What Is Crypto Twitter Buzzing About Now? A game built around Crypto Twitter, believe it or not, a game that offers significant rewards and incentives for players.
Fantasy top captivates the crypto faithful by transforming the industry’s biggest and most high-profile social media personalities Ethereum NFT trading cards enabled network scaling Blast. Players can crush rivals by creating map lineups that have the best real Twitter engagement during each competition, and in return earn crypto and in-game prizes.
Crypto’s biggest tweeters have embraced it enthusiastically, promoting their own in-game cards or sharing their lineups, and bragging about how much their NFTs have risen in value in a short time. They even form private groups of holders to discuss strategies and encourage buyers.
Launched on Blast Mainnet on May 1 by pseudonymous creator Travis Bickle, Fantasy Top is basically Sorare if it were built around outspoken crypto personalities and traders instead of professional football players. The influencers in question earn a small portion of each trade of their own cards, along with other benefits, but many also appear to have invested significantly in building their own lineups.
This is an attention economy
And @fantasy_top_ turns it into a game pic.twitter.com/nkN9QYYvY8
— Tenacious (@TenaciousBit) May 6, 2024
The list of in-game NFT ‘heroes’ includes: meme coin dealer of the moment Ansem, 9dcc founder Gmoney, Blast founder Pacmanfamous weird tweeter Greg16676935420, DeGods creator Frankwhale NFT traders Pranksy and Machi Big Brother, and even Su Zhu – the co-founder of collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
Machi just deposited 700 ETH into his @fantasy_top_ wallet
Expect some big sales today pic.twitter.com/lxWtxOcfU2
— Clemente (@Chilearmy123) May 6, 2024
Farokh Sarmad of Rug Radio, which merges with Declutteris another one of the featured personalities.
It’s about more than just buying the NFTs of crypto traders you like and place them in a lineup for each competition. There are multiple rarity levels for cards, including the ability to trade multiple lower level cards to unlock a higher level, providing a points boost in each competition.
There’s another curious wrinkle to consider: the scores are based on your lineup’s actual engagement on social media, which raises the question of what counts as quality engagement – and how that could potentially be manipulated.
Some of the most expensive cards in Fantasy Top. Image: decrypt
One “hero” in question, content creator Jenn Duong, temporarily set her Twitter account private on Sunday after noticing that one of her Twitter videos had abnormally high engagement numbers. She suggested that users were “botching” her content, or artificially inflating engagement, which she feared would cause potential problems with her own game.
“People don’t want to play fair and I’m not going to risk ruining my X algo,” she tweeted. add: “Please don’t post my shit. I do not need it. I bet on me, and I want to win on my own strength.
“You are ruining the systems for other creators,” she added.
Please don’t mess with my shit. I do not need it.
I bet on me, and I want to win on my own strength.
You’re ruining the systems for other makers.
— Jenn (@jenndefer) May 5, 2024
But the Fantasy Top hype continues unabated and probably reached a fever pitch early Monday with the announcement of the prize pool for the first “Main competition” that’s just getting started: over $150,000 worth of Ethereum (50 ETH), plus 222,222 Blast Gold that will lead to an airdrop allocation for the network, along with card packs and other in-game rewards.
While 50 ETH is no small change for a crypto game that launched last week, the much bigger prize could come from Blast Gold. Crypto industry observers estimate the value of each Blast Gold above $10potentially bringing that portion of the prize pool well over $2 million in total.
Trading volume is increasing for @fantasy_top_ as we approach Main Event #1
the current volume is >50% of Ethereum mainnet’s total NFT volume
src: https://t.co/q91HcFqt6A pic.twitter.com/1N8tlxnOFm
— hildobby (@hildobby_) May 6, 2024
Players rushed to buy up cards on the Fantasy Top marketplace, generating millions of dollars in trade on the scalable network. Blast in the process – equalize more than 50% of total trading volume on Ethereum Mainnet early Monday.
a Flipside Crypto Dashboard from analyst Hildobby shows NFT trading volume worth over 7,000 ETH (worth over $21 million at today’s price) and over 31,000 total users this week.
Fantasy Top has been a bull’s-eye for Crypto Twitter residents, reviving the positive vibe that has been missing in recent weeks amid a market lull. But we’ll see if a fantasy sports riff featuring Twitter influencers has the depth and intrigue to keep the momentum going after the initial novelty and Blast Network incentives wear off.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.