To be fair, hungry crypto behemoth Binance has prior when it comes to sticking its plump thumbs into juicy NFT-related pies.
Both The Sandbox and Axie Infinity launched their tokens - SAND and AXS respectively - through its Launchpad program in late 2020.
Binance also acquired 4,012 LAND NFTs (2.4% of total supply) from The Sandbox in the process. It’s not clear what it paid for these, or whether they were ‘part of the Launchpad deal’.
It says it will use them “to engage with our community through social gaming experiences within The Sandbox virtual worlds”.
The Deal
In that sense, then, it’s no surprise Animoca Brands - the company behind The Sandbox and other blockchain games - has signed a partnership to bring NFTs aka “the tokenization of virtual assets” to Binance’s Binance Smart Chain.
Launched in September 2020, Binance Smart Chain is an Ethereum-compatible smart contract blockchain that - to-date - is populated with unimaginative DeFi copycat dapps.
The most popular is called PancakeSwap, which I think tells you everything you need to know about the status of the dapp ecosystem.
No wonder Binance is desperate to get some proper dapp developers on its blockchain.
What’s more interesting to consider, however, is whether the financial muscle of Binance, and the speculative nature of its traders is sufficiently fertile ground in which to seed the sort of NFT ecosystem that’s developed on Ethereum over the previous couple of years?
One example suggests this is possible.
The WAX blockchain - a version of EOS - has successfully positioned itself as ‘The King of NFTs’ during 2020, with the launch of collectibles projects ranging from Garbage Pail Kids to William Shatner memorabilia.
Overall volumes weren’t enormous; $6 million of total NFT trading value in 2020 compared to over $70 million for Ethereum, but from a standing start, it shows promise.
Changing behaviour
I’d argue the situation for Binance Smart Chain is somewhat different, however.
WAX found a new audience and retained it by promising more of the same. Binance Smart Chain already has an audience and they’re used to trading tokens and the instant price and liquidity Binance provides them.
Selling NFTs is a very different business, especially in terms of selling, but perhaps I’m just too conservative in my judgements; it has been known.
Certainly, I will be fascinated to see how Animoca - and no doubt other content providers too - attempt to tease value out of what appears to be one of the most profit-driven audience in human history.
Given that asssesment, I guess, it’s at least worth a go.