Promoting the integration of the second dimension and games with NFTs, NEXTYPE has achieved this

Author: Hu Tao

2021 was the year of the rise of NFTs.

From NBA stars' highlight moments to monkeys, aliens, and zombie JPEGs, and even to "Tibetan women transporting mining machines," NFTs are pushing the crypto industry "out of the circle" at an unprecedented speed. More and more vertical industries are beginning to try to integrate and interact with NFTs, including the ACG (Anime, Comic, Game) culture and gaming.

Market analysis shows that users born in the 1990s account for as much as 78%, and they are also known as "Generation Z," which is the future consumer powerhouse. Therefore, some believe that whoever can capture this key user group will be able to seize the future market dominance. The two areas that these young users are most concerned about and are also the most sought after are precisely: ACG culture and gaming.

However, some argue that the maturity of the young user group is relatively low, and thus they may not be able to perfectly integrate with new forms of digital currency like NFTs. But this is not the case; young people are more open to new technologies, and the process of embracing NFTs is very similar to their love for ACG culture and gaming------

• In the ACG field, young users are purchasing figurines, engaging in cosplay, and attending comic conventions, gradually bringing ACG culture into the mainstream;
• In the gaming field, esports competitions like WCG (where "Emperor" Li Xiaofeng represented China and won twice) have reversed people's negative perceptions of gaming.

Now, young people have begun to channel this enthusiasm into NFTs------for example, more and more young people are changing their social media avatars to CryptoPunks------from a certain perspective, this also marks that the large-scale adoption of digital assets is about to happen, and it means that NFTs, as well as the broader cryptocurrency market, still have significant growth potential.

Integration of ACG and NFTs

In fact, NFTs can completely achieve integration and interaction with ACG culture.

Take the most common content creators as an example. When they launch a work featuring an ACG character, they can simultaneously issue corresponding limited edition digital art NFTs for loyal fans to buy and collect (for instance, the Japanese ACG character Cheese Cat was successfully auctioned for 200,000 yuan last month). They can also hold offline community meetups from time to time, allowing NFT holders to sign up to participate, at which point the NFT serves as a ticket.

Moreover, if this ACG character has the potential to become a well-known IP, the NFTs purchased by fans will inevitably appreciate in value. This ACG character IP could even collaborate with gaming companies and be introduced into games, at which point the NFT would also serve as access permission to the game, as a virtual character symbol in the metaverse, and as a transaction token in the virtual world.

All of these scenarios actually require the support of the programmability and portability features of NFTs. Users may carry NFTs representing various rights into different scenarios. Developers can also design service facilities and mechanisms for these NFTs, rather than building products for isolated application scenarios as in the past.

So, are there any concrete cases that fully demonstrate the perfect integration and interaction of NFTs and ACG culture? Here we must mention NEXTYPE, an open next-generation on-chain value ecosystem built on gaming, NFTs, and DeFi. It provides users with high-quality multi-form products based on Dapps, such as gaming + DeFi, gaming + NFT asset synthesis, and NFT + DeFi. It not only offers a channel for blockchain project initiators based on various public chains to issue crypto tokens based on gaming DeFi but also provides underlying technical support for upgrading NFT assets in online games, establishing a value bridge between the blockchain world and the traditional gaming world through Dapps.

NEXTYPE has announced a strategic partnership with the well-known Japanese company SeeSea Japan and Quaras under Fuji Media to jointly promote the NFT gamification of Japan's top ACG IP, with the first IP being the most famous voice actress in Japan, Kana Hanazawa------if you have never heard of Kana Hanazawa, you might really be out of touch with the younger generation. Kana Hanazawa is one of the most well-known voice actress stars in Japan, having attended the 8th Xiamen International Animation Festival, with nearly 200 million fans across the internet. Her representative works include "Your Name," "The Garden of Words," and "The Legend of the Demon Cat," and she has a significant influence among the younger generation, with her personal IP value being undeniable. It is reported that in the latest Huobi Eco Chain Heco's NFT wish blind box event, NEXTYPE's first game Mining Tycoon includes a rich array of game item NFTs, including the globally first limited edition NFT of Kana Hanazawa, with a quantity of 100, each estimated to be worth 588 U.

You will find that NEXTYPE promotes and markets NFTs to young people through innovative ACG forms and unique cultural shaping methods, making it easier to unite the community and attract more new users. Moreover, the ACG form also helps shape community culture and promote community autonomy, especially by using channels like comics and audio-visual media to easily educate young people about blockchain-related knowledge and hot topics like central bank digital currencies, further expanding the ecological coverage.

Integration of Gaming and NFTs

In fact, the gaming industry has long been interacting with NFTs.

