NFT 101: What Is the Loot Project and Why Is It at the Forefront of the NFT Craze?

2021/09/10 11:02:20

Ghost Wand of Enlightenment, Divine Robe, Silk Hood, Grime Bite, Shoes, Chain Gloves, Amulet, Bronze Ring. Do any of the mentioned words and phrases mean something to you? Now, you probably think these items are loot for a massively multiplayer online role-playing game like League of Legends, Dota, Heroes of the Storm, to name a few. However, they’re not.

These cryptic words mark the beginning of a new revolution and class of games. They’re a part of the Loot project. Now, if you’re still trying to decrypt what those words meant, I’d like to tell you that each of those words is worth around 8 ETH right now. That’s equivalent to around $30,000.

Source: lootproject.com

Launched by American entrepreneur and programmer Dom Hofmann, The Loot project is attracting NFT collectors to spend thousands of dollars worth of ETH on virtual game items that aren’t connected to any game, don’t have any visualizations, or have any stats to them. Yes, they’re randomly generated phrases of item names listed as NFTs, and the people are going crazy for it.

What Is the Loot Project?

The Loot project is a collection of 8,000 unique lists or bags of fantasy items and gear, originally released and coined by Dom Hoffman. During its release, anyone could claim random loot bags for gas: Ethereum’s network fees. Interestingly, the community claimed every one of those bags in under 4 hours.

So what’s inside those unique lists or bags?

Well, each of those bags contains eight randomly generated lists of items that include a piece for an adventurer’s chest, foot, hand, head, neck, ring, waist, and weapon. What’s more, is that each of these items is generated and stored on-chain; however, the stats, images, interpretations, and other functionalities are intentionally left for owners, players, and the community to interpret.

What’s so special about the Loot project?

The Loot project is the first project of its kind. With no company, art, team, attributes, or organizations powering it, the Loot project has completely given away creative decision-making to the community. The Loot project is an unfiltered, uncensorable, incompressible building block of stories, experiences, questlines, games, and more, in the hands of the community, at no cost. The Loot project is the representation of an entirely decentralized revolution that will certainly make waves in the gaming, crypto, and NFT industry.

What gives Loot bags their value?

The Loot project has been clear with its intentions since the beginning. They have completely given away their creative decision-making power to the community. The community can interpret the generated lists of items as they want. They have the complete freedom to do so. They can make art for it, they can set functionalities for it, they can add it to their games, or they could sell it. There is room for endless opportunities, and the value is totally based on the holder.

How has the community been reacting to The Loot project?

The community is all on board with this concept. While many people may have looked down on an octet of randomly generated phrases that have no images, powers, functionalities whatsoever; however, people were quick to jump on board.

The community has been creating AI-generated pixel art for the loot project for their random items. Some of them are just purely creative and beautiful to look at.

Some users have gone the extra mile and created a whole Lore and map for those items. @BeltofIgnorance has been making art pieces and visualizations for various users and their loot bags.

Source: Twitter

A week since its release, the community has gone from octets of randomly generated lists to an endless number of illustrations for those items to worlds in which they reside, and characters to wield them.

The community has started a whole new revolution from taking simple primitives and generating context around them that gives them value. It’s pretty amazing what the community can do when it’s united.

Next Steps For The Loot Project

There’s no doubt that Loot is unique, and it’s the first of its kind. It’s an invitation for the community to join hands and visualize their imaginations and creativity. So far, the community has been doing just that. They’ve been creating rarity guides, tools, developing AI-generated artwork, forming guilds, to name a few.

With other gaming platforms joining in, the Loot project could really transform the era. Recently, SyndicatedDAO’s co-founder Will Papper launched Adventure Gold, a gaming token for the Loot project. Adventure Gold was specifically introduced as a Loot DAO governance token. The Loot project’s community can use Adventure Gold tokens to vote on the storyline and other governance decisions. Currently, Loot owners can claim 10,000 tokens, paying only the gas fees.

Moreover, Hofmann has also launched Synthetic Loot, a chunk of code that performs a set of instructions, allowing anyone with an Ethereum wallet to take part in future Loot-related events without owning the NFTs. This ensures that the community isn’t restricted to the 8000 or few holders of the original NFTs.

Closing Thoughts

With praise from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, The Loot project is heading towards new heights. The peak yet remains to be seen; however, from what we’ve seen in the past week, The Loot project is a generational and revolutionary project that is undoubtedly starting a new era of games.