costs go up way too high.

The rendering mill

To render a Zoku, we have developed a Linux service, which we installed on the Render Servers. This service consists of several different Python scripts that are used for various tasks:

File updates
The ChainZoku team is constantly adding new Assets to equip on your Zokus. The Render Servers must therefore always be up to date with the new Assets. To do this, we have a storage server dedicated exclusively to Blender scenes and textures. This script queries our storage server to find out whether Blender files have been updated, and downloads them locally to the server if necessary. It does this every 20 min or before each render.
Check queue
This script constantly asks RabbitMQ if there’s a new job to process. If so, it triggers the next scripts in line. Otherwise, it waits.
Launch Blender
The script launches Blender from the command line, without an interface.
Zoku asset management
To generate the Zoku, we created an asset-free Blender scene with only backgrounds and Lights. Using the Zoku information, the script automatically imports each asset present in the other Blender files into the blank scene.
Launching the 3D render
Once the assets have been loaded, activate the first camera (Profile) and launch an EEVEE render (this is the name of the render engine in Blender). Then switch to the second camera (Portrait) and launch a new render.
Image upload
Finally, if all goes well, we retrieve the 2 freshly created images and upload them to the ChainZoku CDN.

Hardware limitations

If you know anything about computer hardware and 3D, you’ll know that a good graphics card can speed up 3D rendering. But that’s not all. The amount of RAM is also very important.

Scaleway’s servers have “only” 16 GB of RAM. For classic use, this is sufficient, but for ChainZoku it’s not enough.

When we render a 3D scene, we import assets from other Blender scenes into a single Blender scene. This means we have to open and close a large number of scenes, which consumes a lot of RAM. Opening a ChainZoku scene can consume up to 250 GB of RAM! Our servers have only 16Go…. This leads to severe slowdowns at the best of times, and even outright server crashes.

To overcome this problem, we use swap partitions on our hard disks. In layman’s terms, we store data normally stored in RAM on the server’s SSD. This reduces performance, as hard disks are slower than RAM, but avoids server crashes.

It’s amazing what you can do with a few good lines of code, isn’t it?

In the next article, I’ll tell you all about gas costs and their benefits on an NFT project (or not).

Don’t hesitate if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 4: Expectations VS Reality

Miinded — Thu, 23 May 2024 12:06:18 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 4: Expectations VS Reality

GM!

EKCO here again, co-Founder of Miinded & lead dev on ChainZoku, which I’m going to talk about again today. This article follows on from the previous one: Episode 3–3D CHALLENGES. Make sure you read it first!

Today we’re going to do a tutorial on ‘how to redevelop Blender in Javascript’. Hmm, no, sorry — we’re going to talk about real-time 3D rendering of Zokus on OpenSea.

If you’re new here, make sure to read the previous chapters and the very thorough Guide to ChainZoku, which will tell you a lot about the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

Back to Basics

If you’ve followed the previous episodes, you’ll know that an NFT is matched with a Zoku, which has traits, and these traits are linked to Assets, which are themselves linked to 3D Objects, which are themselves stored in several Blender files.

Cool, we should be able to give all this information to Opensea and it should deal with it on its own… Right? Well… nope. Opensea can’t read a Blender file. In fact, nobody except Blender can read Blender files…

In one of the previous chapters (I can’t remember which one, just go and read them), I talked about the essential components of an NFT according to the ERC721 Metadata standard. On this subject I mentioned the fact that an NFT could contain media in addition to the image. This media can be of any kind: Image, Video, Music, Website or other. In our case, we’re going to assign it a website, or more precisely a link to a specific HTML page. And that’s what this article is about.

Why a website? I thought we were getting 3D Zokus on OpenSea, not a website?

Hold on a minute, I’m getting there.

Blender in your browser

Opensea is nothing more than a website (or a mobile app, but it’s the same thing), and if you want to display something in it, it has to be compatible with the web browser (or mobile operating system) that the user is using to display Opensea (Chrome, Opera, Edge, Brave, FireFox etc…).

Fortunately, there are 3D Object formats that are compatible with our favorite browsers, otherwise this feature would simply be impossible to achieve.

So we’re going to have to extract all the 3D Objects from the Blender files and convert them into one of the many existing 3D Object formats. We’ve chosen the GLB format (GL Transmission Format Binary file), which simplifies the process.

Did you convert the 400 3D Objects into GLB by hand?

Of course not, we’re devs, so if we can automate it, we will.

Using a new (and very robust) Python script, we go through the 7 Blender files, identify the 3D Objects, calculate all the variations, export 1 GLB file for each variation of a 3D Object, compress it, upload it, cache it and publish it publicly.

Each variation of a 3D Object? There are variations?

Unfortunately, yes. A Zoku is made up of a Body (head + neck + arms + torso), it also contains the expression (Passive, Smiling, Rude…), we have to apply a texture (skin color), and finally whether it has an open hand, slightly closed, closed, fingers spread. This means we need to generate every possible combination for each body:

Passive + White + Open = 1 GLB file
Passive + White + Palm = 1 GLB file
Smilling + White + Open = 1 GLB file
ETC…

So 3,079 possibilities for the bodies.

And you have to do the same for the Stickers, which are different depending on the Zoku’s expression.

Fortunately, only these 2 traits have variations. All the others (clothes, weapons, flying objects) have no variation.

In the end, we generated more than 10,000 GLB files to cover all the available possibilities.

Admittedly, the solution of exporting all the variations in GLB is not the best, but it is the simplest.

But every simple solution has its limits, right?

That’s good, you’re learning fast… And the limit is still the size of the file.

GLB is a standard 3D file that contains all the 3D data (Mesh, texture, normal map, albedo), which means that 1 3D object = 1 file. It’s so simple! As a result, the file is naturally large.

For ChainZoku, a 3D Object in GLB format is on average 4.5 MB. A Zoku contains a minimum of 8 assets, but can be as large as 13. As a result, a Zoku represents an average of 40 MB. That’s a lot. Especially as some GLB files are 300MB in size (e.g. Soul Guardian).

It’s hard to offer a ‘real-time’ solution when users have to download the equivalent of the whole of Wikipedia to display a single Zoku in 3D.

And yet, my Zoku is displayed relatively quickly!

To overcome this new problem we were able to rely on Draco Compression technology, which divides file size by 5, but adds a decompression step each time the file is opened.

This has helped to reduce the weight problem, with lighter files, but adds more CPU/GPU consumption to display them. Luckily, today’s PCs and smartphones are powerful enough to decompress even complex 3D objects quickly.

What about mobile?

On mobile, we’ve encountered other performance issues.

If you’ve taken a good look at a 3D Zoku on OpenSea, you may have noticed that there are dynamic shadows and dynamic highlights.

This is why, in addition to compression, we’ve added an “SD” mode that removes much of the detail from Zoku, as well as lighter shadow management system.

And to create this SD mode, we had to regenerate the 10,000 GLB files in low resolution, doubling the total number of files. But it’s ok, we’re talking about an extra 5 GB, it’s not that bad.

Coding with 3D

At last, we have all the GLB files corresponding to all possible variations of the Zokus. We can now display them in OpenSea.

Well, almost. Opensea can only display one GLB file at a time. We need to bypass this limitation. Hence the nice little HTML page mentioned at the beginning, which is linked to the NFT metadata.

Opensea is able to display this HTML page instead of the NFT image.

There’s a well-known Javascript library, ThreeJS, which enables you to display 3D on a website. It’s literally like coding 3D.

To do this, we create a blank ThreeJS 3D scene, add the dynamic lights, download the GLB files corresponding to the desired Zoku assets, unzip them, and ask the browser to render an image corresponding to the scene 60 times per second.

And voilà! You’ve finally got your Zoku spinning in 3D, complete with flames and explosions!

Honestly, the ThreeJS part wasn’t the most complicated: once you’ve got all the elements, it’s “relatively” simple to fit everything together.

There was a lot of optimization work, which is still not perfect on the iPhone… we’ll get there!

In the next article, I’ll be covering rendering times and monthly costs.

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 3: 3D Challenges

Miinded — Thu, 09 May 2024 14:08:03 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 3: 3D Challenges

Hello again,

EKCO here, co-founder of Miinded, and lead developer.

Welcome to another episode of the ChainZoku Deep Dive. This is Episode 3, following up on Episode 1 — How it started and Episode 2— Meet the Zokus. The topic of the day: how to lose all of your hair in the span of 2 months, also known as how to render a 2D image of a 3D Zoku in real time.

As a starter, if you haven’t already, you should take 5 minutes to read the extremely well-done Guide to ChainZoku, which will cover the basics of the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

Covering the basics

I’m probably not teaching you anything by saying that for an NFT to be considered as such (and visible on Marketplaces), it must be represented by a single image (PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF). On top of that, it can also contain additional media in any format (video, HTML, image, text, etc.).

With Zokus being customizable and evolving NFTs, a major challenge for us has been to find a way to generate a 2D image of each Zoku image as quickly as possible, whenever the user decides to add or remove a piece of gear.

Moving from 2D to 3D

At Miinded, we’re no strangers to real-time 2D image generation. We’ve been experimenting with it for several years on our Cryptofoxes project.

But we like to push the cursors to the max.

How hard can it be? It’s still an image, isn’t it?

Nope! In the case of a 2D customization project, we use a stack of PNG images representing the various traits of the NFT. The images are added one on top of the other in a very precise order to create a complete image.

In 3D, this is not optimal! Because with the same process, there would be problems with shadows, highlights, superimposed elements and overall ugly rendering.

What’s 3D?

To make a 2D image, it’s “easy”: you open Paint, make 2–3 doodles, save as a PNG and you’ve got something, ugly of course, but you’ve got something.

In 3D, you don’t open Paint, you open Blender, Cinema 4D, 3DsMax, Maya and so on. These are all software programs with their own structures and varying degrees of functionality, and they’re very complex to get to grips with, even when it comes to making ugly things.

The ChainZoku team has an excellent — I’d even go as far as say one of the best 3D designers around. He works in multiple different softwares, such as Zbrush (sculpting), Substance Painter (texturing), Marvelous Designer (clothing simulation), and uses Blender to put everything together to create the final render.

Perfect, Blender has a Python API that allows all those developers who want to lose their hair to drive the software with code. LFG!!

So each Zoku has its own Blender file?

