NFTs (nonfungible tokens) have opened a great debate. On one side, skeptics believe NFTs are nothing more than JPEGs riding out their short-lived hype. On the other side, people believe NFTs are the next big thing, positioned to take over the digital space as we know it. So, which opinion is the correct one? Consider a parallel to the beginnings of the internet, when many industry analysts quickly dismissed the rising tech companies. As history would have it, these very objectors were proven wrong when companies like Amazon revolutionized the world of e-commerce. Consequently, the only thing missing was a vision for the underlying technology.
Looking back to the present day, a major argument for why NFTs will not amount to much comes down to the perceived belief that they have no utility. However, this belief is quickly disputed with the concept of GameFi. Here, NFT-powered games allow players to leverage their digital assets for earning opportunities.
Proving the utility of NFTs is SUPERNOVAE, a team creating games powered entirely by DeFi (decentralized finance) and known for its utilization of NFTs. In the Farsite universe, everything is owned by players, a guarantee provided by the distributed ledger. In keeping with the space theme, the main asset in the game is a spaceship, each being original in appearance and varying in rarity.
The major difference is that, unlike a regular NFT, ships exist as a collateral nonfungible token (cNFT), better known as an ERC-721 token, that contains “Credits.” Credits exist as ERC-20 tokens enhanced by a cNFT protocol.
As stated by a member of their team, the use of the cNFT protocol is simple, yet effective:
“The implied value of NFTs, be it bizarre monkeys or 24x24 pixels hooded faces, in most cases is nothing but scarcity and speculation. The problem is there’s no actual use case, apart from setting as an avatar on Twitter and getting some bragging rights - owning a nonfungible token doesn’t provide copyright protection and is subject to infamous in the crypto space “right-click save as” unbreakable spell. The cNFTs are different - we believe it will soon become the new standard for the whole GameFi industry.”
In Farsite, the addition of credits as the universal in-game currency provides various usages as players progress through different in-game applications.
A post-apocalyptic world
The SUPERNOVAE team is not new to the NFT space. Their journey began in 2018 with the creation of MegaCryptoPolis, a decentralized application (DApp) game where every item is an ERC-721 token. Farsite was then born out of the need to further showcase the abilities of cNFTs in an MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world.
In this universe, a players’ only hope is to survive a desolate environment, seek out rare materials and craft a powerful ship. To get started, a pre-order of crates, each containing a one-of-a-kind cNFT ship, was made available to the public on Dec. 2. Interested players are encouraged to participate in this initial sale, as previous First Edition Crates were sold out within four hours. Now, they are available for trade on OpenSea at double the initial price or more.
As a cNFT, each ship contains Credits that have many uses, from fueling a ship’s flight, securing new sectors for rare resources, increasing a ship’s cargo space or copying blueprints.
Flying into the future
Farsite now has a community of over 500,000 registered players. However, the team continues to hold lofty goals for the next year, including launching the fully-featured Alpha, a scholarships program, and additional wallet integrations. To meet these expansion goals, Farsite is partnering with Polygon (MATIC) as their choice in scaling solution.
On Dec. 2, the pre-order of Crates containing valuable in-game items was launched. Most of the top-tier Crates containing legendary Sacura cNFTs have been sold out within just two days.
The early alpha version of the gameplay was unveiled on Dec.14.
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