To Flow or Not to Flow?
Here is a story that we all know, CryptoKitties caused a viral sensation in 2017 and sent prices for some kittens well into the six figures. What’s more, the game clogged up the entire Ethereum Network delaying transactions and causing a pile-up of unprocessed transactions.
As such, the developers behind CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs, created a new blockchain specifically designed for blockchain-based games and digital collectibles (also known as a non-fungible token, NFT). With NFT, every asset on the blockchain is unique and is therefore not replicable. This unique aspect is written inside the metadata of the token itself and can be seen as a permanent, unalterable certificate of authenticity.
NFT can solve the unfair status quo that game companies control access to digital items. Imagine this: you buy character skins and emojis from the world’s most popular game, Fortnite, but you do not really own these items. If you get banned for whatever reasons, the company can drive you off the platform and take your items and account away from you.
Dapper Labs has teamed up with NBA (National Basketball Association) and NBPA (National Basketball Players Association) to create NBA Top Shot, a fully-licensed NBA experience for collectors and gamers. For the first time ever, NBA fans can truly own a piece of the action and trade with friends in a new kind of hoops economy.
Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Flow, believes that just like the PC era, entertainment and games are also leading the large-scale popularization and application of blockchain technology. This was the original intention of Dapper Labs when it developed CryptoKitties on Ethereum. At the end of 2017, CryptoKitties became the top-selling DApp, with a total sales volume of 40 million U.S. dollars. The Flow-based NBA Top Shot absorbed the experience from CryptoKtties and got rid of its limitations on the Ethereum Network. In just 3 months, NBA Top Shot’s transactions between users have exceeded 21 million US dollars, and the user retention rate is as high as 75%.
In addition to the NBA Top Shot, Flow hopes to support more applications to succeed. Therefore, it is promoting a healthy and prosperous ecosystem built by developers, creators, FLOW token holders, and network operators. In addition to Flow, it has a lot of development tools and libraries, such as Flow Playground, Flow SDK, VS Code Extension, etc. More importantly, Flow’s smart contracts can be upgraded, and developers do not need to completely abandon the old contracts.
The nature of blockchain is established on a foundation of trust and permissionless. Creators, developers, and users do not need anyone’s approval to do their own things. This means that one can unleash their talents without any restriction.
In the world of user-generated content (UGC), Dapper Lab and its Flow project create a blockchain ecosystem with a solid foundation, cutting edge concepts, and user-friendly experiences. It narrows the gap between real-world use cases and blockchain technology to provide more users with convenient and friendly ways to use decentralized applications.
