NFT Gaming Review: Fractal
Note: I own Fractal NFTs. I do not post negative reviews of projects on this blog, so I tend to highlight ones I like enough to personally invest in.
Regardless, my posts always include my opinions on positives for a project as well as my authentic concerns. Honest content for the community always comes first. I will always express my genuine concerns here, to the point that some projects choose not to share a review with their community despite the positive points I make. Please see this post for more detail on my ethical guidelines for content.
This is probably going to be the weirdest NFT project endorsement I ever make in this space.
So, the thing about Fractal is . . . uhh . . .
It doesn’t actually do anything. And the team has even stated they’re not sure what it’s going to do either.
Okay, to be fair it’s had one use for about a month: providing whitelist opportunities to mint new projects on the Fractal marketplace launchpad. That, plus listening to this video from the team on future use cases was enough to convince me to start accumulating.
Anyone who keeps up with the projects on Solana knows that Fractal has by far the most accomplished team on the blockchain: President Justin Kan founded and led Twitch to a $970m sale to Amazon. The leadership also includes Robin Chan (founded XP Media, later sold to Zynga), David Wurtz (cofounder of Google Drive) and Mike Angell (twenty years in ecommerce for Fast and Shopify).
The Fractal team is legit and did not need to rely on a mint for seed money: this led to the 100,000 Fractals airdropped for free to their first Discord members.
My bet buying into Fractal is an investment in these professionals, the reputations that come with them, and my faith in their motivation to create maximum value around the asset they’ve created.
Setting Up a Sandbox
Again, in the video the team is very clear about “Even we don’t know what it’s going to do yet!” But when they started talking about potential use cases, I got extremely bullish.
Here’s why. When you work in gaming, entertainment, tech and adjacent industries, the most fun happens during brainstorming sessions. 99% of the stuff you throw out there isn’t going to work, but the creative process of looking at different ideas and making modifications while riffing together helps get the project to where it needs to be.
This creative process can’t be an unconstrained ecosystem. I’ve made an analogy on Twitter/Discord a few times about projects that overpromise: I’d rather have a team build something awesome within their sandbox than run around the beach telling me we’re going to build a rocketship from seaweed and rocks.
There are four rarities of Fractal NFTs:
- Tri (Blue, 70,000 supply)
- Quad (Red, 25,000 supply)
- Penta (Purple, 4,000 supply)
- Hexa: (Gold, 1,000 supply)
Each Fractal has five number attributes on a scale. The higher the rarity, the more overall strong statistical numbers they tend to have. These attributes are:
- Power
- Purity
- Velocity
- Spin
- Altitude
For a crazy detailed drill-down into the attributes and rarities of each, make sure to check out this amazing Fractal analysis blog post right here on Medium by Carlos Bort. It’s an essential resource if you’re looking to pick up some Fractals - I personally used it to find some at a good price that either had one maxed out trait, or were well rounded in all attributes
Guardrails for Creativity
It sounds counterintuitive, but having a sandbox built around rules you need to follow helps foster creativity. Rather than having a wide open space of infinite possibilities where you can run around like a maniac, you now have guardrails to follow and keep your ideas on a track.
So once I combined the team’s ideas in the video with Fracal introducing their first utility with whitelist tokens, it all clicked for me. Here’s what the Fractal creative guardrails set up with future utility:
- Crossover utility with NFT games across the Solana ecosystem (with future plans to go cross-chain outside Solana).
- Rewards provided based on Fractal NFT rarity.
- Rewards provided based on Fractal NFT quantity.
- Rewards based on Fractal NFT traits (quality and/or sum quantity).
This utility can potentially take the form of:
- In-game flex: exclusive skins that are only obtained through Fractal NFTs.
- Whitelist, presale and airdrop exclusives.
- In-game power upgrades (possible, but would require buy-in from the game’s team and its community).
- In-game advantages: not direct power upgrades within game, but access to more resources, additional rewards for staking, faster unlock periods/reward timing, etc.
The varied traits and numbers plugged into each Fractal open up so many of these possibilities — and as the team has stated on a number of occasions, these attributes lend themselves to future flexibility and more use cases.
Because the team hasn’t promised XYZ benefits, the potential is endless. This is necessary due to the way Fractal operates: right now their strengths are a launchpad, and strong relationships with the games on their secondary marketplace.
