2021: the Year Web3 and the Open Metaverse Became Inevitable
Year in Review from Dapper Labs and Flow blockchain — featuring NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, Genies, Ballerz, and more.
A little over a year ago, on October 16, 2020, Dapper Labs launched the open beta of NBA Top Shot into a very different world. “Crypto” was seen as almost exclusively about currency back then — ”NFT” was a niche term, “Metaverse” was not yet on most radars, Web3 was in its infancy.
Everything is different now. NBA Top Shot itself has grown more than 100x — from ~10k signups and ~1k active users this week last December to over a million signups and ~150k active users last week. We’re now taking our work to the next level with NBA Top Shot (2022 roadmap) and starting to roll out the new NFL All Day, with UFC and La Liga close behind!
We’ve seen the community of Web3 developers building on Flow (flow.com) increase by 100x too: from a handful of early builders to thousands of pioneering teams, many who are also participating in the governance, technical development, and infrastructure of the network as well.
Flow Fam Just Built Different
Although we’ve seen awesome growth, the vibe of the Flow builder community has stayed authentic and community-focused.
The community comes from all walks of life, but we’re all here for similar reasons: we know that it’s inevitable that life is increasingly digital, and that Web3 is a one-time opportunity to lay the earliest building blocks of the open Metaverse.
An open Metaverse means that the software governing our digital lives will be transparent and run on public blockchains, not private servers: accessible to anyone, trusted by everyone, and controlled by the people that use it — not the people that made it.
Here is some recent news from pioneers building in the Flow community today, starting with a quick highlight on several PFP projects battling it out:
- NFT Genius launched Ballerz on Monday, over $3M in secondary sales volume in its first week on Gaia (ongaia.com)— the first NFT marketplace powered by Dapper!
- Flovatar is close behind, with an interactive, collaborative avatar-making experience accessible to anyone. Over $1M in primary sales in $FLOW — minting is still open but there are also deals to be had on the marketplace!
- The first PFP on Flow is Hoodlums, by Sturdy.Exchange. Also launched recently, Hoodlums brings an awesome aesthetic and passionate community to the space — we’re excited to see the growth here!
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Flow community, which also includes fast-growing startups as well as established companies committed to doing the right thing for their customers:
- YouTube chose Flow as their first NFT minting platform, giving gifts to their top creators that are starting to make the rounds on the social web:
- Genies Warehouse is now live on Flow mainnet, limited to a hand-picked early access group (TechCrunch). Genies also recently announced a partnership with UMG’s entire artist roster as well as WMG virtuoso Nessa Barrett!
- Shopify on Flow will be fully self-service thanks to GigLabs, one of the earliest startups that made the switch from Ethereum to Flow. Read more from GigLabs then check out Shopify’s landing page: shopify.com/nft
- Matrix World, the first Metaverse project on Flow, did a very successful $4M+ Flow primary drop, crossed $1M in secondary sales on the Flow BloctoBay NFT marketplace this week, and just announced a partnership with Jay Chou!
- Seussibles is on the AppStore: a mobile-first, mainstream consumer NFT experience featuring the Dr. Seuss universe and expanding to other IPs in the future.
- Rcrdshp continues to impress, building one of the strongest team in the business while crossing $2M in sales in beta with ~170 music artists represented on the platform.
- Versus.Auction, one of the most innovative art NFT platforms in the world, launches collabs with amazing artists including John Orion Young, Ben Mauro, and Alotta Money
- Chainmonsters: One of the most promising and fun NFT games in production today, continues to grow the community organically.
- SportsIcon: Just announced a partnership with Floyd Mayweather himself— as well as an upcoming platform for all college and pro athletes!
- Our long-time partner Animoca built MotoGP and Olympic Pins this year as the foundation for our work building out the sports Metaverse on Flow.
- Alchemy, the leading blockchain developer platform, just launched Web3 University — a fantastic learning resource for everyone wanting to jump into this world.
- Eternal announced its funding round including folks like Mark Cuban, Gary V, and Coinbase in September –– and been executing consistently since then. Get started on eternal.gg!
- Two awesome Flow Naming Service apps have also launched recently: find.xyz with .find as well as FlowNS with .fn!
- Last but not least, Google has started writing about their experience working with Flow –– watch this space!
So many more amazing projects are hard at work building as well, follow FlowVerse and Flow on Twitter for the latest updates.
In closing, here’s a quick video our team made at Dapper Labs highlighting this year’s milestones — we hope you enjoy!
Thank you to our community and team for bringing their best every day and believing in our mission at every step, especially to the creators and fans that make all of this possible.
We’re amped for an incredible year ahead and wishing you all the most wonderful holiday season!!