Not at all, each Zoku corresponds to a succession of Assets (cf: episode 2 — Meet The Zokus). So to create our Zoku, we need to create each Asset independently, in 3D.

It’s like 2D, but instead of having a stack of PNGs, we have a stack of 3D Assets. When you put it like that, it sounds so simple… But guess what? It absolutely isn’t.

What exactly is a 3D Object?

A 3D Object is 1 structure (Mesh), 3 images (1 texture, 1 normal map, 1 albedo), and the “stuff” that connects it all together.

The 3D Object is stored in a Blender file that can only be read by Blender software.

One 3D Object = 1 Blender file?

Each 3D Object must be placed in a 3-dimensional space represented by the X (horizontal), Y (vertical) and Z (depth) axes. Placement must be very precise, as the slightest deviation would be obvious. But we have a very large number of 3D objects to manage, all with very different placements. On top of that, we have to communicate with the 3D Artist to know every position of every 3D object… There’s too great a risk of error in the long run.

We’ve opted for a simpler approach: everything in the same Blender file! That way, the 3D Artist places the 3D Objects exactly where he wants, and we just have to read the positions. Simple enough, right?

Yet again, every simple solution has its limits: Blender file size.

ChainZoku at launch (it has kept growing ever since) has over 400 meshes and more than 1000 textures, representing 65GB of raw data. We have good PCs, but not yet at the level of NASA.

We had to divide the 3D Objects into different Blender files to reduce the weight of the Blender file while maintaining the correct positions of the 3D Objects.

By the time of launch, we had 7 Blender files of around 10 GB each, which is heavy but still manageable.

We created new ones post-launch in order to accommodate for new items being added.

From 3D to 2D

Now that we’ve got our 3D Objects well positioned in our Blender files, we can create the 2D image matching our magnificent Zoku.

To achieve this, we’ve created another blank Blender file containing only the pre-configured lights, imported the 3D Objects corresponding to the Zoku Assets one by one, and rendered the image via a Python script executed by Blender.

It’s as if a human launched Blender, imported the 3D Objects manually and clicked on “Render”, but here it’s done via code automatically.

We do this 2 times per Zoku, once for the main image, and a second time for the Portrait image.

The 2 images are then uploaded to our servers, compressed, cached in our CDN and finally made publicly available.

The whole process from rendering to upload takes about 1min, a respectable score.

Originally, we wanted to have rendering times of less than 10 seconds — which is technically possible to reach, but given the cost of render farms and servers, we decided not to.

Currently, rendering is done by a server specialized in 3D rendering. It has a GPU (NVIDIA RTX 3070) hosted in a datacenter in Paris. We developed a bespoke code and server interface in order to keep costs as low as possible. As of today, the server has already done 5,035 customizations — on top of having rendered every single original Zoku.

I’ll go into more detail on how our render farm works in a future article — it took us weeks or R&D!

You may think that all this sounds easy and logical, but to get to this point, there have been many meetings, tests and accelerated hair loss…

In the next article, I’ll tell you about OpenSea’s real-time 3D viewer, which was a big thorn in my side too

See you in the next one!

EKCO

-Every simple solution has its limits-

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 2: Meet the Zokus

Miinded — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 09:00:30 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 2: Meet the Zokus

GM everyone!

EKCO here, co-founder of Miinded, and lead developer.

I’m back again to give you some behind-the-scenes content on ChainZoku. This article follows up on the previous chapter: Episode 1 — How it started. The topic today is to dig deeper into what a Zoku is, technically — what makes them exist!

As a starter, if you haven’t already, you should take 5 minutes to read the extremely well-done Guide to ChainZoku, which will cover the basics of the project.

To make this article a bit more interesting, I’ve decided to interview myself using the questions we asked ourselves throughout the development process, and the answers we found.

The Zokus

The Zokus are avatars in the ChainZoku universe. They are divided into 2 clans: the OniZoku and the BosoZoku.

They’re pretty easy to tell apart: the Oni’s have beautiful horns on their heads, and colorful skins. The Boso’s have more human-like features — what makes them different is the technology they have inside of their bodies.

You can read more about them here.

An NFT, first and foremost

Each Zoku corresponds to a unique NFT, i.e. a number (TokenID) stored on the Ethereum blockchain in the ZokusByChainZoku Smart Contracts (ERC721A).

Each TokenID (and therefore each Zoku) is owned by someone, and this ownership is materialised in the Smart Contract, which is storing the user’s wallet address. When a user decides to transfer a Zoku, the Smart Contract replaces the Wallet of the current owner of the TokenID with the Wallet of the new owner.

That’s it, I think I’ve managed to sum up in a few simple sentences (or not) how an NFT compliant with the ERC721 standard works. So far, nothing crazy, right?

For ChainZoku, we use the ERC721A standard, which allows a significant reduction in gas costs when many NFTs are minted at once.

But my Zoku isn’t just a number, it has an image, features, doesn’t it?

Absolutely! A Zoku is indeed a TokenID in a Smart Contract, but it’s also metadata. The ERC721 standard allows us to add additional information about each TokenID individually.

We can add :

A name: the name of the Zoku, e.g. OniZoku #218
An image: the image of the Zoku rendered by our render farm
A description: a simple description, identical for all Zokus
A list of attributes: unique traits corresponding to the Zoku
Additional media: the zoku’s 3D viewer

The great thing about metadata is that it can be permanently modified in real time. It is therefore possible to add/modify/delete traits on a Zoku. That’s what enables us to create dynamic NFTs, and make Zokus customisable.

You can find all the Zoku on the collection’s OpenSea page.

The heart of Zoku

Thanks to the ERC721 Metadata standard, we can build complex things.

Each Zoku has its own traits: Gender, Clan, Background, Skin, Eyes, Haircut, Mood, Teeth, Facewear, Accessories, Earrings, Flying Object, Clothing and Hand Object. Some of these traits are visible directly in the NFT metadata, others are not.

Each trait refers to an “Asset” which has its own attributes. Each trait asset also refers to other assets, which also have their own attributes, etc.
With this system, we can create an almost infinite variety of interlocking asset associations.

Assets are unique and contain all the data needed to create the Zoku: name, description, ID, Blender file name, GLB file name, rarity, etc. This is the heart of Zoku.

For ChainZoku we have 3 types of Assets: fixed, activable or modifiable:

Fixed : Non-modifiable assets, unique combination (example: Skin, Eyes, Haircut,…)
Activable: Assets that can be activated or deactivated by the user — toggled on or off. These assets are no longer visible but remain linked to the Zoku. (Accessories, Facewear)
Modifiable: Assets that can be added or removed by the user (Flying Object, Clothing, Hand Gear, etc.)

As each Zoku is customisable, wouldn’t it make it possible to have doppelgangers?

No, because the combination of fixed Zoku assets is unique and is generated procedurally only once.

During quality control, we made sure that no Zoku could have more than 2 identical fixed assets.

NFTs everywhere

You may have noticed, but Assets have 2 things in common with Zoku: they’re unique and they have traits.

Unique + trait = … ?

Yes, assets are also (N)FTs. But not all of them, only the modifiable assets because it wasn’t useful at the time ChainZoku was created to make all the assets of a Zoku On-Chain (ERC6551 standard didn’t exist yet).

Each Asset also has a TokenID stored in the ZokuGearByChainZoku Smart Contract (ERC1155).

There is one difference between Assets and Zokus: Assets are Fungible Tokens (unlike Zokus which are Non Fungible Tokens), which means that a Fuwa Katata asset is strictly identical to another Fuwa Katana Asset, which is normal.

You can find the list of Assets on Opensea.

Why aren’t all the Assets in the Zokus Gear collection?

Because the choice to display an Asset On-Chain is up to the user who owns the Asset. The user must pay a transaction fee if they wish to display it in the collection. In order to have the least costly experience for the user, there is no obligation to mint the asset.

However, if the user wishes to trade the asset against ETH on the blockchain, it must be minted. For all other use cases, there is no obligation to do so.

In the next article, I will be exploring the 3D renders and the amount of hair we’ve lost…

See you in the next one!

EKCO

-Every simple solution has its limits-

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 1 : How it started

Miinded — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 08:19:25 GMT

Behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku — Episode 1 : How it started

Hi, I’m EKCO, Co-Founder of Miinded Studio and Lead Developer.

The idea with this series of article is to share some behind-the-scenes content about the genesis of ChainZoku

ChainZoku… There’s so much to say that it was hard for me to know where to start…

We dedicated 2 years of work into this project, which makes it quite a challenge to recap its in a single article. Hence why there will be several episodes!

In this one, I’ll be giving you a brief overview of how it all began and what ChainZoku means to me, and all of us.

Let’s start with a bit of history

It was late October 2021, MekaVerse had just been released, the whole team was exhausted from the drop, and we had taken a few days off in Europe. The NFT market was nearly at its peak, and the bull run was turning heads.

The ChainZoku team reached out to us at that moment to pitch their new ground-breaking project.

We took their first call in the back of a rental car in a parking lot in Malta (Miinded is never really on vacation). “Wow,” was the first thing we thought when we hung up. Our brains were bubbling with ideas (maybe also because of the scorching heat in the car).

Back in the cooler weather in France, we looked further into their pitch deck (a 30-page PDF).

Customizable 3D NFTs? That’s really something!

Over here at Miinded, we do love challenges — the harder the better! Obviously, we were beyond excited.

On top of the technical innovation and long-term vision, we loved the quality of the visuals and the strong, determined team.

We know customizable NFTs well; we’ve been doing them since our beginnings, and we absolutely love it! ERC721 makes it possible, so why not use it to our advantage?

Thus began our collaboration

After completing the necessary formalities and clearing our schedules, we started work in February 2022.

I remember the meetings with the ChainZoku team, most of them lasting over 6 hours within the same day, going over every detail, testing solutions live. I’ve lost count of my monologues lasting several minutes trying to explain complex technical points as simply as possible (or not).

Each meeting was an opportunity to further improve the project and bring new ideas to the table. For example, the real-time 3D viewer on OpenSea or the Questing System were not in the initial brief — we added them along the way. We tend to like making things even more difficult for ourselves.

But damn, what a beautiful human adventure!

Over time, ChainZoku team has become more than just clients; they’re friends.

