Digi Daigaku: Are VCs Keeping NFTs Alive?

Over the past 2 weeks, Digi Daigaku has slowly risen from a stealth mint to one of the most valuable NFTs available on the Ethereum network. Their rise in value has been attributed to a variety of factors including a fresh take on blockchain gaming and venture capital funding. 

So, what is Digi Daigaku and why has it smashed so many sell walls since mint during a time when the NFT market appears to be crumbling under the weight of increasingly short holding times for tokens?

What is Digi Daigaku

While the Digi Daigaku website lacks any specific details regarding the project, what we do know about the NFT collection is that it will be the beginning of a new blockchain game based around a concept created by Limit Break (the company behind the NFT) called Free-to-Own (FTO). 

Although the term Free-to-Own is new, the premise of what it means is not. In essence, FTO describes a game that is free to access and play from the start. This is important because it removes the high entry-price needed for many GameFi-based NFTs. 

By removing this barrier, the team at Limit Break believes that a wider audience will be interested because they have nothing to lose by playing the game. Instead, by playing the game, players will be able to earn blockchain tokens.  

Gabriel Leydon’s views on GameFi

The team at Limit Break is led by Gabriel Leydon who is well known in the mobile gaming industry for Game of War: Fire Age and Mobile Strike. During his time researching and developing products for web3, he has made his opinions on many trends in Gamefi quite clear, explicitly calling out digital land sales and describing them as useless or counter-intuitive toward growing a player base. 

VCs leading the charge

The project itself has gained large attention from venture capitalists who are aware of Leydon’s previous experience in Free-to-Play (F2P) gaming. Due to his expertise, many are confident that he will be able to evolve the F2P model into the new FTO model with relative ease because he already knows the industry so well. 

Therefore, Limit Break has been able to raise $200 million in investment funds to keep the company focused on building out the Digi Daigaku project so that it will support its growing player base. 

According to a tweet from Limit Break, the venture capitalists involved with Digi Daigaku are Josh Buckley, Paradigm, and Standard Crypto. While these are not the most famous venture capitalists, such as a16z and Sequoia Capital, they have experience in the blockchain industry and their interest in the project should not be ignored. 

Explosive Floor Price

With all of the attention that Limit Break has received from venture capitalists, the floor price for Digi Daigaku has risen as high as 15 Eth which is nearly double what Goblintown was able to achieve earlier this summer. 

If what Leydon says is true, that FTO is the correct way to explore blockchain gaming, then this project has a chance to become a major pioneer for GameFi by putting accessibility to players first. Until then, we will have to wait and see what the gameplay will look like which will be the deciding factor on how popular FTO can become.