Ok yes it’s a clickbait-y title, and for that I sincerely apologise. I won’t long it out too much more, but it’s not a lending platform, it’s not a perp dex, and it’s not even a stablecoin. In fact, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with Defi, but having been able to join $early conversations about this, and having been able to see the progress and test runs, I am so damn excited for WeAreMonsta’s NFT Racing - and this article will explain why you should be too!
What is it?
Rather than going through the Felix distorter, let’s get this straight from the Monsta’s mouth
“Welcome to NFT Racing, where the excitement of the racetrack meets the cutting-edge technology of blockchain. Our platform offers a unique and immersive experience, combining the adrenaline of racing with the ownership and trading of NFTs.
NFT Racing is a cross community racing game where players can own, trade, and race custom-built vehicles as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Each vehicle is a one-of-a-kind digital asset, stored securely on the blockchain, ensuring its rarity and value. Join us to experience unique NFT vehicles, live races, custom tracks, driver stats, and community-driven championships.“
What Platopotato and the Monstas have built is disruptive to Radix…now lets get into why!
Hang on before that, they’ve built a what now?
A duck race, tokenised, on Radix. Ok, let’s break that down.
Imagine a stream and a group of friends each have a yellow rubber $duckk, which they place on the water. Whichever duckk wins is random, but that’s not the point. The point is the fun that comes from playing! This is what Monstas have built.
Ok a racing game - Why is it important?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of months, sentiment in the radix community isn’t great. It’s bad. Really bad. Price keeps flirting with new ATLs, hopes of Binance seem to have faded, a strategy pivot is in the works, and most significantly full-time members of the team recently lost their jobs. Needless to say it’s a really sensitive time, with much uncertainty. Tempers and patience at ATHs & ALTs respectively.
What is undeniable, regardless of your opinion on Radix’s best market and business approach - and everyone and their dog are seemingly now experts on this - is the need for a united, happy, and motivated community. In fact, I can’t name a single project in this space that has truly excelled in absence of high community sentiment. When community sentiment is high, you have an army of users, traders, NFT collectors and most importantly marketeers. Unless sentiment is high, and people feel proud of their platform, they won’t go and cheerlead to bring new people in. To grow the platform, the feels already within the platform need to be good.
Building community spirit
This doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not something that can be fabricated. The non-tangibles are important. You might laugh at this but, it takes soul. Something you can’t quite put your finger on; the love and attention that people put into something they feel proud of, or have fun being in. It’s not just as simple as time spent in x, and it’s precisely this reason that for most people, a job is different to your hobbies. There’s no magic button to fix community sentiment, it’s the result of a group of people, united by something, feeling valued and having fun together; sadly something that Radix has been in short supply of lately.
So How does NFT Racing do this?
This is what I love most about this project. WeAreMonstas have built a space where different projects, and all users, can come together to play this game. And game is precisely what it is. The only objective here is to bring more fun to the ecosystem.
Anyone can enter the race. You just need to go to Radish Square and pick up an NFT Race Car. The floor price is 150 xrd, so not a lot at all, up to 1,000 xrd for limited edition NFTs! The cars have been beautifully designed, with a mix of unique designs and some classics too! Then, register your car and join the Monstas Telegram at 21:30 UTC on Race Night!
Once registered, your NFT will be used as your race car! It’s pretty damn cool to see your Lambo or your Tank or your Mystery Machine, actually in the race!
Projects can be thought of as constructors in F1. Currently WeAreMonstas, Addix, FOMO, DAN, HAAGA have all signed up for the inaugural Racing Season. What’s so cool is this has room to grow, as more projects and people get involved!
So what will happen is every other Friday, a race will take place on a custom skinned and themed track. So for example if this week the race is to be held on FOMO’s Pond, the idea is pre-race, people would gather around the FOMO project to chat race, cars and who’s entering!
Sounds good, but how does it actually work - what are the Race Mechanics?
The mechanics are elegant designed, to maintain jeopardy. Each NFT car has a variable speed limit between 50-100. Every couple of seconds, this resets. So you could be behind in the race, then a few seconds later, right in the thick of the action! In the trial races we’ve done, there’s been a good mix of winners and losers, keeping it interesting!
There are different types of cars, which actually perform better on different terrains within the game! So, whilst your Lambo might give you an edge on a smooth surface, as a speed car, you probably don’t want to be using it off-road when you could be using a tank or monster truck! More stats about car performance are on the way so we can really geek out!
Additionally, as the game progresses other variables can be added too. For example, driver skills will vary depending on past performance, and there’s even talk of NFT add-ons like nitro boosts, that may change your variable speed from 50-100 to 55-105, for example.
As with the very best grass-roots projects, what is most exciting is yet to come, and will be built together by the community! A leaderboard? A place to bet on races maybe? Weaponised vehicles wacky races style!?
You said the NFTs cost - so are Monstas earning from this?
With the amount of work gone in, even if they were it would be justified. But they're not! Platopotato has literally built this up to give to the community, with the aim of bringing us closer together! In fact, all revenue raised from sales go into a prize pot!
The first race, taking place Fri 30th Aug has a prize pot of 1,000 xrd and 500,000 mxrd!
Final thoughts
Ultimately, if we want to feel more united as a community, then it’s about getting involved in more things happening within the community. We can’t hack this, or artificially pump it, but that’s what makes it so so special when we do finally have it!
It’s 150 xrd, and it goes straight back to the community. Pick up an NFT and get involved!
NFT racing is silly and it’s fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s designed to be enjoyed by everyone within the Radix community. You don’t need a scrypto101 certificate, or to be able to understand derivative trading. Cool cars go brrrmm, and ultimately (ready for it?) we all win…
10/10 on the cheese-factor ending there, couldn’t resist.
Purchase your NFT here Register it here Join the race here
If you enjoyed this article and want to support, please consider staking to 💚ADDIX+FOMO🐸 Validator Node here