Organization is key

Such a project needs to be well organized, so we divided the tasks into several points:

Front-end: chainzoku.io website, myzoku.chainzoku.io
Back-end: API api.chainzoku.io
Smart contract: 13 smart contracts currently deployed
Render farm: Real-time generation of Zokus

For all the Front-end part, we called on our friends at Antinomy Studio, who did a really good job. It took no less than 6 months of work, nearly 50 hours of meetings (with 10 people) to achieve these 2 amazing websites. A big thank you to all of them.

Meanwhile, at Miinded, we worked on all the submerged parts of the iceberg: the back-end, the render farm, and the smart contracts.

ChainZoku key figures:

3,000 hours of work,
up to 8 developers working on the project simultaneously,
13 smart contracts (at the moment)
9 servers running continuously, including 1 Render Farm
2 NuxtJS projects, 3 NestJS projects, 1 Hardhat project
over 100,000 lines of code (all projects combined)
over 400 assets with over 1000 4k textures
140 GB of files (images, 3D objects, textures, blender files, …), of which 58 GB is publicly accessible.
150 liters of coffee and about 10 sleepless nights

What’s next?

Speaking in the past, you might think the adventure is over; but ChainZoku is constantly evolving, and we continue to deliver features. The purpose of these articles is to talk to you, in my words, about the behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku development. Showcase technical issues and our solutions.

In the next episodes, we’ll explore together:

What a Zoku is, how it’s technically built
3D rendering
Real-time 3D on Opensea
Render Farm
Gas fees
Off-chain/On-chain operations
Smart Contracts
and a lot more!

Stay tuned for the next episode.

EKCO

-Every simple solution has its limits-

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio

Case Study — NFTs in sports: a new playing field

Miinded — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 10:15:57 GMT

Case Study — NFTs in sports: a new playing field

The world of sports experienced a significant transformation through the integration of NFT, leveraging blockchain technology to redefine fan engagement, digital collectibles, and the overall sports experience.

From the NBA to football clubs like Paris Saint-Germain and FC Barcelona, and even individual athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo and Stan Wawrinka, NFTs have reached every aspect of the sporting industry. They offer fans and collectors access to exclusive content, unique experiences, and opportunities to own iconic moments in sports history, revolutionizing the way we interact with our favorite teams and athletes.

NBA

NBA Top Shot

In 2020, the National Basketball Association (NBA) launched a blockchain-based virtual trading card platform called “NBA Top Shot”, which sells officially licensed NBA highlight clips as NFTs. The platform was born from a partnership between the NBA, the NBA Players Association, and Dapper Labs.

Collectors of NBA Top Shot can buy, sell, and collect NBA NFTs that feature memorable “Moments” captured from NBA games and immortalized on the FLOW blockchain, created by Dapper Labs. These Moments have different rarity tiers, with some being rarer than others.

Just like physical trading cards, collectors buy Packs containing random Moments and they don’t know which ones they will get until they open it. Moments are minted in Packs, which are organized into Sets as part of a Series corresponding to the current NBA season.

Moments are divided into 4 categories: Common Moments, Fandom Moments, Rare Moments, and Legendary Moments.

The rarity of a Moment depends on the Pack or Set that it comes from. The Sets come in two categories: Base and Non-Base.

The platform’s goal is to create a gamified experience for fans, who can compete with other users in Top Shot challenges and win prizes, Moments, and Packs.

Challenges and Quests are another important part of the Top Shot ecosystem: they offer incentives to collectors who complete tasks within a specified timeframe.

NFL

NFL All Day

In 2021, Dapper Labs, ‍The National Football League (NFL) and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), created an American football version of NBA Top Shot called “NFL All Day”, in which football fans can collect and trade video clip NFTs also called “Moments”.

Like in NBA Top Shot, the Moments are available in 4 different tiers.

FIFA

FIFA NFT

In December 2023, FIFA unveiled its inaugural NFT collection in collaboration with tech firm Modex, marking a significant milestone in the world of digital collectibles in sport.

Modex took charge of FIFA+ Collect, a digital platform for football fans, where collectors can also collect and trade packs of digital football moments, compete in challenges and earn rewards.

They released a first drop of 100 NFTs, the rarest collectibles, available at a price of $999 USD, minted on Algorand blockchain. These NFTs, used as membership cards, are also gateways to exclusive experiences, such as eligibility for two FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Finals tickets and two FIFA World Cup 2026 Finals tickets.

Few days later, they moved to Polygon blockchain for a second drop of 900 more collectibles, tied to physical items from the FIFA Club World Cup Saudi Arabia 2023, of which two also include 2 VIP experiences, both redeemable later in Q1 2024.

Paris Saint-Germain

PSG — Tiger Champs NFTs

In April 2021, Paris Saint-Germain teamed up with Parisian artist Ludo to release its first NFT collection of Lucky Buddy NFT figurines.

The collection included 5 variants of the Lucky Buddy, the NFT figurine created by the artist Ludo, available in only 11 unique NFTs in total, one for every player on the pitch: a Home Kit Lucky Buddy, an Away Kit Lucky Buddy, and one-of-a-kind Specials: the Third Kit, Fourth Kit and Gold Lucky Buddys which were awarded to lucky bidders.
Buyers of the unique, 1-of-1 Lucky Buddy Third Kit, Fourth Kit, and Gold editions were also able to redeem a package of PSG merchandise.

Share of proceeds went towards supporting the PSG Endowment Fund which carries out missions of a humanitarian, educational, sporting or social nature.

In April 2022, they auctioned an exclusive personalized video NFT called “The Ballon d’Or #7” and real-life experience celebrating Leo Messi’s seventh Ballon d’Or. Every participants who signed up to the site was able to leave a personal note for Messi, embedded in the final NFT, regardless of whether they bid or not.

The winner also got a 1-night stay in Paris and an exclusive experience up close with the Paris Saint-Germain players.

In June 2022, Paris Saint-Germain and Jay Chou, a Taiwanese singer and musician, released an exclusive series of 10,000 “Tiger Champs” NFTs to celebrate the club’s tenth French championship title.

The collection, featuring tigers in the club’s colors, was launched on crypto.com. The NFTs were divided in 3 categories: the 10 unique “Tiger Champs Legends” depicted each of the club’s ten championships won, the 1,970 “Tiger Champs Premium” NFTs are inspired by ten different player celebrations and the 8,020 basic “Tiger Champs” NFTs shown the tiger making the “I love you” sign.

The allocation process was randomized, based on a hundred or so criteria, ensuring each NFT is unique.

In October 2022, PSG partnered with Clown Skateboards launch an NFT drop with the aim to support the skate communities through the PSG Endowment fund and Clown In Action.

The collection came in two editions: a unique NFT edition which came together with the Rebond x Paris Saint-Germain limited edition art ball signed by the Paris Saint-Germain players, as well as an exclusive print, and a second NFT edition of 250 including a 50x210 cm print priced at $200.

In september 2023, Paris Saint-Germain and the artistic director Benjamin Benichou created a ground-breaking matchday poster collection using artificial intelligence.

7 posters were taken from the 1,970 posters created and became the official posters for 7 key matches of the season. The 7 NFTs were made exclusively available on crypto.com, and each NFT was airdropped for free on their corresponding match days to eligible crypto.com NFT account holders.

Additionally, participants had the opportunity to win exclusive prizes, including prints of the original artwork and signed shirts from the team’s players following each drop.

Those who collect all 7 NFTs in the series were also able to enter a competition for a special experience at the final match of the season at the Parc des Princes.

In November 2023, PSG partnered with Blvck Paris to launch a monochrome collaboration combining sport, fashion and digital artistry.

The collection was unveiled in two distinct phases: the first phase involved an early release through NFTs, supported by crypto.com. Holders of previous releases had an early access 60 minutes before the scheduled drop time.

In total, 1,000 NFTs were made available for purchase at a price of $50 each. They were provided as a mystery box and separated into three categories: Exclusive box (1% so 10 units), Premium (9% so 90 units) and Standard (90% so 900 units), and they unlocked exclusive perks, including early access to the physical collaboration with a 20% discount code, and a chance to win unique experiences and products. The reveal of the mystery boxes occured shortly after the drop ends.

The physical collection included a series of pieces of clothing and accessories like hoodie, t-shirt, unique soccer ball, a welcome mat and a scarf.

SORARE

Sorare

In 2019, a card trading marketplace and NFT fantasy sports league based on competitions called “Sorare” was launched.

In Sorare, players can collect, buy, sell and compete with tradable digital player cards to win rewards in a fantasy league format.

Sorare platform blends the strategy of traditional fantasy sports with the excitement of collecting trading cards. Collectors can assemble teams of NFTs representing real athletes, earning points based on their real-world performances.

TEAM GB

Team GB x Ben Mosley

In July 2021, Team GB (Great Britain’s Olympic team) became the first Olympic team to launch an official NFT collection , in collaboration with NFT commerce provider ”Tokns” and UK artist Ben Mosley. On every day of the Tokyo Games, Ben Mosley captured the key moments of Team GB in an incredible mural that celebrate the athletes’ successes, which were then tokenized and sold in auction.
The NFTs came with a variety of physical and experiential offerings.
In August 2021, they released limited-edition digital collectibles called “Golden Medal Moments”, with only 5 NFTs for each gold medal.
November 2021, UK brand Ben Sherman joined forces with Team GB to launch a series of limited edition digital collectible NFT pins, with only 40 NFTs of each design.
In February 2022, Team GB also released a limited number of fan tokens “Gold Lion Tokns” that gave access to the “Gold Lion Club community”, which offers exclusive features and experiences.
Still in February 2022, Ben Sherman extended its collaboration with Team GB athletes for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games by releasing 250 ‘Humanz’ NFTs for Team GB fans. 10,000 Humanz were available to the broader NFT community in a public minting one month later.

WBD Sports

WBD Sports — Blocklete Golf web3 mobile game

In February 2023, Warner Bros Discovery Sports launched an NFT loyalty program called “B/R Watch 2 Earn” on Immutable X, with a watch-to-earn model. Participants could get B/R W2E tokens by correctly answering basketball-related trivia questions, through a QR code appearing during the NBA TNT broadcast. They could exchange their tokens for NFT videos (made popular by NBA Top Shot), but also hoodies, t-shirts and props from the studio show. The goal of this program was to foster a deeper connection between fans and their favorite sports.
The same year, Turner Sports (part or Warner Media) migrated its Blocklete Golf mobile web3 game from the Flow blockchain to Immutable X. Launched in 2020, Blocklete Golf is a golf management game in which players can collect, train and trade NFT golfers called “Blockletes” and earn rewards.

