At Cymbal, we see enormous potential for NFTs on blockchains to provide transformative value across diverse industries such as gaming, finance, and digital media. One industry that is already realizing some of that potential is the art market. From Beeple netting a record $69 million from the Christie’s auction of his work “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days”, to Tyler Hobbs’ Fideza NFT collection generating over 4,000 ETH in royalties, NFTs have provided a new medium for artists to create, distribute, and monetize their creative talents. And this has all happened in the past 24 months — we’re still in the early infancy of how artists can leverage NFTs.
The next 24 months will bring about more innovation, more participants, and more opportunities for art and NFTs to evolve together. We believe one of these opportunities is interactivity enabled by blockchains. Just because NFTs are unique, that doesn’t mean they are static. Art has historically been only admired and collected. But with NFTs and the interactivity they can provide, art can be shared, experienced, played, and even… survived?
Today, we are thrilled to debut Letters Royale, an on-chain NFT event on Solana built by Cymbal in collaboration with acclaimed artist Vinnie Hager and leading NFT marketplace Magic Eden. Letters Royale is a free, interactive survival raffle powered by NFTs where someone will have the chance to win $10,000 and even more importantly a 1/1 original NFT art piece created by Vinnie. All you have to do is survive the Royale.
Here’s how it works
Joining Letters Royale is simple. Starting today (January 11th), go to https://letters.royale.fun, connect your Solana wallet (Phantom recommended) and Twitter account, and then mint an NFT ticket to join the game. Best of all, the Solana ticket is free to mint — you just pay the gas fee. Tickets will be available to mint for the next 5 days (until January 15th at 6pm PST) and are limited to 1 per Twitter account and wallet.
On January 16th, the Royale will begin and players will be eliminated at random over the course of the next 5 days until only a single player remains. That lucky survivor will win $10,000 in USDC plus an amazing new 1/1 NFT art piece from Vinnie. This will be the first time Vinnie has created art on Solana, so we’re keeping it secret for now. But once the eliminations start, we’ll slowly unveil the art in a unique way.
Every player in the Royale will be mapped on top of Vinnie’s artwork and as players are eliminated from the contest, we’ll reveal their spots on the art piece. As more people are eliminated, more of the art will become visible. The last survivor will be announced on January 20th, during which Vinnie’s full artwork will be shown to the entire world for the winner to claim along with their $10,000 in USDC.
Throughout the Royale, you can follow the elimination action in real time at https://letters.royale.fun, in our Discord server, or on Twitter (@cymbalxyz). On the Letters Royale site, you can also browse everyone that’s playing and see interesting stats and rankings about their on-chain NFT activity, all powered by Cymbal’s data platform.
If you want to really get in on the fun, you can pay to randomly Knock Out a fellow player. Part of the proceeds will go back to the prize pool, and you’ll get a souvenir NFT commemorating the person you knocked out. If you get knocked out (or just want to increase your chances of surviving), buy more Letters Royale NFT tickets exclusively on Magic Eden, where the NFT tickets are freely tradeable. Thanks to Magic Eden’s Open Creator Protocol, royalties from the ticket sales will help support Letters Royale and Vinnie.
This is just the beginning
Just like it’s the early infancy for NFTs and the impact they can have, it’s only the start for what we have planned for Royale and other blockchain experiences that Cymbal will power. Letters Royale is the first of many ways we hope to make NFTs and the blockchain more interesting, understandable, and accessible to creators and consumers. If you’re a creator interested in collaborating with us on your own Royale or other on-chain event, we’d love to talk to you. If you’d like to check out what else we’re building at Cymbal, sign up here for the Alpha of our upcoming social block explorer product.
We believe that data stored on blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Flow, Avalanche, and more represent a new type of digital media content. Content that’s being created at a rate faster than the web has ever seen. Content that has the potential to be incredibly engaging, interactive, and valuable. Content that will transform industries and their participants, like art and artists. That’s why we built Letters Royale, that’s why we founded Cymbal, that’s why we will have so much more to share with you in the coming weeks, because that’s the game we are so excited to play.
Let the games begin.