From the "CryptoKitties" four years ago to the current blockbuster NFT game Axie Infinity (with total transaction volume nearing $1.5 billion), the introduction of NFT elements has greatly enhanced the significance and value of blockchain games, especially under the new "Play-to-earn" GameFi model. Some players in emerging markets (like the Philippines) can even earn more income from gaming than from regular jobs.

At the same time, every gamer "becomes" a new user in the cryptocurrency or blockchain industry, and the appeal of gaming will bring many people who previously had no contact with blockchain and cryptocurrencies into the field, injecting a lot of "fresh blood" into this area.

Frankly speaking, the current gaming industry still has its "flaws"------if you are a gamer, you should have a very deep experience: the value of your gaming account only manifests when you are active. When you are AFK (away from keyboard), the value you created will disappear over time. This deadlock can be broken precisely by utilizing NFTs.

NFTs can carry players' value in games; for example, a shining M4A1 or a striking outfit can all become carriers of NFTs. When players leave the game, they can still realize value transfer. NFTs are changing the foundational value of gaming, and only when gaming and NFTs combine can the gaming industry enter a new era!

In the NFT-based GameFi track, NEXTYPE is undoubtedly one of the most stable and best-developed ecosystems, providing players with an excellent gaming experience while also achieving "Play-to-earn."

It is worth mentioning that NEXTYPE did not choose the Ethereum blockchain as its first option but is built on the Huobi Eco Chain HECO, which has better performance. It has now become a star project in the HECO ecosystem's GameFi track and has officially joined the Lucky HECO campaign to promote it on 14 mainstream products and platforms globally, expected to cover over ten million users.

On the other hand, as NEXTYPE's ecosystem gives games NFT value, the value of gamers themselves is also comprehensively enhanced. NEXTYPE's own NFT Value Exchange Protocol (NVEP) allows for multi-form SWAP value exchanges between NFTs and between NFTs and fungible tokens (FT), fully expanding various NFT application scenarios and providing users with an extraordinary gaming experience.

Based on the NVEP protocol, NEXTYPE has also deployed a cross-chain NFT protocol, supporting the cross-chain storage, exchange, and flow of NFT assets belonging to public chains through the NVEP protocol. In the NEXTYPE ecosystem, rare in-game items and equipment can be confirmed for ownership based on NFTs and can achieve rapid value exchange through the NVEP and NCCP protocols. Currently, the NEXTYPE ecosystem has basically covered all types of games in the market, including RAC, STG, LOS, MUG, TCG, etc.

To promote incentives, governance, project development, and destruction within the NEXTYPE ecosystem, NEXTYPE Finance has also launched the native ERC-20 token NT based on the HECO chain. Ownership of NT allows investors, liquidity providers, and NEXTYPE ecosystem gamers to qualify for various usage scenarios, such as token staking, NFT asset synthesis based on game rules to obtain long-tail benefits, and gaining voting rights to participate in ecological governance.

In short, under the new value distribution mechanism brought by blockchain, NEXTYPE has successfully built a new next-generation blockchain gaming form based on NFTs.

ACG + Gaming + NFTs = Crypto Out of the Circle

Undeniably, the NFT market is still in its early stages, so IP still plays a key role. This is actually one of the reasons why the ACG and gaming industries can be the first to interact and integrate with NFTs. Sometimes, the value brought by IP can even be described as "crazy." For example, Beeple's NFT digital masterpiece "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" was sold for $69 million at Christie's, so it is not surprising to see NEXTYPE collaborating with the top ACG IP Kana Hanazawa.

For quite a long time, the somewhat "closed" crypto industry has been eager to break through. When NFTs meet ACG and gaming, it undoubtedly presents an opportunity for the crypto industry to break out.

In terms of ACG, data from iResearch shows that the number of ACG users in China exceeded 100 million as early as 2019, with actual sales revenue created by combining ACG IP with gaming and other industries reaching 21.56 billion yuan. In the gaming sector, according to a global gaming market report released by market research firm Newzoo, the number of global gamers reached 2.7 billion by the end of 2020 (meaning nearly one-third of the global population are gamers), who spent $159.3 billion on gaming. Frankly speaking, the biggest characteristic of ACG gamers is their high loyalty and strong willingness to spend. Now they have brought these user traits into the crypto industry, allowing the crypto community to see the "dawn of breaking the circle."

Against this backdrop, we can see that the NFT-based cross-chain value ecosystem NEXTYPE has actually provided considerable support for the crypto industry to break out, because in the reliable, transparent, open, fair, and freely tradable open world it has built, not only does it give NFTs room for value growth, but it also transforms every gamer and ACG user into a "value discoverer," rather than being limited to the "player" level.

As ACG and gaming deeply integrate and interact with NFTs, a long-term business opportunity and market space have opened up. Only by continuously launching higher-quality products in the market can greater commercial value be obtained. Undoubtedly, NEXTYPE has firmly stepped onto this track, and we look forward to seeing the moment they claim victory.