FC BARCELONA

FC BARCELONA — Masterpiece #1 In A Way Immortal NFT

In July 2022, FC Barcelona sold its first ever NFT for $693,000 at the Sotheby’s auction, produced in collaboration with BCN Visuals, an innovation partner and Digital Superstudio. The NFT called “Masterpiece #1 In A Way Immortal” is an audio-visual digital artwork of Johan Cruyff’s iconic stadium moment on December 22, 1973, where the Dutch player scored a historic goal against Atlético Madrid goalkeeper Miguel Reina.

The NFT holder also became a Barça Digital Ambassador, granting access to exclusive VIP benefits and experiences with the Club including Meet & Greets, visits to La Masia, hospitality rights (for a minimum of 5 years), the opportunity to play at the Spotify Camp Nou and an official handover of the ball before a friendly match.

In May 2023, FC Barcelona and Plastiks launched a campaign called “Unleash Your Passion” to promote a much-needed focus on sustainability.

They created 3,000 animal-themed NFTs sold at a price of $30 each. These NFTs allowed fans to contribute to the planet’s well-being through the funds from the sale of each NFT, but also rewarded them with the privilege of customizing their jersey at any official FC Barcelona store and the chance to enter a lottery to win a t-shirt signed by the 2023 Spanish League players.

In June 2023, FC Barcelona launched its 2nd collection “Masterpiece #2 — Empowerment” in collaboration with World of Women on Polygon blockchain. This 1/1 NFT paid tribute to the female football player Alexia Putellas, and her historic performance in the UEFA Women’s Champions League Semi Final against Wolfsburg.

The NFT was sold in auction in Opensea for 162 ETH ( around $300,231) and its holder also got a range of exclusive utilities including “Money Can’t Buy” experience with Alexia Putellas: an exclusive opportunity to personally meet and interact with Alexia herself, a physical seat from Spotify Camp Nou and signed pair of match Alexia’s worn boots.

CREDIT SUISSE x Swiss Football Association

Credit Suisse x Swiss Football Association NFT

In July 2023, Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse and the Swiss Football Association (SFA) have teamed up to launch an NFT collection on Ethereum in support of women’s football. The collection featured 756 digital art portraits of Swiss Women’s National Team players.

There were three tiers of NFTs up for grabs, with prices varying from 150 to 10,000 Swiss Francs (equivalent to around $167 to $11,000). Each package came with perks, including a physical artwork, the chance to meet and greet the players in person, and a signed team jersey.

All proceeds from the NFT sales were dedicated to supporting women’s football and promoting female voices.

The NFT were available on Credit Suisse’s CSX digital banking app and were only available to residents of Switzerland with a client relationship with the bank.

Mastercard x UEFA Champions League

Master x UEFA Champions League Pass NFT

In February 2024, Mastercard partnered with Moonpay and UEFA to launch an NFT football-themed trivia game, offering significant prizes including two tickets to the UEFA Champions League finale.

To participate, Mastercard cardholders have to get an Mastercard x UEFA Champions League Pass’ NFT on the web3 platform “Pass to Priceles”, a Moonpay digital wallet and answer live football quizzes 30 minutes before each UEFA Champions League matches. Participants can also collect free NFTs when they refer the game to a friend.

Winners of each round will receive UEFA Champions League match tickets and will climb the competition leaderboard. The participant leading the leaderboard after the semi-final will win the grand prize of tickets to the final match at London’s Wembley Stadium.

This initiative marks Mastercard’ commitment to engaging fans in innovative ways.

Arsenal FC

ARSENAL Journey Pass

Arsenal FC joined web3 in April 2023 with an football NFT project called “Arsenal Journey Pass”, in collaboration with next-generation travel company Staynex, offering fans exclusive access to match tickets and luxury accommodations.

400 NFTs were sold for $400 on BNB Network, divided in two tiers: 340 “Gooner” tier NFTs for general and club-level access to a match and 4-star accommodations and 60 “Legendary” tier NFTs for box seat access and 5-star accommodations.

Holders could choose from four games and received early adoption benefits and premium access to Staynex platform.

To celebrate the release of the Arsenal Journey Pass, Staynex has announced a special giveaway with a free pass to a home match and a 3-night stay in a hotel.

Stan Wawrinka

Stan Wawrinka — The Ballman project: Tennis Masters Collection

In November 2021, the Swiss tennis player Stan Wawrinka launched his collection “The Ballman project: Legends Collection” of 6,200 tennis players NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. Each NFT was sold at an average price of $300 (around 0.1 ETH at the time).
In 2022, Ballman Project included a play-to-earn game with Ballman having their own unique characteristics evolving based on the gained experience.
In March 2023, he launched another collection “Ballman Project: Tennis Masters Collection” of 8,538 NFTs divided in 5 categories: rookie, challenger, epic, champion and legend.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo — The CR7 NFT Collection

Cristiano Ronaldo joined web3 in November 2022 with his first NFT collection “The CR7 NFT Collection” launched on Binance with 8,638 NFTs across4 rarity levels:

5 of the 7 Super Super Rare NFT sold in auction at an average price of 22,800 BUSD. Perks: Virtual meet and greet with Ronaldo congratulating you on owning an SSR NFT, signed NFT statue from Ronaldo, signed Ronaldo Binance shirt, automatic whitelist for all future CR7 drops, free CR7 Mystery Box (from a future collection), entry into giveaways to win Ronaldo and Binance merchandise.

40 of the 77 Super Rare sold in auction at an average price of 2,389 BUSD. Perks: signed Ronaldo Binance shirt, automatic Whitelist for all future CR7 drops, free CR7 Mystery Box (from a future collection), entry into giveaways to win Ronaldo and Binance merchandise.

600 Rare sold for 700 BUSD. Perks : free CR7 Mystery Box (from a future collection), entry into giveaways to win Ronaldo and Binance merchandise.

6,000 Normal sold for 77 BUSD. Perks: entry into giveaways to win Ronaldo and Binance merchandise.

The remaining premium-rarity NFTs left in the collection were being held back for Binance US and Binance giveaways.

In July 2023, he launched his second collection “Forever CR7 The Goat” on Binance again. This collection of 29,327 NFTs immortalized Cristiano Ronaldo’s milestone goals from his career. 20 of his greatest ever goalscoring moments were transformed into digital NFT artworks divided into 4 rarity and backed by a range of holder benefits.

Normal (N) NFTs: each box costed 10 USDT and contained one of seven Normal NFTs representing a goalscoring milestone in CR7’s career, from goal 100 to goal 700. The Normal NFTs holders also receive a thank you message from Ronaldo, and automatic entry into future giveaways for CR7 merchandise.

Rare (R) NFTs: 6 designs available in 200 units each depicting an iconic Ronaldo goal (1,200 NFTs in total sold for 30 USDT). Rare NFT holders received a printable signed Binance x CR7 poster, a thank you message from Cristiano Ronaldo, and entry into future giveaway.

Super Rare (SR) NFTs: 6 designs available in 20 units featuring some of the biggest moments from CR7’s career (120 NFTs in total sold for 200 USDT). Benefits for these NFT holders included a printable signed Binance x CR7 poster, entry into future giveaways, plus a video from Ronaldo sharing his thoughts on the goal represented by the NFT. Holders also received a Binance football shirt signed by CR7.

Super Super Rare (SSR) NFTs: one unique design avaliable in 7 units representing Ronaldo’s greatest goal sold in auction with a starting price at 15,000 USDT. Rewards for SSR holders include every perk from the SR level, tickets to an upcoming Binance Blockchain Week and a once-in-a-lifetime experience: a training session with Cristiano Ronaldo.

In October 2023, Cristiano and Binance released 50,000 free CR7 ForeverZone Boxes with the chance to win a trip to train with the GOAT, signed merchandise, attend a Binance event, or exclusive NFT from their previous collections.

The integration of NFTs in sports represents a significant shift in the way fans engage with their favorite teams, clubs and players. NFTs offer a new dimension to fan interaction, providing unique opportunities for ownership, engagement, and participation in the sporting world. As they continues to evolve, it’s clear that NFTs have become an integral part of sports culture, opening up exciting possibilities for the future of fan experiences and athlete engagement.

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
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Miinded Studio

Case study : Beauty Brands’ Glow-Up with NFTs!

Miinded — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 07:22:01 GMT

Case study — Beauty Brands’ Glow-Up with NFTs!

Over the last 3 years, famous beauty brands have undergone a transformative shift and embarked on a journey into web3 to redefine consumer engagement and creativity, presenting a unique opportunity to redefine women’s inclusion and empowerment

Nars, Estée Lauder, MAC, NYX, L’Oréal and more have leveraged NFTs to engage with their audiences, celebrate iconic products and support social causes.

Nars

NARS — Orgasm Activated ( by DR. Alex Box & Clara Bacou)

In July and August 2021, Nars US ventured into the web3 with its “Orgasm Experienced” in collaboration with the NFT curation platform “Truesy”. Orgasm is the best-selling blush shade since its launch in 1999.

To coincide with National Orgasm Day on 31 July, NARS invited three female artists (Sara Shakeel, Azéde Jean-Pierre and Nina Kraviz) to express their vision of this hue through NFTs minted on Tezos blockchain.

“CONSUME ME” NFTs created by renowned crystal artist and collager Sara Shakeel were available for free, “CAPTIVATE ME” NFT by fashion designer and multimedia artist Azéde Jean-Pierre was priced at $50 and was redeemable for a limited-edition Orgasm blush-lip balm duo. Finally, DJ-music producer Nina Kraviz’s NFT (a sensory-stimulating audio, video and visual piece) called “TAKE ME” was sold for $500 and was redeemable for a treasure trove of Orgasm products for cheeks, lips, and eyes.

