What is Loot?

Introduction:
Loot, originally an NFT project adopting the Free Mint tactic, had triggered positive responses in the NFT market immediately after its launch. As the first project that proactively invites users to participate in the project construction and allows players to create their NFT minting stories freely, Loot’s innovation has been recognized by many users. The first batch of Loot (for Adventurers) received a trading volume of 74.7K ETH on OpenSea, witnessing great success. After that, Lootverse began to open up a magnificent chapter in crypto space.

The combination of NFT projects and blockchain games has always been highly talked about. One of the best practices for empowering NFT projects is to make game characters and props into NFTs and store them on chain. Loot is exactly such a project that combines NFTs and GameFi. What makes Loot stand out among many NFT and GameFi projects as a rising star? Follow us to enter the Lootverse and feel its charm directly.

Loot NFT

Loot is a community-driven NFT project. Loot NFT, as most of us know it, refers to the first-generation NFT series released by the Loot project: Loot for Adventurers.

Loot for Adventurers was unsheathed in August 2021 via a tweet from founder Dom. Adventurers around the world were drawn to mint Loot NFTs from smart contracts for free. Gas fees are required.

Image: Dom Hofmann’s tweet

The total supply of Loot for Adventurers is 8,000. Each NFT is a picture with white text on a black background. The text describes the attributes and properties, such as swords, armor, costumes, etc., which resemble characters in some RPGs (role-playing games). That’s exactly what the founder Dom Hofmann intended to do: each NFT is similar to a blind box, whose content is as extensive as whatever adventurers could imagine.

Loot for Adventurers had no website or roadmap at the beginning. The founder decentralized the project soon after it was released, allowing the community to pilot its future. The Loot NFTs have created infinite possibilities for future development of the project.

The Loot community has continued the storyline of the original Loot NFTs and launched a series of sequels, including Loot Character, Loot Explorer, and HyperLoot. It makes the abstract RPG characters more concrete and visualizes them as two-dimensional or even three-dimensional images in games.

Image: The visualized Loot RPG characters (from Loot website)

As of now, the transaction volume of Loot for Adventurers on OpenSea has reached 74.7K ETH. Among them, Bag #748 was traded even at a price of 420.69 ETH, hitting a record high.

Image: Loot for Adventurers NFT traded at 420.69 ETH (from OpenSea)

Innovation Mechanism of Loot

The great success of Loot benefits from its unique innovation mechanism.

Traditional RPGs will only be live and accessible to players after developers have completed the design of the plot, scenes, characters, props and more as well as the alpha testing and beta testing.

But blockchain-based games such as Axie Infinity (a popular game that runs on Ethereum), operate by minting game characters, props, and economic systems into NFTs or tokens and store them on the chain. Their core mechanisms, gameplays, and roadmaps are all set in advance by the development team. This leads players to think that most projects of the current GameFi are not decentralized indeed, which goes against the original intention of blockchain.

Loot adopts a completely different game design idea from that of the traditional ones. It operates as a DAO, allowing users to participate in the construction of the project at zero costs. As founder of the project, Dom Hofmann has only provided users with 8,000 bags each consisting of 8 lines of text, as well as a few words on Twitter. The future of the project will be completely driven by the DAO, whose organization and execution abilities will exert a significant impact on its development.

Image: Loot’s bottom-up approach (https://www.8btc.com/article/6680066)

Typical NFT projects such as BAYC and CryptoPunks issue finished NFTs to attract holders or initial fundraising. When a scaled holder group and funds are established, the project party will begin to work towards the development of its ecosystem, token system, blockchain games, and more, on the basis of its official roadmap. While participating in the Loot ecosystem, holders can also enjoy benefits brought by the continuous growth of the project, such as airdrops, NFT appreciation, etc.

By issuing the original Loot NFTs, the Loot project is intended to attract builders, more than just holders. Members of the project team are holders of the original NFTs. There is no leader, no core developers, and no operating team. No one would know how it will evolve and where it is going. This completely decentralized model represents the core mechanism of Loot innovation, which has aroused extensive discussion and attention in this space.

