Interests in NFTs skyrocketed when Mike Winkelman, a 3D artist known as Beeple sold his art NFT Everyday: The first 5,000 days for a whopping $69.3 million in 2021. Seeing how much income they could make from NFTs, many creators began to create different NFT projects. Collectors also became more interested in NFTs for investment purposes.
As influx into the NFT community increases, tens of new NFTs drop every day. Following this, it is becoming clear to the NFT community that if collectors continue to buy into NFT projects just for the beauty of the NFT, there's a high likelihood that many NFT projects will become worthless in a few years NFT collectors will lose their money.
To combat this, several NFT projects, especially blockchain games, are creating projects that have utility; NFT collectors are also focusing on the utility they can get from NFTs.
A significant way project creators can inject utility into their projects for the long-term benefit of collectors of their NFTs is through Breeding NFTs.
What Are Breeding NFTs
Breeding NFTs is a mechanism in which two breedable NFTs breed to form a new NFT offspring. Think of two animals breeding to create offspring to understand how the mechanism works.
NFT project creators and startups employ NFT breeding to create long-term utility for collectors of their NFT. Rather than depending on the ever-shifting value of NFTs based on public sentiment, project creators go a step further to create real methods and ways in which collectors can benefit from buying their NFTs.
Breeding NFTs to get a new NFT (that's usually seen as more valuable and unique) is a significant way for collectors of an NFT to gain more from their initial investment. When a project uses NFT breeding to create utility for their NFTs, some or all of the NFTs in the collection of games are made to be breedable.
Generally, each NFT in a collection or game is unique and distinguishable from others. This is how they're perceived as valuable. When the NFTs are breedable and breed with another breedable NFT, what results is a new NFT that did not previously exist. This NFT will possess a combination of the unique features (usually the best traits) of the parent NFTs.
Because of these unique features, the NFT offspring is a rarer and more unique NFT, increasing the collector's portfolio value.
History of Breeding NFTs
With the advent of blockchain, gaming came breeding NFTs. CryptoKitties, besides being the first widely recognized blockchain game, first imbibed the concept of NFT breeding.
In the game, each Kitty is an NFT that's unique and valuable. Players can own and trade these Kitties just like holding other NFTs. Players can also breed these Kitties to generate offspring.
Since the mechanism of NFT breeding became a successful and well-encouraged function in CryptoKitties, many other blockchain-based gaming projects have used NFT breeding to bring more utility to players who buy character NFTs in their games.
Breeding NFTs today
Apart from gaming projects, other NFT projects are now including NFT breeding as one of the utilities buyers of their NFTs will get.
This is irrespective of whether the NFTs are photos, videos, etc. Some NFT projects which utilize NFT breeding are Rolling Leaders, Samurai Doge, and Fat Ape Club.
Although the whole concept of breeding NFTs is universal among different NFT projects, the detailed workings of how it's implemented depend on the particular end goal of the project.
In some NFT projects, the parent NFTs will be burned, i.e., destroyed after breeding. In some other projects, the parent NFTs will not be burned. Instead, parent NFTs will be prevented from breeding again for some time after breeding.
In the same vein, for some projects, the resultant NFT is a combination of the parent NFTs only; In others, the consequent NFT possesses some unique features from each parent and some random features of its own, making it even rarer. With NFTs, the rarer the features, the more unique the NFT is. And with NFT breeding, resultant NFTs are even rarer.
For collectors of NFTs in a project, breeding NFTs serve to provide benefits beyond the aesthetic pleasure obtained from collecting NFTs.
Benefits of Breeding NFTs
For NFT collectors, being a part of projects that utilize breeding NFTs provides two main benefits.
One is the opportunity to own rarer and unique NFTs. In the NFT community, the rarer the features of an NFT, the more valuable it's perceived to be. Because of this, when a collector breeds two NFTs and gets a rarer offspring, he receives an NFT that's even more valuable than the parents he originally bought.
The second benefit is that collectors will be able to earn passive income through breeding NFTs. Collectors can routinely breed NFTs to create rarer offspring and sell them while holding the parent NFTs they originally invested in.
Most Popular Breeding NFT Projects
Many NFT projects today are adding NFT breeding to their projects. From gaming NFT projects to NFT collectibles projects, breeding NFTs is becoming a thing NFT collectors look for before investing in a project. Let's look at some of the most popular NFT breeding projects.
CryptoKitties
As stated above, CryptoKitties was the first blockchain gaming project to use NFT breeding. According to CryptoKitties medium post here, you can breed a new Kitty either by breeding two of your Kitties together or breeding with a public sire.
When Kitties breed, the offspring Kitty becomes a new generation, Kitty.
Axie Infinity
Another popular blockchain game is Axie Infinity. In Axie Infinity, two Axies breed to create new offspring with unique traits such as body parts, class, cards, etc.
Some other breeding NFT projects that are gaining popularity are
- Rolling Leaders
- Fat Ape Club
- Samurai Doge
Conclusion
The NFT industry is still growing. This means that NFT breeding has not reached its full potential yet.
As the industry grows and more NFT projects utilize NFT breeding, there's bound to be a better application of this mechanism to provide more excellent utility for collectors of NFTs in a project.
NFT breeding will become a more significant part of projects in the NFT industry. The only question is how soon this will take to ensue.
