*Forward the Original Title：Fantasy Explained: A New Social Project on Blast, Introducing a Novel Gameplay Combining Card Games and Celebrity Influence

Introduction:

Recently, the SocialFi field has witnessed a new revolution, combining traditional fantasy sports modes with social media influence to create a brand-new gameplay. Represented by Fantasy.top and Perl, this innovative trend not only redefines the interaction between users and content creators but also provides new ideas for the monetization of social platforms. This article will delve into the workings, innovations, and potential impacts of these two platforms on the future of the social finance field.

Preface:

Since I reported on friend.tech six months ago, I have been patiently waiting for a SocialFi product that could excite me as much as it did back then.

Now, it seems that day has finally arrived, bringing with it a new twist on the established “fantasy” model commonly seen in the sports world.

Fantasy

I came across Fantasy last week, when the platform went live on the Blast testnet. Check out their announcement video, it’s hilarious:

When I signed up, I immediately understood Fantasy’s intentions when I saw the following:

Fantasy is essentially Fantasy Sports × Twitter Influencer, starting with Crypto Twitter.

Editor’s Note: Fantasy sports refer to online games that allow participants to form virtual teams of real sports players. For example, the famous football manager game FM.

How does it work?

• Create your fantasy lineup by collecting influencer cards and set your lineup for each week’s competition
• There’s a marketplace to buy and sell influencer cards to improve your lineup
• Participants can earn rewards such as BLAST, ETH, FAN points and influencer packs

That’s all there is to it. For anyone who’s played fantasy sports before (player stats, optimizing lineups, waiver wires, etc.), this should be particularly easy to grasp.

The SocialFi side of Fantasy provides clear incentives for players through the market and match rewards. So, what about influencers (or heroes as Fantasy calls them)?

• Passively earn 1.5% of ETH on their card’s trading volume. This is in addition to the 4% native income earned on Blast L2
• Earn additional FAN points that unlock additional benefits and claims
• Mint your cards regularly for free and can be gifted to your community or supporters

Imagine if professional athletes received bonuses based on their performance and how often they were inserted into the starting lineup. That’s impractical for professional athletes, but it’s not far off for influencers on emerging platforms like Fantasy.

What do the heroes think of Fantasy? At least some of them thought it was funny.

What else is interesting about Fantasy?

Fantasy is both a TCG (Trading Card Game) and a fantasy sports game.

While I’m comparing Fantasy to fantasy sports (an overseas online game), the product has a strong trading card game (TCG) aspect, which is also how the team describes themselves.

Fantasy is a SocialFi trading card game (TCG) where players can use trading cards of crypto Twitter influencers to play in online games, thus monetizing their social capital and research expertise.

Hero cards come in different rarities (common, rare, epic, legendary) and seasons (all cards are currently S1). Rarity affects the circulation of hero cards, while the role of seasons is not yet clear (possibly for future season-specific rewards to encourage more trading volume?).

Hero Ratings

Each hero has a hero rating, which determines how your lineup performs in matches. This is a composite rating, including factors such as (and possibly more):

• Hero’s view count ranking (compared to others)
• Hero’s influence ranking (compared to other heroes)
• Hero’s total view count

Naturally, this makes your lineup decisions a lot more complicated than “I’ll just pick the influencer with the most followers.” Serious players will study these metrics to create an optimal lineup to increase their chances of winning.

If Fantasy becomes popular enough or the prizes are enticing enough, it will be interesting to see whether players use subtle strategies to improve their hero stats, and how Fantasy responds to those strategies.

As an extreme example, what if a player hacked an influencer’s account and posted some ridiculous but viral content that caused their hero’s score to jump to the top?

Optimize lineup

The act of users optimizing their lineups is familiar, but the way optimization itself works is different.

There are no set contest dates, influencers can post whenever they want. They would actually be “hurt” if they didn’t release information when Fantasy events went live.

On the other hand, some influencers will “hurt” (not post) for weeks and then suddenly become active again, e.g. Hsaka. Unlike sports, there were no injuries reported. Sometimes an influencer just wants to post again, or some kind of catalyst comes along.

At the other extreme, what if you “bribe” an influencer to post or publish content that is more likely to go viral? Very different assumptions, this might not break the rules. Or at least harder to detect.

Adjustment of creator incentive mechanism

This is where platforms like Fantasy may have more staying power, whereas friend.tech has struggled with user retention over time.

The magic of platforms like Fantasy (and fantasy sports in general) lies in the fact that influencers/players don’t need to do anything extra. In contrast, platforms like friend.tech require creators to regularly log in to different platforms and create exclusive content for their key holders, or else they will face selling pressure.

It was interesting that friend.tech was a new SocialFi narrative for someone like me, but after 5 months of posting regularly, I eventually became inactive.

As Fantasy inevitably grows in popularity, it will be interesting to see how the platform encourages users to keep coming back to play, while keeping its scoring methodology neutral.

Despite these challenges, why do I believe Fantasy will “inevitably grow”? They are one of the 47 winners of the Big Bang competition and will receive marketing support and a substantial airdrop allocation.

On top of this, 4,491 new players (connected X accounts + new wallets) joined the testnet version of Fantasy between last Friday and yesterday.

The invitation is currently closed, so if you want to view the invitation, please stay alert when the invitation reopens.

Perl

Fantasy isn’t the only product exploring the SocialFi genre. Perl is the SocialFi platform built on Farcaster, allowing players to place bets on users and their social engagement. Perl’s mechanism is even simpler than Fantasy.

How Perl works

• Perl is a free skill-based prediction game.
• There are two game modes: MORE/LESS and VERSUS (e.g., will X or Y get more likes?)
• $PERL is the in-game currency used for betting.
• In the future, Perl may offer a decentralized, on-chain version of its token (meaning there may be airdrops).

Farcaster Frames feature allow selections to be made directly on the Farcaster client, which makes it easy to attract new users or keep existing users engaged.

Perl reminds me of PrizePicks, a daily fantasy app that also features a simple MORE/LESS mechanic.

How will SocialFi develop next?

I have no clue. (I really enjoy asking myself these brain questions and then disappointing you guys with a stupid answer “sorry”.)

However, the right incentives, easy-to-understand mechanisms, and unique features like Farcaster Frames have brought new vitality to this type of SocialFi. These platforms are built on top of social platforms rather than creating a new social network. This is similar to fantasy sports, as it is based on sports rather than sports themselves (although some people treat it seriously).

And it’s not just me who thinks so; venture capitalists are also paying attention to this field. At the very least, it’s a good thought exercise that challenges the traditional notion of “X’s fantasy sports.”

As for friend.tech, while they may be facing challenges, they haven’t exited the market yet. They are about to conduct an airdrop and have been quietly building v2.

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