In September 2022, Nars HK celebrated its 20 years in Hong Kong with 2,022 NFTs called “POWERICON” and inspired by the new NARS Powermatte Lipstick Collection. The collection was created in collaboration with Rex Koo, alocal designer and illustrator. 1,702 were standard avatars and 320 were special edition avatars, and they gave holders priority access to the new lipstick Collection, VIP admission to an exclusive event and complimentary makeup service.
In February 2023, NARS joined forces with Boss Beauties, a leading female-founded web3 pioneer organization, to release “Odentity” NFT collection. Odentity was designed to drive self-expression and creativity and featured two collectibles : one airdropped to Boss Beauties holders, allowing them to transform their Boss Beauties background to an ‘Orgasm shade’ inspired look. The second collectible was available to claim for free to all.
To coincide with National Orgasm Day on July 31 2023, NARS Cosmetics introduced a new collection of 5 NFTs named “Orgasm, Activated”.

This collection again drew inspiration from the vibrant colors and textures of NARS’ iconic “Orgasm” makeup shade and was made in collaboration with 5 web3 artists: Dr. Alex Box, Serwah Attafuah, Nina “Ninocence” Hawkins, Clara Bacou, and Damara Ingles.

The Ethereum-based NFTs were set for auction on SuperRare platform and bidders who successfully acquired NFTs were entitled to exclusive perks:

An Infinite Objects frame ($169 value)
The complete Orgasm Collection ($315 value) with blush, lip balm, lipstick, eyeshadow palette…
A 45-minute, one-on-one consultation with NARS Global Makeup Artist Jenny Smith

Each NFT was auctionned between 0.134Ξ ($272) and 0.308Ξ ($625).
The generated proceeds aimed to support the participating artists, thereby contributing to the advancement of women’s careers in digital design.

E.l.f Cosmetics

E.l.f. Cosmetics — CryptoCosmetics

In June 2021, E.l.f. Cosmetics converted some of its most popular beauty products into NFTs (or “Ne.l.f.Ts.”) with its “CryptoCosmetics Collection”.

Created in collaboration with creative agency Movers+Shakers, the collection honored 3 of its products: the Poreless Putty Primer, the 16HR Camo Concealer and the Ride or Die Lip Balm, each created in only 3 units. All three NFTs were sold on platform Bitski between $5 and $9, the same affordable price as the physical products that inspired them.

The N.e.l.f.Ts sold out in only 9 minutes!

L’Oréal Paris

L’Oréal Paris — Reds of Worth

In December 2021, L’Oréal Paris partnered with United Talent Agency (UTA) to curate its first NFT series “Reds of Worth” .

The NFTs were created by 5 female NFT artists ( Amber Vittoria, Arina BB, Hueman, Lili Tae and Puks) and inspired by the shades of red — within the new L’Oréal Paris Reds of Worth by Colour Riche, range of lipsticks. The 5 NFTs were auctionned on Opensea, with a starting price at $1,500 and were sold between 1.6 WETH ($6,626) and 4 WETH ($16,027 at the time).

All five artists kept 100% of the primary sales proceeds, meanwhile, 50% of the transaction value of sales in the secondary market went towards L’Oréal’s philanthropic campaign, Women of Worth.

For L’Oréal, a brand with a predominantly female audience, venturing into wed3 through an initiative that supports and welcomes women involvement served to advocate for women in technology. According to the brand, in 2021 women account for only 5% of the total NFT sales. Furthermore, women represented just 16% of the NFT art market.

Clinique

Clinique — Metaverse More Like Us

In November 2021, Clinique launched its first NFTs called “metaoptimist”, made available through a giveaway. The 3 NFTs captured the spirit of its most iconic products, including fan-favorite Moisture Surge and the never-not-trending Black Honey.

To enter the competition, participants had to sign up for Clinique Smart Rewards (its loyalty program) and then post a video or photo with a caption telling who brings joy to their life every day, on Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter (now X).

The three winning Smart Reward members were awarded with one NFT, early access to Black Honey Almost Lipstick physical product and the opportunity to receive an assortment of Clinique products once a year for the next decade. These NFTs were a innovative way to celebrate consumer loyalty.

In June 2022, Clinique, in partnership with Daz 3D, launched makeup NFTs through the “Metaverse More Like Us” Campaign, aiming to build a better and more inclusive digital beauty world focused on accessibility to address the lack of representation in the Metaverse.

Clinique asked three makeup artists to create two looks: one designed for the physical world and the other for the metaverse, leveraging Daz 3D NFP avatars (Non-Fungible People, a collection of 8,888 hyper realistic PFP NFTs representing women and non-binary people).

Clinique dropped its NFTs over three months, with 2 looks per drop. Each of the three NFTs makeup drops were offered to 1,968 randomly selected avatar Non-Fungible People collection holders (the number 1968 is a nod to the year that Clinique was founded).

Nivea

Nivea — The Value of Touch

In December 2021, Nivea launched “The Value of Touch” to bring attention to the power of touch, using NFTs to discuss the value society attributed to it. Nivea collaborated with the artist Clarissa Baldassarri, who experienced a temporary loss of sight at the start of her career as an artist, sending her into a journey to discover how valuable touch can be. She used a technique known as “Blind Portrait” to create her NFT art.

The 15,000 NFTs were free (like touch, accessible while incredibly valuable and powerful) and all claimed in 48 hours.

Charlotte Tilbury

Charlotte Tilburry — Charlotte’s Beauty Realm

In November 2022, Charlotte Tilbury stepped into the metaverse, in partnership with e-commerce platform Obsess, with the opening of Charlotte’s Beauty Realm, a 3D virtual store with a beauty gaming experience.

Users had the option to create their own avatars and specify hair color, skin tone and body type, but also try on products and shop directly in-store and learn from the brand’s makeup artists through livestreamed content.

There was also a “shop with friends” option and an free NFT was offered for those who’ve experienced the store. The NFTs, created in partnership with tech industry specialists POAP Studio, offered access to exclusive product and beauty experiences.

Nyx

Nyx Professional Makeup — Dream Vortex Avatars by GORJS DAO

In June 2022, NYX Professional Makeup ventured into web3 partnering with The Sandbox and People of Crypto, a blockchain lab, to celebrate Pride Month in its metaverse called “the Valley of Belonging space”.

The avatars collection represented 84.3% of people, with over 36 skin tones, featuring a diverse range of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and gender identities. In total, 8,430 avatars were available for purchase in The Sandbox’s metaverse.

100% of the proceeds from the sale of the avatar NFTs (amounting to $50,000) were donated to the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

In January 2023, NYX announced the launch of GORJS, the world’s first beauty decentralized autonomous organization (“DAO”), inviting a community of 3D artists, web3 creators and beauty makers to create the future of digital beauty.
In February, GORJS released the “FKWME Pass”, a limited collection of NFTs used as access passes to unlock perks for the DAO’s first 1,000 members, each NFTs were sold 0.19 ETH ($312 at the time).

Benefits & Perks of FKWME NFT:

Early access to GORJS-participating artists’ NFT projects
Initial token allocation for immediate governance
Daily token yield for continual DAO governance, voting, and allowlist bidding
around 12 Airdrops of artist NFTs over a period of 3 years . Around 1 airdropped NFT per quarter — and each airdrop will be available based on a per project basis!
In April 2023, GORJS unveilled “Dream Vortex”, the Beauty DAO’s First Artist NFT Collection. NYX Professional Makeup recruited Team Alpha: nine artists selected for their talents to create 4,150 NFTs for the collection. Each NFT was designed from their interpretation of beauty, building on the values of diversity, creativity, inclusion and entertainment.

The collection drop was made in 4 phases: The first phase dedicated for members who earned GORJS ‘crowns’ (NFT badges that people can obtain by engaging in quests), the second and third phases were attributed to the allowlist and waitlist members, and the fourth phase for general sale on OpenSea as well. FKWME Pass holders were airdropped the Dream Vortex after the mint closes.

Participants had to mint an NFT pass via OpenSea and burn it in exchange for access to an avatar from the artists’ collections. Once their NFT was revealed, holders coud use the GORJS crowns to unlock utilities tied to avatar traits.

Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder — Metaverse Fashion Week on Decentraland, 2022

Estée Lauder joined web3 in March 2022 and offered 10,000 free NFTs during the Metaverse Fashion Week organized by Decentraland. The NFTs were designed in collaboration with the virtual creator and makeup artist Alex Box and inspired by Estée Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair serum.

Participants went trough an experiential journey to get their free NFT: they had to enter a bottle of the iconic Advanced Night Repair serum and apply it to give their avatars a radiant and glowing look.

In August 2022, Estée Lauder participated in Decentraland’s Metaverse Art Week with an exclusive POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) designed by Alex Box. The POAP could be claimed at one of three different stations, including the Sculpture Garden, CashLabs Gallery and ArtNet location. Once the POAP was claimed, holders got exclusive access to upcoming web3 activations from the brand.

MAC

M·A·C Cosmetics — Viva Glam

M·A·C Cosmetics paid tribute to Keith Haring with its first NFT collection in April 2022. The brand chose the National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to launch it in partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation.

Offered through its longstanding Viva Glam campaign, which has been advocating for equality for all since 1994, the NFTs featured animated lipsticks adorned with Keith Haring’s most iconic artworks.

With three levels of rarity and pricing : “The Keith Haring Red” available in 5,000 Rare tokens and sold for $25, “The Keith Haring Blue” available in 250 Exclusive tokens sold for $150 and the “Keith Haring Yellow” available in 25 Icons tokens and sold for $1,000.

Exclusive NFT holders unlocked a Keith Haring Blue-inspired look with a digital face chart tutorial created by a M·A·C Senior Artist.
Icon NFT holders received the full collection of three special-edition M·A·C VIVA GLAM x Keith Haring Lipsticks, in addition to a Keith Haring Yellow-inspired look with a digital face chart tutorial created by a M·A·C Senior Artist.

All the proceeds from primary NFT sales and 2.5% of secondary resales went to the M·A·C VIVA GLAM Fund and the Keith Haring Foundation, respectively, to support healthy futures and equal rights for youth living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Shiseido

Shiseido — AliveWithBeauty

In February 2023, the Japanese beauty brand Shiseido celebrated its 150th anniversary with the launch of a collection of 150 NFTs named “AliveWithBeauty” and co-created with AI technology DALLE-2 using a series of words related to beauty and web3 from five inspirational female pioneers :

Dr Alex Box, Identity Designer and Beauty Futurist.
Mary Greenwell, Award-winning MUA.
Lauren Ingram, Founder of Women of Web3.
Kaushal, Beauty and wellness influencer.
Sharmadean Reid, Founder of The Stack World.

