The Arbitrum NFT scene
Checking out some of Arbitrum's earliest NFT projects!
Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles
Dear Bankless Nation,
It’ll take all kinds of folks and all kinds of projects to build out Ethereum’s scaling ecosystem in the years ahead.
We’ll need sidechains, like Polygon and Ronin. We’ll need rollups, both of the “optimistic” and “zk” varieties. We’ll need validiums, volitions, state channels, and more!
Indeed, I think it’s inevitable that the culmination of these solutions will be pivotal in powering tremendous amounts of NFT activity in the future, and over time I aim to cover and experiment around all these various NFT frontiers.
That said, this week a tweet about the NFT Alliance piqued my interest about the rise of NFTs on Arbitrum’s flagship optimistic rollup:
Let’s zoom in here and explore some, then!
-WMP
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Is Arbitrum an NFT platform?
Arbitrum is a type of layer-two (L2) scaling technology known as an optimistic rollup. It supports Ethereum smart contracts and dev tooling and offers extremely cheap and rapid transactions. These realities make Arbitrum very friendly for dapps, like NFT and DeFi projects.
Arbitrum inherits Ethereum’s security while simultaneously serving as an external execution layer for Ethereum transactions, hence the L2 moniker.
“Arbitrum One,” which is the largest L2 at the moment per its ~$3B TVL, is the first implementation of Arbitrum’s tech. In the future there will be multiple Arbitrum-based rollups, e.g. Reddit’s L2.
An early friction of optimistic rollups is it currently takes ~7 days to withdraw your assets back to Ethereum. With L2 + bridging advances I expect this friction will disappear, but for now don’t send any funds over that you may need in the short-term!
⛓️ Additional Arbitrum resources ⛓️
What is the NFT Alliance?
The NFT Alliance is a new collective of NFT and DeFi builders. Their goal? To serve as a working group focused on creating “exclusive products on Arbitrum” in order to “grow [their] communities and the NFT ecosystem.”
The collaborative body remains small, as it’s presently composed of 12 NFT projects, 2 marketplaces, and 1 DeFi protocol. Together, though, these teams are helping to lay the grassroots groundwork for Arbitrum’s future NFT advances.
Zooming in, the Alliance’s current member projects are as follows:
Arbibots — Generative, on-chain pixel avatars (sold out)
ArbiDudes — “The cutest dudes in the metaverse” (0.05 ETH each).
Agora — An Arbitrum ecosystem marketplace
CastleDAO — “10k Castles, 10k Generals, fight and earn”
Farmland — A DeFi x NFT farming game
Footy Nouns — A soccer-themed Nouns derivative project
Grand Fantasy — 10k random basketball NFTs
Out Of Orbit — An NFT marketplace on Arbitrum
Realm — A play-to-earn battle game
Random Walk NFT — A social experiment / generative art project
SacredCreatures — A sci-fi NFT trading card game
The Bunny Gang — A bunny-themed avatar collection
Yabbie Dabbies — “Adapt and protect Yabbies and Dabbies”
YayBears — A bear-themed, Kanye West-inspired avatar collection
Keep in mind that the NFT Alliance is a voluntary, community-run effort, so these aren’t the only NFT projects on Arbitrum right now. They’ve just decided to build in parallel toward similar goals, and other like-minded projects are free to join in.
All that said, it’s important to underline that Arbitrum’s young NFT scene is an experimental frontier. Test things out with small sums at first if you do test at all!
Other Arbitrum NFT projects to watch
Independent NFT projects are sprouting up all the while on Arbitrum, too. A few examples I’ve been watching lately are as follows:
Smol Puddle — an experimental NFT marketplace
Realms — a project building a strategy game for the Lootverse
CUDL Finance — an NFT pets game built on Arbitrum
Stay tuned …
This time next year it’d be interesting to return to this topic and do a status report on the Arbitrum NFT ecosystem’s progress at that point. In the meantime, I’ll keep doing these sorts of write-ups on other Ethereum scaling solutions. I’ll cover Polygon’s NFT scene next and then rotate back into rollups, e.g. zk rollup projects. Keep your eyes peeled for the second report!
Action steps
📌 If you haven’t already, catch up on The Essential Guide to Arbitrum by Bankless.
👀 Also check out the trailer for the newest Bankless podcast, Overpriced JPEGs, which launches tomorrow!
Subscribe to Bankless. $22 per mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge.
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.