Loot: The Infinite Hype Machine
This thing has insane Pumpamentals, regardless if you believe the dream
I want to preface this blog by disclosing that I’m coping hard. I’m a no Looter. No Katanas or Divine Robes for me.
What is loot? It’s a text NFT containing 8 words (the loot). It’s exploded due to it’s composability — unlike a simple profile pic image, new projects can be built on top of Loot. It has a thriving community building new things for loot holders. The most avid loot promoters will tell you about some future dream state where an entire game world will be built on top of loot and it will be a foundational piece of the “metaverse”
VC’s also love this thing. They have better explainers than I do.
Will there be an entire metaverse game that people play built on top of this? Maybe? The pessimist in me says probably not, but remember, I’m a coping no looter so I have a bias. People are building tons of dope things on top of it (although thus far no real games). The community has been insane, and there are now DAOs for Katana owners and Divine robe wearers. People have built some cool front ends:
However, the most interesting part has been the derivative projects with their own value. There are tons of random airdrops / mints designed for the loot community. Most are pretty derivative of loot itself, and the devs are making tons of money using the Loot community to pump the new side projects. Here are some of the most successful:
Characters are stats for your loot characters. Free for Looters, small charge for a few non looters.
Realms charge looters .03 ETH a pop (although effectively a .47 ETH airdrop since these things are going for .5 ETH on the secondary market).
The craziest was that Looters were also airdropped 10,000 AGLD (supposedly this will be the currency of loot whenever it exists?) which then exploded in price. At the peak the AGLD airdrop was worth $70,000 fucking dollars.
What’s been the effect of all these airdrops and “community projects”? Loot and loot derivatives have absolutely taken over Opensea (which is quickly becoming unusable). The side projects which were minting for dust are going for half an eth.
Loot itself has absolutely taken off. Look at the following chart — in one week the floor went from practically nothing to almost 18 ETH, and there are no signs of stopping. Loot is a rocket ship.
Feeling FOMO yet? That’s the design, and that’s why this project is absolutely exploding. Like every good ponzi, there’s a solid flywheel to describe this.
Here is how it works:
People ape into the loot community. Maybe a small part of this is dreams and excitement, but for the most part it’s FOMO and hoping to get rich off airdrops for looters
Devs see that other devs are getting filthy rich off Loot based projects. They launch a new spin off / tie in / derivative and shill it to the loot community for free marketing. They either earn money via small fees from loot mints, secondary sales on open sea, or by opening up mints to anyone (i.e. the poor no looters)
Broke, coping no looters who can’t afford loot see the latest loot derivative, and based on how past derivatives have taken off, they decide to ape in and sweep the floor. They want to get a piece of the loot action
Loot derivative explodes on the secondary market as floods of people try to get a small piece of the loot action
Loot owners get filthy rich off the airdrop
The cycle continues
Thus far this cycle has been going gang busters. I’m curious to see how this all shakes out. Hopefully loot becomes this sick metaverse. But if not? It will at least be a case study for how to create an NFT hype machine.
In the meanwhile, to satisfy my insane levels of cope for missing a generational ponzi, I’ve bought the top of a shameless Loot knock-off called ‘Dope Wars Loot’. Hopefully the airdrops start flowing so we can get the ponzi flywheel moving in full swing.