Understanding Loot and Its ControversiesUnderstanding Loot and Its Controversies

Some people were excited about the launch of Loot for Adventures, regarding it as an epoch-making project, while others were rather confused about why such a few lines of text would be sold for millions of dollars.

Advocates hold that Loot serves as a typical attempt to decentralize blockchain projects. Shortly after the launch of Loot for Adventures, Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, praised the philosophy of Loot on Twitter. He thought it didn’t matter who created these NFTs or in what form they are stored on the chain, “what matters is to what extent other people build upon it”. Figma CEO Dylan also spoke highly of the unique innovation of Loot, commenting that it brings infinite possibilities for Loot and can create many derivatives. Those advocates believe that the Loot has eliminated the stereotype of NFTs, making NFTs more than just an art of picture, but opened up a new era of NFT projects and even GameFi projects.


Opponents believe that decentralization without a solid foundation is not conducive to promoting the stability of the project ecosystem. Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of Lebit Mining Pool, made a post saying that avatar NFT projects would collapse some day, and the emblematic event would be the rise of the Loot project. Loot is intended to delegate power to the community and make it fully autonomous. However, the explosion of Loot has attracted the participation of a large number of speculators, which disappointed those in the community who really want to devote themselves to ecosystem development. If the concept of Loot cannot be implemented, it will eventually become a bubble in the capital market. Although Loot is basically governed by the community, the original NFTs are composed of only 8 lines of text, describing 8 attributes, with a total supply of only 8,000. It restricts Loot from developing further from the source. Although the community attracted more participants through additional issuance, it only created counterproductive effects. A large number of speculators profited and exited, leaving the project in a mess.

In the writer’s opinion, the Loot project is a great innovation and a bold attempt by the founder Dom Hofmann to ​​decentralize the development of blockchain projects.

Lootverse

Adventure Gold (AGLD)

AGLD (Adventure Gold) is an ERC-20 governance token of the Loot community. It was launched, shortly after Loot for Adventures, by community member Will Papper. Every Loot NFT holder can claim 10,000 AGLD for free.

Initially, the AGLD token represents voting power, with which DAO members can vote for issues like the storyline of the Loot games. In the future, AGLD tokens will also be used to buy items from the Loot project and possibly be used as an economic system for the game.

With the rise of Loot, many exchanges, such as Gate.io, Binance, and Bybit, have listed AGLD tokens for investors to trade.

Image: AGLD token price trend (from Trading View)

In the early trading days of AGLD, its price once exceeded $5. However, as the popularity of the Loot project faded, the price of AGLD also fell. At the time of writing, the price of an AGLD token is $0.343.

Get Your Character

Initially, the Loot NFTs consist of 8 lines of text. Later, with the continuous efforts of the Loot community, Loot launched its second chapter: Get Your Character. The founder of Loot handed over the project to the community, allowing the community to shape its future as they want it to be. The community has lived up to expectations and launched a number of Loot character NFT collections successively, specifically the Loot Characters, Loot Explorers, HyperLoot, and Lootpunk.

Loot Characters

Loot Characters is the first NFT collection that visualizes Loot’s characters in a pixelated style. Users can generate corresponding Loot Characters for their Loot for Adventurers through the Loot Characters website.

Image: Loot Characters (from Loot Character website)

Loot Explorers

Loot Explorers is a 2D NFT collection generated based on Loot for Adventurers. It was launched in December 2021 with a minting price of 0.04 ETH. Each Loot Explorers NFT has various attributes and levels. Developers claim that they are committed to creating a new branch in the Loot project.

Image: Loot Explorers (Source: Loot Explorers website)

HyperLoot

HyperLoot supports the minting of embodied items and characters based on the attributes of Loot for Adventures, mLoot, and Genesis Adventurer. HyperLoot is launched as CC0 (public domain), hoping to maximize the freedom of creativity for the community and companies to craft the Hyperverse on top of HyperLoot. Each HyperLoot grants access to the Hyperverse.