The final creations were finalised by Cult’s in-house creative team.

Shiseido gifted the NFTs for free through a lottery. Participants were invited to enter the giveaway by providing their email address via the brand’s website, and the winners was notified once the draw closed.

The NFTs are used as membership and gave access to a series of exclusive rewards : £1,000 ($1,197) worth of skincare and samples throughout the year, access to exclusive content, tickets to both online and offline event.

Clarins

Clarins — As Rare As You

Clarins Precious — As Rare As You, the first collection of Clarins, in collaboration with BFF, Hervision and Altava, was launched in March 2023 on Polygon blockchain and Magic Eden marketplace, celebrating female digital artists working at the frontier of web3.

The collection of 325 free NFTs was co-created with two influential digital artists: da Sokół et Ines Alpha to celebrate the launch of the luxury anti-aging skincare line “Clarins Precious” using cryoextract of Moonlight Flower as key ingredient. This is derived from a flower that blooms only one night a year for a few hours, so the anti-oxidant cryoextract is extremely rare and is exclusive to Clarins Precious.

The project “ As Rare As You” was launched in 2 phases :

Phase 1: the NFT collection crafted by digital artist Ada Sokół was introduced. BFF holders also got exclusive first access to digital collectibles

Each of the NFTs granted access to exclusive rewards, including Clarins Precious products, personalized consultations, and virtual experiences. 4 ultra-rare NFTs offered unique rewards for VIP holders.

The second phase introduced the Instagram filter “AS RARE AS YOU,” a personalized AR experience created by artist Inès Alpha.

The emergence of NFTs in the beauty industry marks a significant convergence of art, technology, and consumer engagement. Through collaborations with artists, leveraging iconic product themes, and supporting social causes, beauty brands have established a strong foothold in web3.

These success stories not only showcase innovation but also foster inclusivity and creativity while redefining how consumers, and especially women, interact and engage with beauty products and experiences in web3.

As brands continue to explore the possibilities of NFTs, they are now able to build a new type of relationship with clients and social media followers, based on gamified, exclusive and engaged communities. By offering exclusive NFT ownership and access to perks, brands aim to grow their reputation and build a stronger connection with their audience.

About Miinded

Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
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Miinded Studio

Case Study — NFTs in the fast lane: 12 automotive giants ride on the blockchain

Miinded — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:28:16 GMT

Case Study — NFTs in the fast lane: 12 automotive giants ride on the blockchain

After diving in how the luxury and food industries used NFTs let’s have a look at how the automotive industry joined the web3 as well. Famous car brands such as Renault, McLaren, Aston Martin, and Mercedes, Lamborghini or Audi capitalized on the blockchain technology to create unique and immersive experiences. This article explores how these car manufacturers have leveraged NFTs to bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds, opening up new avenues for engagement, brand loyalty and innovation.

Renault

Renault — GenR5 Genesis collection

In 2022, Renault ventured into the web3 by launching their NFT platform called “R3NLT”. This initiative was part of Renault’s preparations for the release of their upcoming R5 model in 2024. They also launched their first collection named “GenR5”, which paid homage to the genesis of the iconic R5, created in 1972, and offers exclusive insights into the future R5 prototype. The NFTS were available for purchase for €100.

The 1,972 NFTs were categorized as follows:

100 NFTs representing the 1972 R5 Electric model.
160 NFTs symbolizing the R5 Turbo, a nod to the sporty variant’s power.
450 NFTs for the R5 Le Car Van, reflecting the number of units produced.
1,262 NFTs representing the classic and iconic R5 TL model.

Accessible to everyone, this collection could be acquired through the “R3NLT” platform. Buyers had the chance to obtain rare versions as each NFT was randomly allocated.

Acquiring a genR5 NFT came with its perks : whitelist for next drops, meeting with automotive designers, visit of the Renault factory, test drives on the track, and exploring prototypes, VIP invitation to Roland Garros…Holders of a genR5 NFT pass also had the opportunity to participate in the co-creation of The Originals merchandise items inspired by the collection. These items were produced in limited quantities and exclusively available to genR5 pass holders.
Additionally, each genR5 NFT pass holder becomes a patron of the Give Me Five (GM5) charitable project dedicated to the younger generation. A portion of the NFT sale proceeds went to restore tennis courts, enabling young people in underserved communities to engage in the sport.

Following the success of the first NFT collection, R3NLT has made a comeback in May 2023 with their second drop called “RACING SHOE5” featuring a limited edition collection of sneakers, both physical and digital.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Renault 5, this capsule collection comprises 5 distinct color variations, inspired by five iconic R5 Turbo models. Additionally, a sixth colorway was co-created with Renault’s designers and the R3NLT community in honor of the Turbo 3E-Tech, which is entirely electric. This collection offers a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in the world of R5 Turbo through a captivating 3D experience.

To acquire a physical pair of these sneakers, participants needed to purchase the double digital NFT on the Renault platform. The purchase of RACING SHOE5 sneakers was exclusively available on the Renault 3D virtual store, and they cauldn’t be obtained through secondary NFT markets.

The decision to produce only 960 pairs is a tribute to the number of horsepower in the engines of the R5 Turbo, with each of the six models being produced in 160 units.

What was included with the RACING SHOE5 purchase :

The physical pair of shoes in the chosen color and size.
The digital NFT passport for the physical pair of shoes.
The digital collectible NFT corresponding to the physical pair of shoes.

The sale was first opened for genR5 NFT holders then opened to individuals registered for the pre-sale and public sale.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen France — ID.Buzz collection

In January 2022, Volkswagen Passenger Cars Malaysia (VPCM) joined forces with the new media art collective Filamen to introduce an exclusive Arteon NFT collection titled “Accelerated Futurescapes.”

This collection featured 4 one-of-a-kind NFTs inspired by the Volkswagen Arteon R-Line created by Jason Choo and Syed Muhammad. These NFTs were made available for purchase on the Southeast Asia NFT platform Pentas (a leading South East Asia NFT Platform powered by Binance Smart Chain) and were also showcased on Filamen’s virtual gallery and the co-curated design research platform, No-to-scale. This marked the second art collaboration to feature the Arteon model, with a previous collaboration in 2019 with Wei-Ling Contemporary art gallery.

Each NFT was priced at USD 1,314 (approx 2.5 BNB — Binance Coin) at the time.

In April 2022, Volkswagen South Africa joined the exciting journey into the web3 with an immersive NFT treasure hunt, developed in collaboration with Ogilvy South Africa, a marketing communications networks. This innovative campaign, named “Game On”, was designed to showcase their latest Polo model, with IQ.DRIVE, Volkswagen’s advanced safety and intelligence system.

For five days, Polo fans could hunt the hidden NFTs in the commercial and stood a chance to win one of 100 NFTs called “Mzansiverse”, all inspired by the streets of South Africa (Aka Mzansi). Among these NFTs, 3 Golden NFTs unlocked unique prizes including a PS5 gaming consoles, Superbalist vouchers, GetSmarter course, and a driving course from Volkswagen Advanced Driving.

To participate, players needed to solve the daily clues shared on Volkswagen’s social media to guess the daily NFT. To stand a chance to win, they had to tweet a screenshot of the daily NFT hidden inside the ad to the Volkswagen Twitter page.

The same month, Volkswagen Brazil introduced “The Digital Garage VW”, an innovative concept offering exclusive digital content through collectible cards packs featuring Volkswagen cars, including iconic models, classics, and concept cars. This format allowed automotive enthusiasts to collect, store, exchange and even sell these digital items, creating a digital garage.

Each pack is sold between $15 (R$75.00, Brazilian real the official currency of Brazil) and $10 (R$50.00).

In May 2022, Volkswagen France collaborated with the artist Marylou Faure to create a limited edition collection of 3 NFTs based on the digital version of the ID.Buzz, drawing inspiration from nature, surfing and festivals. The artist expressed her art through colorful and joyful pop-style works, aligning perfectly with the ID.Buzz’s philosophy.

Throughout their history, the Volkswagen Combi has been canvas for numerous artists. To pay tribute to this legacy and position the all-electric ID.Buzz in the digital era, Volkswagen France and agency DDB Paris drew inspiration from the Combi’s iconic history, reimagining the famous trend of customization. NFTs were integrated into the project, combining art and innovation

These NFTs could be won by the community through a creative contest. Participants were invited to download a photo of the ID.Buzz from the Volkswagen France website and use Instagram to apply various stickers to personalize the modern Combi. They were encouraged to share their creations in their stories. A jury selected the three standout creations, and the creators were rewarded with one of the three NFTs, each in a unique edition.

This contest allowed Volkswagen to engage their community while they awaited the arrival of the ID.Buzz, scheduled for dealership release later in the year. This approach offered an experiential way for customers to interact with the model, even digitally owning a piece of it.

Hyundai

Hyundai x Meta Kongz collection

In April 2022, Hyundai Motor Company introduced their NFT concept named the “Metamobility universe”. They released 30 limited edition NFTs to celebrate the launch of a short film announcing their partnership with the NFT collection “Meta Kongz”, with also a clue to guess their next drop “shooting star”. The proceeds from the sales went towards project management and community members.

Then, in May, Hyundai Motor sold 10,000 “Shooting Star” NFTs on their dedicated website. The pre-sale for the 3,000 whitelisted people who won a community NFT event organized by Hyundai’s NFT community was followed by a general sale for 6,500 NFTs. The remaining 500 were distributed as airdrops, events, and other promotions, to increase asset value for the project.

Hyundai applied the “Reveal” method, displaying a substitute image before later revealing the actual exclusive NFT. Few days later, the Shooting Stars NFTs were transformed into “MobED“ (Mobile Eccentric Droid) NFTs.

The NFTs were sold 0.15 ETH, approximately $350 — €400.

June 2022: 2nd Metamobility NFT airdrop to MobED holders.
July 2022: Hyundai Motor revealed 5,000 unique IONIQ 6 NFTs on the same day as the world premiere of IONIQ brand’s much-anticipated ‘Electrified Streamliner’. The IONIQ Citizenship, an NFT membership program, provides IONIQ 6 NFT owners with exclusive experiences and utilities

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo Tonale SUv connected to NFT

In February 2022, Alfa Romeo connected each unit of their Tonale SUV to a unique NFT on the blockchain. This groundbreaking approach aimed to provide a comprehensive record of each vehicle’s lifecycle and certify maintenance tracking, with the customer’s consent.