Game Tailored Utility
Each game is going to have its own unique goals and ecosystems. So a “one size fits all” approach to Fractal NFTs doesn’t really work. For one example, maybe the Tiny Colony team is cool with Fractal holders receiving $TINY airdrops, but the Panzerdogs team doesn’t want to give away $PANZR tokens. Maybe one of these projects is up for exclusive skins granted by holders of the Fractal NFTs, while another one doesn’t want a competing asset for their their revenue model that’s heavily based on aesthetic flex upgrades.
On every AMA I’ve listened to with a launchpad project and the Fractal team, there is genuine enthusiasm from these game studios to integrate functionality for the Fractal NFTs. They don’t have to! But a great vibe we have here in the Solana ecosystem is that projects want to help each other succeed. So partnering up with a brand that has a massively high ceiling like Fractal makes sense for everyone.
Cross-game Fractal NFT utility is going to happen. This means the Fractal NFTs will have value across multiple games, and that exponentially increases their value on the open market. If you play multiple Solana NFT games, you get to carry that utility across the board. But if you’re looking to sell, now you have competition from buyers who are heavily dedicated to each game in the Fractal ecosystem. That’s a much wider market across every title with Fractal utility plugged in than what you’d see from a standard NFT and its potential buyers.
Do not underestimate the value of non-utility aesthetic flex exclusives in a game. A big chunk of the revenue for games like League of Legends, Fortnite and Overwatch come from players wanting exclusive skin upgrades. The Fractal team mentions a potential use case like a glowing aura around a player’s in-game character for holding one of their NFTs. Add the ability to port that flex over to multiple titles and you’ve got a flex value never seen before in the gaming space.
The PAX Twisted Fate up here is the most expensive League of Legends skin, priced at $300 (feel free to correct me if that’s changed!)
That’s not even touching on utility! Right now we’ve seen a simple airdrop of whitelist tokens to wallets based on the number of Fractals held by that user. But with 100,000 out there it’s practically impossible to provide enough whitelist tokens to guarantee a mint.
For a recent example, Fractal airdropped whitelist tokens to holders for the highly anticipated Yaku Corp mint on its website. Given the demand relative to the number of Fractals out there, only 200 people received the whitelist token. I was one of them, and despite having the token I wasn’t able to mint one due to the usual network congestion.
(Side note: It was silly to see token holders going on tilt because they weren’t able to mint one. Have they minted a NFT before? The congestion issues are across the board for blockchains and not just isolated to one launchpad. See my writeup on the Adidas mint here — at least you didn’t lose $100 in transaction fees! The Yaku and Fractal teams set proper expectations that there were more whitelist tokens than NFTs available to mint. Sure I was a little bummed I didn’t get one, but I also had low expectations of being lucky enough to get through.)
Anyway, a good number of Fractal’s launchpad projects featured whitelist token airdrops to all holders. Given the increasing demand of whitelist spots and the large number of Fractal NFTs on the market, I expect the whitelist spots to be narrowed down much like with Yaku Corp. And in the future, it makes more sense to reward holders, or at least tilt a random pull based on how deep a holder’s bags are for Fractal.
Another utility to describe in a bit more detail from the list I provided earlier: advantages that don’t provide an upgrade of in-game power, but do assist with an in-game resource boost.
Those of us who were around when Zynga innovated with Facebook games remember how Farmville became a huge mainstream hit. It was free to play, but their revenue model was based on getting users to pay for additional resources to further build out their farm. We see this now with the vast majority of free-to-play games. For something like Brawl Stars, spending money means getting resources faster instead of having to grind for progress. I expect some games within the Fractal ecosystem to provide similar utility.
Are Hexa Fractals the Next Bored Apes? (And is this Clickbait?)
I have one more bit of alpha to drop on a personal level. And this is absolutely not financial advice, just an opinion bet I am personally comfortable making:
I believe out of any current project, a Hexa Fractal has the highest potential to get up to a Bored Ape level value. I know “next Bored Ape” is a ridiculous phrase tossed around far too much. So if it matters at all, this is the only current NFT I’ve used for that future value projection.
