Vitalik Buterin to show interest in Loot NFT project

Loot, a newly created Ethereum-based NFT project, has captured the crypto community’s attention in just a matter of days. At the same time, Loot is an absolutely unique meta-MMORPG with great prospects for developing from a game into a metaverse based on the blockchain of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.

A metaverse is a utopian virtual reality invented by science fiction writers, where the game aspect is gradually replaced by the social one, making the game a viable alternative to the real world, allowing people to communicate, work, build relationships and live just like irl.

How it all started

It all started with a tweet from Dom Hofmann, an entrepreneur and programmer better known as the creator of Vine:

anyone wanna jam on this over the weekend https://t.co/AamQ3GgbqA

— dom (@dhof) August 26, 2021

In it, he mentioned a text-based game where you can farm NFTs and even invited those interested to “jam on this over the weekend”.

On the same day, Hofmann announced the Loot project on Twitter, showing randomised adventurer gear (8000 NFT loot bags) as an example. These game bags, which “intentionally omitted [images and stats] for others to interpret,” could be obtained by using the project’s smart contract, and cost only the price of gas.

The NFT fever is in full swing, so naturally, all the NFTs were quickly claimed by Hoffman’s followers.

Why is it popular?

One of the main reasons for Loot’s growing popularity is what you may call the “Dom effect”. In recent weeks, Dom has created a handful of innovative NFT projects that have quickly amassed a cult following. These projects include:

• Blitmaps — a community-crafted sci-fi fantasy universe
• Nouns DAO — an experimental avatar-a-day project
• Supdrive — an on-chain fantasy game console

Such a reputation has resulted in many fans of the aforementioned projects immediately jumping at the opportunity to mint from Dom’s next experiment. The Loot project went viral as a result.

Loot’s distinguishing feature is that within the meta-MMORPG, players use NFTs to create their own scenarios for the worlds they themselves have created. These worlds combine into a real metaverse, where the player can be anyone and do anything. This fundamentally changes the paradigm familiar to the NFT space.

This is what I have been SUPER EXCITED about…

It's @dhof and his creations: @blitmap @sugarthegame @supdrive, and most importantly @lootproject ❤️

Loot is something different. It's something that has never been done before ever.

It's a paradigm shift in NFT space.

Thread 👇 pic.twitter.com/vbaUF4uGNE

— tandavas.eth 👘 (@tandavas) August 31, 2021

Here is @lootproject's ecosystem for beginners.
The latest proof of compatibility of the NFTmetaverse, created by @dhof.

Absolutely amazed at how fast the ecosystem has grown in the last few days.
Note: This is only half of what happened. More charts to follow. pic.twitter.com/s5H8DTC6Z8

— Lili ✰ ツ (@lililashka) September 1, 2021

Ethereum‘s creator Vitalik Buterin tweeted the following about Loot: 

I think the @lootproject philosophy has it right: pretty much anything that anyone creates "exists", what matters is to what extent other people build upon it.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 2, 2021

In his opinion, the project already exists as the foundation of a game and now it’s up to the community to determine what happens next. Next-level interactivity.

Bankless founder David Hoffman, one of the leading Ethereum and DeFi commentators, described what the future holds for Loot in his post “The Metaverse Emerges”. According to him, this project may serve as a springboard for growing the metaverse atop Ethereum, which is definitely an interesting take.

Due to Loot’s open nature and its smart contract infrastructure, it’s a “cultural lego” that can be connected with any other Web3 project. This resulted in many enthusiasts launching their own projects, creating additional resources to expand the Loot metaverse:

• 0xinventory.app — a tool for color-coding Loot items by rarity
• AGLD — a governance token for story building 
• The Grand Exchange — a front-end Loot auction house launched on the Zora protocol, enabling group bids on Loot items via PartyBid 

Loot isn’t just a game or a community; it is a whole metaverse, where users themselves decide what the world they have created will look like. That is why many people believe this project may become a springboard for a real, fully functional metaverse.