A player we’re excited to support in this space is Lootex, a GameFi company on a mission to liberate NFT ownership and bring blockchain games to more players. As a game-oriented NFT marketplace, Lootex helps players discover, share and trade digital items as part of a GameFi ecosystem that can help unlock the potential of the metaverse. 

Imagine a virtual world where gamers, developers and creators connect as part of an immersive experience powered by NFTs and digital assets. That’s the future promised by crypto gaming in the metaverse. That opportunity is already coming into focus thanks to innovative blockchain gaming projects underpinned by GameFi, or play-to-earn, a model combining games with crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi).

NFT Marketplace | The Nuts & Bolts

Problem: Once the domain of a small community of blockchain enthusiasts, NFTs have become a key trend in the crypto world. But mainstream use cases for these digital assets are still taking shape. That’s where GameFi, another important trend in the crypto world, comes into play. 

Built around a play-to-earn model instead of the traditional play-to-win approach, GameFi has the potential to propel the growth and usage of NFTs by creating incentives for creators and gamers alike. GameFi helps put the power in the hands of gamers by rewarding them with cryptocurrencies or NFTs just for playing and, crucially, grants them complete control of their own in-game assets. Their data is stored on a blockchain instead of a server controlled by a game operator. Meanwhile, traditional gamers today can spend untold hours creating valuable in-game items, only to see them vanish when a game publisher shuts down a server. 

We believe GameFi could ultimately disrupt the gaming industry as we know it and play an important role in the rise of the metaverse. This expansive virtual world will feature digital assets and games as key elements of its social fabric (think Ready Player One). Still, these trends are in their early days, and many pieces are missing. Creating such a virtual ecosystem will require connecting gamers, creators, IP owners and developers and giving them tools to interact and collaborate. 

Solution: As a game-oriented NFT platform, Lootex is building a GameFi ecosystem where players can trade everything from avatars, virtual lands and even pets as part of their favorite blockchain games.

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Lootex’s transparent and decentralized marketplace provides a platform that serves gamers, developers, IP owners, NFT traders, gaming companies and content agencies alike. It also supports a variety of blockchains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum and Avalanche, with more coming soon. 

The marketplace serves as the core around which Lootex is creating various related features and tools. One is a launchpad that helps mint NFTs, while another is Lootpedia, a feature allowing users to explore advanced stats around in-game items. Lootex also allows creators to build a custom store design based on the needs of their project, which helps promote and guide users to relevant items.

The ultimate goal is to make Lootex a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. A key part is introducing $LOOT, a token that will help underpin its ecosystem and boost NFT trading volume on its marketplace. 

Getting to know Lootex

Taking inspiration from the sci-fi blockbuster Ready Player One, Lootex was founded by a team with extensive experience in online gaming and blockchain technology. CEO Justine Lu has worked in the game industry for many years, including multiple stints as a brand marketing director. COO David Tseng has experience with decentralized app development and has previously helped found startups, including BSOS (another 500 Global portfolio company). Director of Development Yu-Lei Lu has previously co-founded and served as a UI/UX designer with multiple startups.

Why An NFT Marketplace Now?

The NFT market has grown rapidly recently, and gaming-related trading volumes are becoming increasingly important. Gaming NFTs are now eclipsing the popularity of regular AI-generated art collections: in Q1 2022, buyers snapped up over 4 million gaming NFTs, as opposed to 2.7 million regular collectibles. That comes as the blockchain gaming industry has grown tremendously. For instance, during a single week in January 2022, the top 10 blockchain games handled more than $841 million in transaction volume and attracted more than 2 million unique active cryptocurrency wallets. Meanwhile, over 75% of online gamers have reported wanting to exchange their virtual assets for a currency that can be used across multiple platforms. 

The future of Lootex

Already, Lootex has a community of over 80,000 monthly active users and ranks among the top 20 third-party NFT marketplaces for BSC and Polygon in user and trading volume. The company also kicked off 2022 by raising $9 million from investors. Going forward, Lootex has an opportunity to differentiate itself from the competition by focusing on game-oriented NFT trading and executing its DAO plan. We look forward to supporting Lootex as it develops the gamer-centric NFT marketplace for the metaverse. 

If you are interested in learning more about the metaverse,  read out the feature article:   The Metaverse May Be The Future, But Mixed Reality Is Happening Now

You can learn more about Lootex at: https://lootex.io/ 

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