Horse racing is an unparalleled thrill for many. Like all mainstream sports, it has made its way to the digital world too. The GameFi movement powered by cryptocurrencies and NFTs further revives horse racing, blurring the line that separates entertainment and income.
There are many NFT projects that bet big on the booming gaming and horse-racing industries. They are characterized by transparency, fairness, and real ownership of assets. In this article, we take a look at the best of them.
These are the top three horse racing crypto games of this year.
1. Silks — First Derivative Thoroughbred Horse Racing Game
2. Zed Run — Pioneering Horse Racing Crypto Project
3. DeRace — Horse Racing NFT Game with RNG technology
You'd be surprised to learn how each of these horse racing NFT projects marks themselves off with unique themes, gaming mechanisms, and play-to-earn features. Here is a detailed analysis of all three to help you find one that best suits your style.
Our pick as the best horse racing NFT game of this year is Silks.
Silks are the world's first derivative thoroughbred horse racing game in the metaverse. It reimagines and democratizes thoroughbred racehorse ownership for the masses using mixed-reality technology, Web 3.0 gamification, and an immersive metaverse experience.
Every year, Silks will offer a new crop of Silks Horse NFTs, each of which represents a top one-year-old thoroughbred racehorse registered in the U.S. Decentralized data sets will then be used to ensure that the derivative NFT tracks the bloodlines, training progress, and racing performance of its real-world counterpart, and earns rewards for holders based on its racing and breeding success. Silk miners will verify the data on the blockchain in exchange for $SLK, the governance token of the ecosystem.
But this is only one of the many income-generating opportunities on the Silks platform. Let's take a detailed look at the dynamic play-to-earn mechanics.
The Silks ecosystem consists of a variety of in-game NFTs including Silks Avatars, Silks Horses, Land, and Stables. Silks Avatars will represent the unique identity of each player and the ownership of their affiliated digital assets within the Silks metaverse. The Silks Genesis Avatar Mint, the first NFT offering of Silks, will take place this Wednesday, April 27th. Silks Avatars are a crucial component of the platform as they're required to obtain a Silks Horse in the inaugural Silks Horse Mint in mid-2022. If you can't afford to buy one don't fret, Silks allows for fractional horse ownership through syndication and even lets you join horse ownership pools to diversify your ownership and help mitigate risk.
Silks offer a vast infrastructure to help you take care of your Silks Horse just like a real thoroughbred. Users can purchase plots of Land (structured as NFTs) in the Silks metaverse which can be developed into horse farms. Users can also stake their Silks Horses to private community horse farms, where they will be housed and maintained in exchange for a small fee and a share of rewards.
You are rewarded in $STT, the in-game transaction token, every time the real-world counterpart of your Silks Horse wins a race or breeds offspring that is sold in the real world. As noted in the Silks whitepaper, the platform intends to launch new structures, businesses, roles, and sub-economies over time to support the play-to-earn system.
As previously mentioned, Silk's first NFT offering will be its Silks Avatars which are set to go live on April 27th. For Early Access to the Silks Genesis Avatar Mint, visit the Silks website, silks.io.
Zed Run is an NFT metaverse dedicated to digital horse racing. Launched in early 2019, it is one of the earliest projects that allowed users to buy, breed, and race digital racehorses.
To get started on the platform, you need a racehorse NFT. You can buy them from OpenSea. The current floor price is 0.004 ETH. You can also get them for free by participating in community giveaways on social media platforms. Zed Run records and tracks racehorse ownership using the Ethereum blockchain, including comprehensive data like bloodline, genotype, gender, color, number of offspring, and race statistics. It uses the Polygon network to offer faster, cheaper transactions.
Zed Run has a carefully laid out horse breeding mechanism. A colt or stallion (a male racehorse) has to be bred with a filly or mare (a female racehorse) to create offspring. However, there are limits on how many times the male and female racehorses can breed every month and year. The offspring, once generated, will be sent to your wallet. If you don't own the male horse, you have to pay a stud fee to the colt or stallion owner. The charge is not predetermined. As a male horse owner, you can charge a breeding price you find apt. However, the game guides you in setting it up with minimum price suggestions.
Each Zed Run racehorse is suitable for a particular distance. However, you can't purchase a horse based on this criterion. Being a game of discovery, Zed Run requires you to test your horse and figure out the distance that best suits it over time. The platform hosts races of different distances and prize pools throughout the day. The prize pool will be divided between players who come first, second, and third.
Zed Run hosts tournaments with bigger prize pools to feature a better gaming experience for more stable owners. The team keeps the buzz around the game alive through live event streaming, Twitter talks, AMAs, and partnerships.
DeRace is a play-to-earn NFT horse racing metaverse that offers a personalized gaming experience to users. Leveraging the principles of blockchain technology, it guarantees transparent and fair gaming to all participants. One of the key features that helped DeRace make our list of top Horse Racing NFT Games is its unique gaming mechanics combining genetic algorithms and RNG technology.
DeRace horses are tokenized to feature unique sets of traits. They widely vary in rarity, performance, cool-down time, and value. You must own a DeRace Horse before you can sign up for races on the platform. While traits like sex, color, shape, breed, and racing cool-down are visible, speed and stamina are invisible. However, the invisible traits play a crucial role in determining the performance of the horse. You can gain an understanding of these invisible traits from its appearance, parent genetics, and historical statistics.
DeRace NFTs are available for purchase from primary and secondary marketplaces. Or, you can breed one from an existing pair. Apart from traits, you can judge a horse by its level. It is determined by the number of races participated, victories, and activities. As the level goes up, so does the value of the NFT.
DeRace has an interesting breeding system in place where any two (one male and the other female) NFTs create the third NFT. The offspring will feature a unique set of traits passed down by its parents. For this, both NFT horses are sent to GA (Genetic Algorithm) on the Ethereum smart contract. The genes from the parent horses are combined to create a third one, with a +- 5% deviation. After this, all three horses are sent back to the wallet.
DERC (DeRace Coin) fuels the gaming ecosystem by facilitating payments for races, winnings, horses, and trades. It is an ERC20-compliant cryptographic token. You can earn DERC by breeding two DeRace Horses, trading them, participating in races, hosting races in hippodromes, selling your analysis and predictions, reporting bugs, and even watching advertisements. You can also participate in the DeRace referral programs for wallet users, influencers, social media accounts, blogs, or news outlets among other reward programs to generate passive income from the platform.
The play-to-earn economies put forward by these NFT projects unlock the multi-billion-dollar video gaming and horse racing markets to the masses. They have great potential for growth in the coming years as the GameFi revolution picks up steam.
While most horse racing crypto games launch digital horses, Silks takes the idea a notch up by using derivatives or real-world racehorses. Here, the income opportunities are not limited to racing or breeding. You can also join horse ownership pools, develop Land, run a horse farm, or mine $SLK tokens to increase your earning potential. Besides, you are rewarded for the performance of the underlying real-world thoroughbred horse. The P2E mechanisms will expand as the project grows, nurturing a sustainable metaverse economy.
Disclaimer: The information posted in the article is for educational purpose only. By using this, you agree that the information does not constitute any investment or financial advice. Do conduct your own research and reach out to financial advisors before making any investment decisions.
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