The Tonale SUV was the first vehicle to come with a digital certificate in the form of an NFT. The record guarantee that the car has been properly maintained and it can positively impact the residual value of the Tonale in case of reselling. However, it’s important to note that the data must be recorded by an authorized dealership of the brand and not directly by the owner to prevent misuse.

Alpine

Alpine Cars and Alpine F1 — Alpine GTA Concept collection

In November 2021, Alpine Cars and Alpine F1 Team made a significant move into web3 by becoming the first automaker to release an NFT-exclusive concept car, the Alpine GTA Concept, available in 5 different designs.

The Alpine GTA Concept NFTs were designed by Arseny Kostromin, a Russian artist, in collaboration with the start-up NFAST, a company specializing in the design and production of hypercars in the form of NFTs, and auctioned in Opensea.

As part of the NFT project with the Alpine GTA Concept, Alpine collaborated with Animoca Brands, a global leader in blockchain-based gaming. Holders of the 5 NFTs can race their Alpine GTA Concept cars in REVV Racing, the first blockchain-based skill-based racing simulation game.

In November 2022, Alpine introduced the “Let There Be Light” NFT collection featuring the A110 Sastruga, an art car created in collaboration with French Art Collective Obvious.

“There Be Light” collection was built on three tiers of NFTs: Legendary (15 ETH), Ultra Rare (1.5 ETH) and Common (free), with AI-Generated artworks.

Common NFT : With a supply of 1,500 NFTs available for free, the holders get access to a private channel, aiming to foster community spirit while providing direct exposure to the Brand in a very interactive way.

Ultra Rare NFT : with only 100 NFTs, the Ultra Rare tier of Alpine’s ‘Let There Be Light’ Genesis Collection represents, along with the Legendary tier, the birth of Alpine’s private Web3 club. Each Ultra Rare NFT unlocked immediate and long-term utilities, including physical products signed by Alpine F1 season Drivers, unique branded products, access to VIP experiences and much more. Holding an Ultra Rare NFT was also a VIP key to all things Alpine.

Legendary: The Legendary Tier consists of a unique NFT, representing the highest level of Prestige in Alpine’s Web3 journey and unlocking the most valuable benefits for its holder. Amongst other utilities, the Legendary NFT grants holder the opportunity to become a Formula 1 driver for a day.

Indeed, the Alpine Cars and Alpine F1 teams have prepared an unforgettable experience for the Legendary NFT holder on the Circuit Paul Ricard track, located in the south of France. The collector of the Legendary NFT is also entitled to all the utilities associated with the Ultra Rare tier with priority access, including unique Branded products, official racing products signed by F1 season drivers, exclusive invitations to private events and many more surprises.

Audi

Audi — “Unseen Universe” artwork

In May 2022, Audi introduced a collection that stands out in several ways. At the OMR (Online Marketing Rockstars) Festival in Hamburg, the digital and online scene’s largest trade fair, Audi turned their pavilion into a stage for a digital art campaign. Artists Ferdi Alici and Eylul Alici of digital art pioneer Ouchhh studio used the Audi pavilion as a design space for their digital artwork “Unseen Universe”.

The campaign put people at the center: a work of living organic AI data art was created in real-time with data from more than 70,000 human behaviors, thanks to chips in the wristbands of the visitors that let the data from their movements, interactions, and experiences flow into the digital artwork.

The digital artwork “Unseen Universe” was auctioned after the festival as 7,000 NFTs, generating a value of more than $860,000 (as of June 8, 2022). Proceeds from the campaign continued to rise because each time an “Unseen Universe” NFT is resold, 10% of the price is donated to UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe e.V. for the benefit of Ukraine.

The 7,000 NFTs came in 5 rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and one Legendary. Each NFT was priced priced 0.05 ETH (approx $86) and the Legendary NFT was auctioned separately on Timeless for $50,000.

Lamborghini

Lamborghini — “Space Time Memory” NFT

In September 2021, the owner and heir of the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum, Tonino and Ferruccio Jr., announced the first NFT drop in Lamborghini history in collaboration with Elysium Bridge platform, to sell in auction the rarest pieces from their private collection. Many of the NFTs were sold, especially the photographs by Lamborghini’s official photographer, Paulo Renftle, sold for 15 ETH.

In February 2022, Lamborghini announced the launch of a new NFT project: “Space Time Memory”, a series of 5 photographs of a Lamborghini Ultimae taking off to the stars. Swiss artist Fabian Oefner created the compositions from real elements, capturing more than 1,500 individual parts of a real car.

The NFTs were accessible via a QR code embedded in a physical object, the “Space Key”, a remarkable piece of advanced carbon fiber composite material sent by Lamborghini to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2019 as part of a joint research venture.

Lamborghini — Space Key

This captivating project was developed in partnership with NFT PRO, a white-label NFT solution for enterprises. The first day of the new lunar year came and so has the opening of the auction in collaboration with Sotheby’s, the world’s largest collector car auction house. The NFTs and the Space Keys were sold between $70,000 and $203,000.

In April 2022, Lamborghini partnered with artists Krista Kim and Steve Aoki and global brand storytelling agency INVNT GROUP for a revolutionary project: the last Aventador LP 780–4 Ultimae coupé ever produced was auctioned along with an exclusive 1:1 NFT. The holder of this Lamborghini NFT collectible had access to VIP utilities, including exclusive virtual previews of future limited-edition Lamborghini models, a private tour of the Museo Lamborghini and a virtual meet and greet with artists Steve Aoki and Krista Kim. The car and its NFT were sold in auction for $1,603,125 USD.

In October 2022, Lamborghini released their new NFT project called “The Epic Road Trip”. In this venture, the automaker introduced a monthly series of 4 exclusive NFTs. The NFTs for the month were sold over four consecutive days, each one only available for 24 hours. So, the goal was to complete the collection of the four NFTs each month.

Every month, there were 3 silver limited-edition NFTs (1,963 available at $196.30 each), and one exclusive “rare” gold NFT (63 available at $1,963 each) — a nod to Lamborghini’s birth year.

This operation was scheduled to run for eight months, concluding on March 23, 2023. Each month, participants had to assemble the puzzle to get utility rewards like commemorative digital wallpaper, early access to buy gold NFT, digital sketch created specifically for The Epic Road Trip campaign by Mitja Borkert, Head of Design at Lamborghini, etc.

At the end of the campaign, holders of all eight puzzle pieces for either the silver and/or gold puzzle got the reveal of a “hidden Lamborghini vehicle, very rare and unique”.

In February 2023, Lamborghini dedicated a collection to the Huracán STO (“Super Trofeo Omologata”) model on the NFT marketplace VeVe. These collectibles were offered for purchase via blind box for $70, with 4 different levels of rarity : the Huracán STO — Bianco Asopo/Blu Le Mans 2,950 NFTs), Huracán STO — Grigio Titans/Giallo Belenus (2,014 NFTs), Huracán STO — Rosso Epona/Grigio Adamas (1,000 NFTs) and Huracán STO — Verde Citrea/Arancio DAC (640 NFTs).

Kia

Kia America — Robo Dog collection

In February 2022, Kia America launched an NFT collection named “Robo Dog”. 90% of initial sales proceeds went to help animal shelters and rescues across the country.

The sale of the 10,000 “Robo Dog” NFTs raised $100,000. This amount supplemented the $500,000 contribution previously made to the PetFinder Foundation as part of their year-long partnership.

Also, 10% royalty was incorporated into the smart contract of these NFTs on the blockchain. Consequently, every time a Robo Dog NFT was resold on a secondary market, the Petfinder Foundation received additional funds to support its efforts in aiding abandoned animals. These digital collectibles were made available for purchase on the Sweet NFT marketplace at a unit price of $20.22.

The launch of the NFT collection took place in two stages: the first stage involved approximately 10,000 NFTs called “adoption passes,” minted on the Tezos blockchain and distributed for free. The second stage occurred a week later with the release of an additional 10,000 NFTs.

The funds raised enabled The Petfinder Foundation to cover the adoption fees for 22,422 puppies in shelters. This charitable organization strives to prevent the euthanasia of potentially adoptable pets by providing financial assistance to shelters and rescue groups throughout North America.

In July 2022, Kia America and Sweet joined forces once again to introduce an innovative NFT collection this time incorporating digital collectibles inside of a commercial for the all-new 2023 Kia Soul. The 30-second spot centered around the theme of individuality as part of Kia’s “Built for Whoever You Are” campaign, featuring three NFT characters from the popular DASK collection.

Kia incorporated a unique QR code embedded into the commercial, so viewers scanned the code with a smartphone to obtain for free one of the 10,100 NFTs

In November 2022, Kia America celebrated the place basketball fans and players first fall in love with the game: the driveway.

As part of the “Legends of the Driveway” campaign, Kia introduced this special NFT collection, giving collectors the chance to unlock limited-edition prizes for the season. 90% of the purchase price from each NFTs sold contributed to MobilizeGreen, a nonprofit helping diverse students secure sustainability internships and conservation jobs.

The collection was launched in conjunction with “Giving Tuesday” on November 29. Collectors could start minting their NFTs through the Sweet platform, with each collectible priced at $49.99. Notably, each token also served as an entry for a sweepstakes offering a chance to win an unforgettable weekend trip to the 2023 NBA All-Star game. The collection featured 5 designs with a supply of 405 NFTs for each (403 for the 5th design), so 2,023 NFTs in total.

In August 2023, for the brand’s first 100% electric 7-seater SUV, Kia France introduced a unique experience: prospective customers of the EV9 could obtain one of the 500 NFTs through registration on a dedicated web portal, granting them access to exclusive experiences. The customer experience was created to reflect the image of the all-new SUV: innovative, audacious and connected,

For this campaign, titled ”REVEAL 9”, over 500 NFTs were up for grabs, with each NFT comprising nine facets, each tied to a brand experience. These facets were gradually revealed, creating key milestones for an exclusive journey to discover the Kia EV9. Holders will get access to events like grand EV9 launch event in Paris, offering an exceptional experience in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne, Finals of the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC), with which Kia has been a partner for five years and exclusive EV9 test-drives.