Before I explain why let me be very clear: I’m not looking to pump my bags. In fact, unless you have the funds available to buy one at its current floor price around 30 SOL do not buy a Hexa Fractal! If I was reading this and didn’t own one, I would agree with a lot of the points I’m about to make but it wouldn’t fit into my personal strategy and budget.
There are two reasons why I’m comfortable with taking this bet:
- I was lucky enough to get in at a significantly cheaper price than its current value.
- I’ve outlined my personal strategy here, and none of it is based on investing in projects that I expect to moon. Instead, I look for projects that I feel will make solid contact at the plate, not completely fall on their face, and plan to patiently hold while they build. After that process, it’ll be time to squeeze out some singles and doubles level profits.
Because my strategy and budget are constructed this way with a conservative approach, I’m incorporating my Hexa Fractal as my one all-or-nothing home run swing. I have pre-determined that I will either ride it up to the high potential I see it reaching, or will be comfortable riding it down to zero with no regrets. And barring some significant changes in my approach, goals, profits or available funds, I don’t plan on accumulating a second one at its current price.
I think this is the strongest “not financial advice” point I will ever make! I mean I’m about three paragraphs deep here plus bullet points. Let me finally add that I’m saying a 30 SOL NFT that doesn’t do anything yet has a very good chance to get to a six figure USD value. That sounds ridiculous.
Okay. I think we’re good! With all extreme caution warnings out of the way, here’s why I’m swinging for the home run:
All those games I listed up there like League of Legends, Overwatch, Fortnite and many more . . . a huge chunk of the revenue model for these AAA titles comes from the flex impact of rare skins, and the prices players are willing to pay for them.
And there are only 1,000 Hexa Fractals. That’s it.
Plug for my DeGods and Anybodies fam: this $1,000 Fortnite hoodie looks so much like the DeGodsXAnybodies crossover hoodie, which currently goes for a floor around 5.5 SOL — half the price and you get the IRL hoodie in addition to the metaverse version!
The team has already mentioned the idea of a Hexa granting a special in-game skin or aesthetic enhancement. I can’t think of anything that’s more of an ultimate flex than owning one of the 1,000 that exist.
. . . then add flex upgrades across most games on the Fractal platform.
. . . then add the team’s roadmap of going cross-chain.
. . . then add the fact that the reputations of the people on this team can get into the room with any AAA publisher in the world to discuss a partnership.
And . . . all of the above is just basing value on aesthetic flex upgrades.
There will be utility too! What kind of benefits will Hexa Fractal holders get in the future?
Maybe it starts with whitelists, but then expands to free airdrops.
Maybe Hexa holders are such a big deal that they can get a Twitch following just by holding one.
Maybe popular Twitch streamers will try to grab a Hexa Fractal to increase their cred, just like celebrities are grabbing Bored Apes.
Maybe a AAA publisher gets on a board, and now Hex Fractal holders get a flex skin in a top level mainstream game.
Maybe you’ve got an elite level collectible with 1,000 in existence that has verifiable ownership on blockchain. It can be plugged into any video game title (or application) that wants to include this functionality, where it provides the biggest flex and benefits we’ve ever seen in the video game industry.
Maybe with gaming being such a hot industry, and only 1,000 of these available that provide an infinite potential of utility, it easily laps Bored Apes.
Will all of these things happen? Almost certainly not. I’m just brainstorming in the sandbox I mentioned up there, and thinking through the mechanics needed to make that big power swing home run happen.
But like Fractal itself, the value for a Hexa will depend on patience over a long time period to fully reveal itself. Like I said, I’m willing to wait and happily risk riding it down to zero for the potential reward. With that big picture in mind, I doubt I will consider selling it in 2022.
Value at an Affordable Entry Price
Anyway, we’ve had our pie in the sky dream fun with a high risk, high reward, long term investment play. Let’s go with something more practical.
Across the board in every one of my big brain alpha channels is a consistent tip: buy at least one Fractal for whitelist tokens. And right now you can get that for around 0.3 SOL.
Links for Fractal
Fractal NFT Website: https://nft.fractal.is/#
Marketplace: https://www.fractal.is/
Discord: https://discord.gg/fractalwagmi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fractalwagmi
Fractal Marketplace for Fractal NFTs: https://www.fractal.is/fractals
Magic Eden for Fractal NFTs: https://magiceden.io/marketplace/fractals
