Digital collectibles project NBA Top Shot has launched on the Flow blockchain. The project had been in a private testing phase for several months, but can now be accessed by everybody. NBA Top Shot allows people to collect video clips, called moments, based on NBA basketball matches from past and present.
The strength of the project is twofold. First of all Dapper Labs made the Flow blockchain in such a way that on-boarding into NBA Top Shot is frictionless. Users will have no problems with private keys and gas fees.
Second, these digital collectibles are officially licensed by the NBA. They are the real deal and feature stars like for example LeBron James, Spencer Dinwiddie and many more. These collectibles come in different rarities, because of this prices for collectibles go from 1 dollar all the way to a couple of thousand dollars.
Collectors who want to get in on the action need to keep an eye on the store. NBA Top Shot is selling new packs with new moments all the time. Depending on the players, the importance of the match, and the rarity of the card the value of a card will increase or decrease.
Already quite a big closed beta
NBA Top Shot launched earlier this year in a closed beta. Collectors bought almost 43 thousand packs with collectibles. They made more than 2 million dollars during this closed beta alone. An estimated amount of 250 thousand collectibles have already been distributed. Players gifted 29 thousand moments to friends, while 10500 moments were sold on the marketplace.
Just like collectible trading cards, collectors have ownership over their digital cards. Collected moments can be kept or sold to somebody else who’s interested. Rare versions of big stars like LeBron James sell for thousands of dollars. However, the majority of cards on the marketplace cost between one and fifty dollars. This makes collecting very accessible for everybody.
Collectors can also decided to keep their purchased packs closed. Soon they will allow trading of sealed packs. This is valuable information for those who collect and trade. Currently there are Western Conference Finals packs. These packs are on sale until October 4th. After that all unsold rare Moments from that game will be removed from sale and destroyed.
What is Flow?
Flow is a proof-of-stake blockchain. This means that nodes hosted based on economic wealth instead of computing power. The Flow network introduces five different nodes, which means the workload will be split between them. Each node is a bit different and they all compliment each other. As a result everybody can help to build the network, ranging from home computers to data centers.
In a traditional blockchain every node stores the account balances, smart contract code etc. Each of the nodes performs all of the work associated with every transaction. Because of this these nodes require strong hardware and do lots of technical work. The Flow blockchain applies decentralized participation, allowing a wide range of participants to commit to a range of technical and financial commitments. This results in five different roles: Collection, Consensus, Execution, Verification, and Observation.
For regular users it will be easy to use Flow. There won’t be any transaction fees. As a result this makes breeding Cryptokitties and sending someone in-game assets a lot more user friendly. Aside from Dapper Labs own projects Cryptokitties and NBA Top Shot, there are more games coming to Flow. Among them is Chainmonsters, a Pokémon-inspired online game.
