With over 410,000 followers in its Discord, Big Time is second only to Axie Infinity when it comes to being the most followed blockchain game.
Big Time Studios’ pedigree in terms of blockchain and gaming experience is also second to none — just look at all those beards!
More relevant, the game’s beta has gone live for holders of its Gold Pass, who are now playing, streaming and collecting NFTs, which are now becoming available on its marketplace.
Which also means it’s time to finally write my magnum opus on patterns in Big Time’s NFT land trading since its December 2021 launch (before the data becomes irrelevant).
The TL;DR version is the price of all assets has declined significantly but some have performed significantly better than others.
Bring on the data
The graph below tracks the combined floor price of the 15 different land NFTs (what Big Time labels SPACEs) that have been traded on its marketplace.
These range from Rare Small SPACEs (launch price $299) to Exalted Large SPACEs ($3,299).
The rarity of a SPACE defines the rarity of the items that can be crafted using it, while the size defines how many items can be crafted/held.
Size levels (3) are Large > Medium > Small
Rarity levels (5) are Exalted > Mythic > Legendary > Epic > Rare
However the broad ROI graph, which peaked at over 400% and is currently 26%, obscures some key trends — notably the messy way in which the market has attempted to value rarities and sizes in an era of limited information.
Broadly speaking, the largest, most rare SPACEs have performed the best. No surprises there. Of the 15 SPACEs, the only (five) examples currently experiencing positive ROI in comparison to their primary sale price are:
Exalted Large (up 173%), Exalted Medium (+54%), Exalted Small (+17%)
Mythic Large (+13%), Mythic Medium (+2%)
Legendary Large (+20%)
All other SPACEs are in negative ROI territory, with the worst performing being Epic Small (down 48%) and Epic Medium (down 51%).
It’s also interesting to look at the price trends for comparatively-priced SPACEs. For example, the Epic Small and Rare Medium SPACEs were both priced $499 at launch, with the larger, less rare Rare Medium SPACE constantly out-performing the more rare, smaller Epic Small SPACE.
Perhaps this is logical as there are three size options but five rarity options so while the Rare Medium SPACE is -1 in terms of rareness compared to the Epic Small SPACE, it’s +1 in terms of size.
The situation is more complex when looking at the price of the Legendary Small SPACE (launch price $599) compared to the Epic Medium SPACE ($699) however.
Despite being sold $100 cheaper at launch, it looks like the +1 rareness of Legendary Small is now being valued by the market more than its -1 size, although this could be a temporary artifact.
And what to make of the recent performance of Rare Large compared Mythic Small (+2 rareness, -1 size), given both launched priced at $999?
At this point, it’s probably sensible to conclude that Big Time Studios could have (or should have) limited its rarity scale to four or possibly even three units. Certainly the term ‘Epic’ seems descriptively weak compared to ‘Legendary’, which itself is hard to gauge in comparison to ‘Mythic’.
Either way, perhaps the clearest graph demonstrates that in such complex conditions, the market has consistently valued the rarest and/or larger (i.e. most expensive) option.
In terms of grouping SPACEs by rarity or size, there’s a strong premium for Large SPACEs and Exalted SPACEs, if only because these are the least complex attributes to price — the large, exalted SPACE NFT is the best performing asset by far.
Of course, all of this could change as Big Time goes progressively live with more players and pricing trends for the NFTs created through play feed back into the prices of the SPACEs required to generate them.
If you want see all the graphs and explanations, please check out this video.
Product news
Coinbase has launched its NFT marketplace into a closed beta. Powered by the 0x protocol, any self-custody wallet including the Coinbase Wallet can be used and for a limited time only, there are no platform transaction fees for trading.
Coinbase says its vision for the marketplace is to be more than a place for trading NFTs, also providing “better ways to discover them, better ways to find the right communities, and better spaces in which they can feel connected with each other”.
You can find out more details here, and interested parties can sign up to the waitlist for access.
Splinterlands has announced that on 15 April, it’s surpassed 2.3 million daily card rentals. The TGC enables anyone to set a price for other players to rent their cards, creating the opportunity for passive income.
For example, one of the most valuable cards in the game — the summoner Archimage Arius costs $32,000 to buy but can be rented for 37c per day.
Prediction news
Following the announcement of its $400 million FVIII fund, Framework has put together a list of predictions about the blockchain sector in 2030.
Some interesting examples are:
P2E games become the largest employer of human beings globally
5-10 P2E games have 100M+ MAU
The most popular global sports team is an on-chain gaming guild