Azuki Crashed, BAYC Launched New Game — Where Are NFT Projects Heading?

NFT projects are facing problems.

That’s right, even the once high-flying NFT projects have crashed again. You can read other experts’ articles, especially the very detailed one on Planet Daily, for the origins and process of Azuki’s crash.

And now, Azuki is trying to “whitewash” itself among the community and users again through community AMAs, airdropping NFTs and other PR tactics. However, reputation is in the eye of the beholder. We can only say, “the market speaks for itself.”

The collapse of brand trust has triggered a market-wide crash, with floor prices falling almost by half. So going forward, can the market and users be won back through “whitewashing”? Let’s wait and see.

However, in my opinion, if it was merely innovation in PFPs and a price premium caused by the brand, running out of steam would be inevitable. At the root, there is no real innovation or application beyond the brand effect. Here, another question surfaces — how can NFT projects achieve sustainable growth? Clearly, relying solely on PFPs is no longer enough to drive upward momentum in the entire market.

Speaking of which, following Azuki’s crash, BAYC coincidentally issued a statement at the same time about the release of their new game HV-MTL Forge guide, covering 6 seasons and 6 upgrade opportunities accordingly. This reminds me of their pivot after the NFT market downturn — Dookey Dash, a classic arcade game (GameFi) featuring their monkey avatars.

Speaking of crashes, following Azuki’s downfall, BAYC coincidentally issued a statement at the same time about the release of their new game HV-MTL Forge guide, covering 6 seasons and 6 upgrade opportunities accordingly. This reminds me of their pivot after the NFT market downturn — Dookey Dash, a classic arcade game (GameFi) featuring their monkey avatars.

In this game, players only need to maneuver a flying vehicle in the sewers to collect fragmentary items, dodge or even destroy obstacles, in order to maximize the high score. With its simple, addictive gameplay and branding and marketing tactics, Dookey Dash garnered player attention as soon as it was released. The game drove up interest in their NFTs and tokens, achieving very impressive data.

According to NFTGo’s statistics, in just 3 weeks after the game’s release:

1. A total of 25,525 Sewer Pass holders played 7,487,850 times, with each player spending an average of 27.7 hours on this “mini game”.

2. ApeCoin rose to its yearly high of around $6 during the game’s launch.

So, can HV-MTL Forge recreate Dookey Dash’s success this time? If so, it would provide a more reliable transformation model for the entire PFP NFT sector — transitioning from NFT projects to GameFi projects with NFTs as key assets and props.

Of course, GameFi is just one direction NFT projects can pivot towards. Looking at the entire Web3 market, we can see that NFTs are no longer limited to PFPs used for social purposes. They are also trust credentials formed by distributed ledgers and encryption technology, being used in much wider scenarios.

Below are some of the transformation directions I’m interested in and find worth researching:

Decentralized Identity (DID)

DID in previous years was more cryptographic, with identity strings displayed as “did:xxx:xxx” raising the barrier for ordinary users.

However, visual domain names represented by .eth and .bnb NFTs have now occupied most of the market. By combining bottom layer resolution methods, one-click login, and NFT display formats, they can gain better user adoption.

On-chain Tickets

The essence of NFTs are verifiable credentials, so they can completely be used as “tickets” for users to participate in activities with their “NFTs”. Earlier, during a conference in Hong Kong, Ou Yi cooperated with the organizer to issue on-chain tickets. Actually, even earlier last year, more cases already emerged in the sports field, especially for NBA games.

Membership credentials

Whether it’s SBTs, or NFTs users obtain from participating in various activities, they are the most credible symbols of a user’s loyalty to a project, as well as contribution credentials.

Unlike traditional membership systems that use points to represent and differentiate membership levels, by utilizing NFTs, not only does it make membership status more credible, it also allows holders to gain greater benefits (NFTs are tradable and have royalty fees set up), and enables projects to better understand users through NFT data. Moreover, NFT designs are often based on brand settings, making the entire membership system align more with the project’s own attributes, thereby forming an even better brand effect.

Therefore, I have mentioned quite a few related projects in recent articles, interested readers can go back and learn about them.

However, in my opinion, GameFi still remains the best transformation direction for NFTs — integrating fun, social elements and NFT derivatives into one, providing a smooth development path without requiring NFT projects to completely pivot.