Bugatti

The Asprey Bugatti Egg Collection

In March 2022, Bugatti collaborated with Asprey Studio for the first time to create 261 sculptures representing “La Voiture Noire”, made from sterling silver, connected to NFTs and available by invitation only. These limited editions were limited to 261 units, symbolizing the top speed of the unique sports car. Holders of the NFTs benefited from additional Asprey Studio utilities, including; events, complimentary collectables and whitelisting to all upcoming releases.

Another larger sculpture was also produced as a one-of-a-kind piece. This masterpiece was handcrafted from 24-carat rose gold during 6 months and linked to an NFT through a QR code. It was sold in June 2022 for £378,000 — around $458,000 / €438 805 (including the buyer’s premium) to a knowledgeable buyer, along with the NFT. This NFT unlocked the opportunity to purchase an additional sculpture — a Black version of the original artwork. The buyer had the choice to order it at an additional cost.

In May 2023, Bugatti and Asprey Studio announced a second limited-edition collection of precious jewelled objet eggs. The Royale Edition of the new Asprey Bugatti Egg Collection brought together timeless creations of the Bugatti family with Asprey’s heritage and craftsmanship.

The collection, known as “The Asprey Bugatti Egg Collection” gathered 111 decorative eggs . These eggs were numbered, with editions 1 to 100 crafted from carbon fiber and precious metals, some even adorned with exquisite diamonds. The prices for these exceptional eggs range from $20,000 to $50,000. However, the most prestigious offerings in this collection were the 11 eggs remaining. These high jewelry versions are adorned with diamonds and Imperial Jade in various colors. The starting price for these exquisite pieces begins at $200,000.

These physical eggs came together with an evolving NFT artwork, hosted on the Bitcoin blockchain, portraying an ovoid silhouette. The creators have ingeniously designed it so that “once a week, the oval shape will take on the actual form of the physical Asprey Bugatti objet.”

Bugatti also just released their new drop with Adidas: limited edition football boot “the adidas X Crazyfast Bugatti”. Produced in a limited run of just 99 pairs, the shoes are engineered for speed and lightness, finished with a number of bespoke Bugatti design flourishes. The minimum is set at 0.2 ETH and ALTS by adidas: STRIKES ALT[er] Ego & Asprey Bugatti NFT holders will receive exclusive benefits. The auction remains open for 72 hours and will close on November 11th. Afterwards all winners will receive an exclusive digital shoebox which can be redeemed, from November 13th onwards for the complementary physical pair and digital twin.

Aston Martin

Aston Martin x Infinite Drive — Vantage collection

In 2021 March, Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team joined forces with Crypto.com to released an NFT collection “AMR21” with 5 items (with a supply from 61 to 500 NFTs for each design), achieving over $2,000,000 in sales. It featured dynamic videos content showcasing the AMR21 car to mark the Grand Prix 2021 race.

In February 2022, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team partnerered again with Crypto.com to release an NFT drop that celebrated the launch of the grand prix team’s 2022 race car, the AMR22, set to attend the 2022 Formula 1 Grand Prix championship.

This NFT release was structured into three distinct tiers: accelerate, slipstream, and velocity. These tiers offered escalating levels of exclusivity and unlocked various rewards.

Fans who managed to collect all 4 component NFTs (the front wing, the rear wing, the steering wheel and the halo) were also given the opportunity to purchase a special-edition asset, the full AMR22 model.

As an additional reward, holders of the first collection were offered a complimentary NFT as a gift for their support of the original collection.

In December 2022, Aston Martin launched a collection of 3,000 NFTs, each representing three of the brand’s most iconic cars: the new Vantage V8 Coupe, the Vantage GT3 racing model, and the 1980 Vantage V8.

This collection focused on Aston Martin’s Vantage model, a vehicle that has evolved over the years in response to changing trends. Every NFT was meticulously designed to mirror its real-world version and people could acquire them on Polygon in three tiers: Legendary, Rare and Epic, for 66 MATIC ($52 — €60 at the time).

These NFT cars were also playable in a mobile game called “Infinite Drive” developed by The Tiny Digital Factory. Infinite Drive is a play-to-earn game where players can take the wheel of NFT cars from some of the most renowned automakers.

With their NFTs, holders got access to the closed alpha of the Infinite Drive metaverse and could join specific competition made for the cars they own. They also had priority in the upcoming NFT cars releases.

In May 2023, the AMF1 Team and Crypto.com released again a collection ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. The NFT collection, titled “Inspire — Empower — Believe”, was designed by local artist Rei Ramirez, who has set out to paint a unique picture of AMF1 Team in Magic City. The proceeds went to education non-profit Dibia DREAM to fund STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths) education for Miami youngsters.

While “Inspire” was an open edition drop, “Empower”, featuring Lance and Fernando, was a limited edition that transitioned from physical canvas art to a digital format.

Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz NXT — “Icons” collection

In January 2022, Mercedes-Benz has teamed up with the cryptocurrency artists’ collective known as ART2PEOPLE for their first collaborative NFT project. 5 talented artists were curated to create digital interpretations of the Mercedes-Benz Classe G.

The “NFG” (Non Fungible G-Class) project was unveiled on the Nifty Gateway NFT platform, with the NFT artworks priced between $222 and $1,554 USD. If sales hit $1 million, a physical G-Class raffle was made available for all NFT holders. Another raffle was planned if it reached $2 million.

In May 2022, Mercedes-AMG Petronas teamed up with FTX US marketplace and the prominent digital artist Mad Dog Jones to introduce a three-part NFT concept that would be offered to fans during the remaining races of the 2022 season. This initiative was set to kick off at the first Grand Prix of Miami in 2022.

For each race of the season, there were 2,500 dedicated NFT Stub tickets (which are digital and artistic interpretations of Mercedes F1 race tickets) that would be randomly given to fans. Then, 1,000 limited edition NFT ticket stubs for five races were available for fans to claim. To finish, 10 NFTs, created in collaboration with multi-disciplinary artist Mad Dog Jones, could be purchased through auctions on the marketplace FTX.

The proceeds from the auction went to Ignite, a charitable initiative with the mission of supporting greater diversity and inclusion within motorsport.

In June 2023, Mercedes-Benz NXT, the web3 division of the automobile manufacturer, announced the launch of a NFT collection named “Maschine”, created in collaboration with the Dutch artist Harm van den Dorpel and the collector group Fingerprints DAO (a decentralized autonomous organization with its own NFT art gallery).

This particular collection gathered 1,000 NFTs hosted and explored the themes of motion, velocity and perception. The NFT sale took the form of a Dutch auction, where the price decreases gradually over time.

Mercedes-Benz NXT also released 2 other collections in August 2023: “Eternities”, exclusively open to a small number of selected Mercedes-Benz top customers and minted over time at selected top-customer events.

The collection “Icons” minting is still live and takes an anti-chronological journey through this heritage. It consists of a series of 7 eras, each featuring selected iconic highlights, with 2,694 NFTs (except era 7: 2,696 NFTs) per release, resulting in a total of 18,860 NFTs released over time, with a new one coming every few months, sold for 0,1ETH ($163 at the time).

Mclaren

McLaren Automotive — MSO LAB Genesis Collection

In October 2021, McLaren Racing created an NFT platform named the “McLaren Racing Collective” on the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain. This online platform served global community of collectors and fans by hosting digital collectible programme.

The initial NFTs were gifted for free to fans who joined the McLaren Racing Collective platform. They had the opportunity to collect one or more components as they were gradually released. This experience allowed fans to gradually accumulate all 22 available components and assemble the complete digital MCL35M race car. The release of these collectibles occurred in five stages.

The first person to successfully assemble a full MCL35M through collecting all the components won a trip to a McLaren Formula 1 VIP race weekend experience in 2022.

In December 2022, Mclaren launched “Reactor Motors”, an unprecedented NFT drop in collaboration with the creative agency 1ofOne.

The collection of 8,888 unique NFTs was launched on the Ethereum blockchain and upgraded over time, with each NFTs sold for 0,08ETH ($259). But the main point is that one lucky Reactor NFT holder won a physical custom Iron Man McLaren supercar which is worth $500K! As well, all Reactor Motors NFT holders could use their collectibles in an exclusive metaverse racing game: the Reactor Raceway.

Reactor Motors was the genesis drop to kick off the Reactorverse: a space for all collectors to come together on the journey towards immersive metaverse gameplay, experiences, and rewards.

In May 2022, McLaren Automotive introced their “MSO (McLaren Special Operations) LAB Genesis” Collection: a series of 2,012 (a tribute to the year it was introduced) unique McLaren Automotive NFTs featuring the iconic McLaren P1 & P1 GTR. Each NFT featured a unique MSO LAB generative treatment across five tiers — LAB Studio (1,000 NFTs), LAB Studio+ (893 NFTs), LAB Works (100 NFTs), LAB Icons (5 NFTs) and LAB Honorary (14 NFTs gifted to honorary members of the MSO LAB community**)** — and marked McLaren Automotive’s first step into the metaverse. Holders of these NFTs gained Category One membership to the MSO LAB community and access to an evolving range of benefits and rewards.

Each McLaren NFT were priced at 0.5ETH or around ($2,024.13 — €1 389,22 at the time).

This year, Mclaren Racing created “23/23 Collectibles”: race specific digital collectibles for fans to own a piece of each race from the 2023 season.

Each collectible drop is unique to one of the 23 races and these NFTs can only be claimed during the time window of the race weekend! By collecting all the McLaren Racing 23/23 NFTs (one from each race) and holding these in their wallet, on a specific “snapshot” date at the end of the season, holders have the opportunity to enter into an end of season draw with the chance to win rewards, like places for race experience in 2024, poster signed by a McLaren Formula 1 Team driver or a virtual meet & greet with McLaren Racing CEO, Zak Brown.

The adoption of NFTs by renowned car brands like Renault, McLaren, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Alpine, Hyundai or Mercedes represents a significant shift in the automotive industry’s digital transformation. At the time of writing, Fiat has also just announced their entry into the web3 with a competition.
These manufacturers have harnessed blockchain technology to provide their customers with exclusive, limited-edition NFTs that blur the lines between the tangible and the virtual. By introducing NFTs in their marketing strategy, these brands have not only enhanced their fan engagement but have also set the stage for the future of collectibles and experiences in the automotive world.

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