Image: HyperLoot (from HyperLoot website)

Lootpunk

Similar to Loot Characters, Lootpunk is also a pixel-style avatar NFT project. Lootpunk is generated based on the text property of Loot for Adventures. Loot for Adventures holders can use Lootpunk as profile pictures.

Figure: Lootpunk (from Lootpunk website)

Character NFT projects in the Loot ecosystem did not attract too much attention. Different derivatives do not connect with each other well. Despite this, many more use cases have been created. To integrate characters in pixelated, 2D, or 3D styles into the Loot ecosystem, the Loot community will need to make continuous efforts through collaboration in the future.

On-chain games

Realms (for Adventurers)

Realms is a derivative chain game of Loot. In this game, Realms NFT holders are the lords. They exploit resources, build territory, and train troops to defend their own realms or plunder others. Assets in the game mainly include the LORDS token and resource NFTs. Participants could stake Realms to get the LORDS token, which can be used to buy resources such as wood and coal to build their realms.

The Realms game has a sound regenerative economic system and burning mechanism. It provides users with both entertainment and profitability and is strongly supported by Dom Hofmann. This has attracted many developers in the community to join.

The community is also working on deploying Realms’ NFT marketplace and in-game commodity marketplace onto StarkNet to reduce gas fees.

The project is still under development. Let’s wait and see how this derivative chain game of Loot will interact with StarkNet, the popular Ethereum Layer 2 solution.

The Crypt

The Crypt is a multiplayer co-op on-chain game, allowing holders of Loot for Adventures, mLoot, and Genesis Adventurers to play. The Crypt adopts a chapter system, with each game being released chapter by chapter.
Players will raid Dungeons collaboratively. Once the Dungeon is defeated, raiders of that Dungeon will be able to get the loot, which will be stored on the chain as NFTs.
The first chapter of The Crypt was a big hit with players, with all the crypts being raided within 15 minutes. At present, The Crypt has released chapter 3, which is still in great popularity.

From a blockbuster to a has-been: What is happening with Loot?

To tell from a macro perspective, the Loot project is to NFT what Ethereum is to the blockchain. Ethereum founder Vitalik released the Ethereum Mainnet, where smart contracts can be run on Ethereum. As for what kind of contracts to develop and what functions to implement, it is entirely interpreted by developers.

Likewise, Dom Hofmann released Loot NFTs, allowing people to mint NFTs for free. He announced that the 8 lines of text represent attributes. As for how to interpret the attributes and how to promote the construction of the project based on these attributes, it is completely defined by NFT holders.

It is precisely the similarity of their decentralization concept and the support of Vitalik that drove the Loot project to succeed at its debut and got so much attention.

However, even the powerful Ethereum needs to maintain its popularity through the endorsement of influencers like Vitalik and continuous maintenance and upgrade by core developers. At present, the governance of a decentralized project should still be led by a core member.

Loot’s completely decentralized governance has resulted in its failure to form a stable team and consensus within the community in its early stage. Although many derivative projects were launched subsequently, they neither demonstrate excellent performances in the secondary market nor maintain sustained popularity. People’s craze for Loot lasted only for a short period of time and faded soon.

Conclusion

The Loot project is a controversial epoch-making product. From the original 8 lines of text to the current Lootverse ecosystem, Loot is greatly benefiting from many DAOs formed by groups of members who are full of enthusiasm and imagination. In this regard, Dom Hofmann’s bold shot was successful. Where would Lootverse go in the future? That greatly depends on the Loot community.

It is a regret that the market frenzy of the Loot brand-new concept only lasted for a short period of time. Though some derivatives have been created, they do not spark a wave as the Loot project does. Despite the innovative philosophy it enjoys, the reality of its slow development speed makes it less possible to survive in the fierce market. Embracing innovation is great, but in the meantime, we should also consider market trend changes and our risk tolerance.

All in all, the Loot project is impressive. Its innovative and adventurous spirit are the driving force behind Web 3.0. However, the value of every advanced concept can be demonstrated only when it is implemented. Otherwise, it will become a tool for capital hype.