Table of Contents
What is Loot?
Loot: A text-based NFT
The Characteristics of Loot
Randomness
Greater Developer Rewarding System
Loot and Generative Art
What is Automatically Generated Art?
The Artistic Limitations of Loot
The Prospects of Loot
The Future Is in The Hands of Collectors
Leading the NFT Paradigm Shift
Unpredictable Cost Recovery
What is Loot?
Loot: A text-based NFT
Loot is an on-chain NFT consisting of text file only and serves as the basis for simple video games. It is a TXT file that allows anyone to create themes and equipment. Simply put, Loot is a developer ecosystem in which the entire community can participate. Specifically, users code in Loot and create hero gears on their own, and then collect them.
Fair mint refers to NFTs that are minted by users through a contract, rather than being issued by the market. The cost of ownership only includes gas fee. 8,000 NFTs were provided by the Loot project, including 222 that are reserved as rewards by the creators themselves.
The Loot project sparked a trading frenzy upon its release. With its trading volume surging and even reaching the top of the OpenSea list, the project has become one of the highest priced collectibles ever. Three days after its release, Loot’s market value skyrocketed and maintained a stable level. However, we observed a slight descent in terms of trading volume and number of traders following the emergence of replica disks and the gradual receding of the hype.
Loot provides a list for items called a “bag”. This provides a space for adventurers to explore with their equipment put into their bags.
With Loot, users can pay to create their own exclusive list of items, and anyone can participate for free in minting when the project is launched. Each Loot NFT consists of a set of randomly generated adventurer’s items which usually include eight types of equipment, namely weapon, cuirasses, helmets, faulds, chausses, gauntlets, necklaces and rings. Users collect different items according to their interests and form different unions in the Loot community. For example, users who own crowns join a union of their own.
In addition, members within a Loot community is allowed to edit and expand the list of texts in order to create more virtual items. Virtual characters and community designs are jointly created by the members of the community.
The Characteristics of Loot
Randomness
Each Loot list has a random scarcity. Depending on the hash value of the token ID, each item may receive a prefix or suffix attribute to become its fortified version. NFT owners will be assigned a token ID for each NFT minted. Whenever the tokenURI method of the NFT is used, its attribute will occur.
The randomization of attribute, although occurs randomly, has a certain method of occurrence. For instance, a hash function is applied to the token ID and the item type in series and converted to an integer. Once the user finds a new item, a new random integer is generated between 0 and 21, taking the modulo of the random number and 21. When the new number is greater than 14 (with about 42% probability), the item receives a special suffix; when the number is greater than 19 (with about 8.7% probability), the item receives a prefix. This randomness creates scarcity for each item.
Greater Developer Rewarding System
The Loot project provides a minimum foundation on which the virtual community of users can all build as developers.
Compared with previous models of redeveloping and building on the existing ecosystem of big brands (such as Dapper), Loot, a model in which users build their own ecosystem, provides developers with more freedom to design. This model, by its nature, is much more encouraging and rewarding to developers.
Loot and Generative Art
The Loot program is essentially a TXT file co-edited by users. These codes instruct computers to automatically generate images, text, and other forms of work. For example, the program generates images, pixel tasks, and complete images of heroes automatically based on user-written programs.
This form of creation combines both randomness and certainty. We’re unsure of how a user would code, but the code execution process carried out by the computer is certain as it follows the rules of creation. This form of creation is exciting and interesting because the creator does not have full control over the final product.
What is Automatically Generated Art?
Auto-generated art, also known as generative art, derivative art, and self-derived art, usually refers to algorithmic art, which is art created in whole or in part using an automated creation system.
Automatically generated art is produced based on code. By observing the creation and research process of artists and scientists, people write codes and give computers a certain extent of autonomy. Computers act as creators and execute instruction programs to produce artworks that cannot be copied.
The Artistic Limitations of Loot
While automatically generated artworks bring a greater sense of surprise, some critics argue that code-based, automatically generated artworks lack artistry and will gradually lose their value. Humans create artworks that are meaningful, structured and organized, rather than just randomly assembled elements. Artwork created by humans can sometimes be difficult to comprehend, but it also allows the viewer to gain an intuitive sense of what to expect when viewing it.
After programming became a tool for art creation, the process of artistic creation slowly became predictable (one could program and understand what would happen in a given state), which conflicted with the desire for unpredictability in artistic creation. As a result, we might see a high degree of homogenization arising with the progression of auto-generated art.
The Prospects of Loot
The Future Is in The Hands of Collectors
As an NFT co-created by collectors, Loot is a product of collective imagination within the virtual community and thus has a limitation that depends on it.
What Loot developers offer to their users is similar to what Lego manufacturers offer to their players: they provide the most basic “bricks” and parts which users can use to build different objects. The final product depends on the imagination of participants.
However, it is worth noting that there are a total of 12 whales in the Loot program that hold more than $1 million in value, which is uncommon among a host of NFT programs.
Leading the NFT Paradigm Shift
Loot is different from previous NFTs in that it is extremely collaborative in character and contains a vast amount of creativity. All members of the virtual community can participate in the minting process of this virtual currency at will, and its minting process is similar to an open source role-playing game in which the entire community participates in real time.
This decentralized minting process allows everyone to participate in the expansion, construction, derivation and completion of Loot, as well as its adoption by all. Each user is able to add code to the text file according to their preferences and the community has full creative control to themselves, which allows the community to create more unique artworks.
Unpredictable Cost Recovery
Although users do not need to bear costs other than gas fees when participating in the Loot project, the gas fees for minting Loot are very high, causing many users worry about its cost recovery.
In fact, on September 4, the price of the original Loot project plummeted after its founder released more than 10,000 pieces of the new Loot project TemporalLoot (More Loot), which also warned users of the potential bubble risk of Loot.
Rarity is a Loot-style NFT released by Andre Cronje. It is similar to Loot in many aspects, but has high-frequency interactions. Therefore, it is usually only suitable for Layer 2 and Sidechains.
The difference between Loot and Rarity mainly lies in the worldview. loot is a project that draws out the worldview and settings of NFT, which exists in the form of text on the Ethereum Mainnet and can be freely created by other creators. On the other hand, Rarity is part of an on-chain game with its own worldview, which is characterized by encouraging players to interact and achieve game hero upgrades through interactions. Rarity is more compatible with Layer 2 and Sidechains with a more complete economic model.
In a nutshell, Loot provides a code space that is co-edited by a community of users. In contrast, other platforms only offer users the opportunity to create items within a framework provided by the project developer, and these items are usually created by one person or a small group of people. Users acquire new items through transactions. In Loot, however, users participate directly in the construction of the framework, which gives them a higher degree of liberty. The item creation process involves more people and opens up possibilities for group creativity.
Disclaimer: This article is for research purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice.
