Mugen ARt × HashPalette Twitter Space AMA Recap

2022年6月24日 22:41

Dear Mugen fam,

On June 17th, 2022, we held Mugen ARt × HashPalette AMA in Twitter Space, where Head of Strategy of HashPort and HashPalette Dorado and co-founder of MAG HUB and Mugen ARt Jerry dived deep into some insightful details related to the current business mode, Ecosystem, future plans, strategic cooperation between two companies and more.

Below is a full-recap of the AMA, for friends who missed it or for anyone that’s interested. We have transcribed the whole AMA for you to read on your own time. Feel free to have a read!

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Host：Yesterday, we held a discord AMA in Japanese, Dorado San and Jerry San shared fruitful information. But for our overseas followers, they might be hard to digest contents in Japanese. So today we are holding this AMA in English for better understanding for our overseas fam.

Q1.Now let’s start. Firstly, Let’s welcome Jerry to bring the introduction of Mugen ARt.

A1. Jerry：Thanks. Let me start with MAG HUB though most of you might be more familiar with Mugen ARt :-)

MAG is the abbreviation of Manga, Anime and Game. HUB is what we want salute to GITHUB. We wish that MAG HUB could be the hub of ACGN in Web3. LoL.

MAG HUB is invested and incubated by SNZ and Dapper Labs. We’re a Web3 company focusing on digital collectibles and gamefi.

Mugen ARt is the leading product of MAG HUB, which is a platform for releasing and displaying premium digital collectibles. We provide fabulous 3D collectibles with limited editions, covering celebrated IPs, popular designer toys, fine works from artists and more. All collectibles are NFTs with unique AR technology to present a fancy visual experience.

Host：NFTs of 3D virtual figurines combined with Augmented Reality. Sounds very cool. Can’t wait to experience. Ok, as you just mentioned SNZ and Dapper Labs are the early investors. Would you please introduce these two institutions as they seem to be very popular in blockchain industry.

Jerry：No prob. SNZ, is a famous veteran investment institution in the blockchain industry. Many of the most prominent projects such as Polkadot, Avalanche, Animoca, Dfinity, Flow, and Cosmos, all get investment from SNZ in the early time. The most famous one SNZ invested in and incubated is Ethereum, the top of public chains.

Dapper Labs, is the parent company of FLOW blockchain, a celebrated public chain project. It’s also the leading character in the field of NFT. In 2017, its project Crypto Kitties created a craze and that’s when people got to know about NFT and its concept. NBA TopShot, another key project of Dapper, did shock the real world with NFT mania.

Q2. Host: Thank you Jerry for the detailed intro. Now we know the original designing idea of Mugen ARt. Ok, let’s then turn to Dorado. Dorado, we notice that from previous announcement, HashPalette and MAG HUB have teamed up as strategic partners. Would you please share why did HashPalette choose MAG HUB as such an important partner?

A2. Dorado：For us at HashPalette, the most important idea is to connect Japanese Entertainment content and deliver via Web3. To this end, we are happy to partner with MagHub as they share the same vision as us. We see a lot of unmet demand with regards to Japanese Entertainment Web3 content while we also are excited about MagHub’s AR technology as a way to fully immerse our community in a 360 experience. Together, HashPalette + MagHub will be an unstoppable force in our opinion.

Q3. Host: Thanks for Dorado’s sharing. Really important partnership! Well as I am always curious about one thing, that is why Mugen ARt chose 3D digital collectibles as the direction to enter NFT? Since most people’s cognition of NFT may stay more on PFP NFTs such as Crypto Punks and Bored Ape. So we’d like to know more about your concern.

A3. Jerry: Well, it is true that PFPs are really hot. But in my opinion, this is definitely not what NFTs are all about. The reason why we want to make 3D virtual digital figurines is because most of the team are big fans of ACGN boys and also collectors of physical animation figures. However, the physical figure is limited by physical space and cannot be easily carried around to show and communicate with friends. So we started to think that it would be great if there was a digital virtual figure in such situations.

And after that, we took on the journey with 3D virtual figurine. The feeling of being able to turn your favorite anime characters into 3D digital figures is unparalleled. Another advantage of 3D digital figures comparing with physical fones is details depicting. Due to the fact that the physical figure is subject to the production process in the real world, it cannot 100% restore the original details of the character, especially some details that are difficult to express with entities such as lighting. In this regard, digital collectibles are much better.

In order to better present 3D digital figures, Mugen ARt has developed an dedicated app. In the app, in addition to viewing your favorite digital figures, you can also use the AR function of the app to project the figures into the real world. Click on the phone to drag, scale, and rotate your digital figurines. In the future, with the deepening of research and development, you and your 3D digital figures can interact more, and the figures will change from a static object to an object that can interact in the virtual world. Our goal is to make our favorite figures our “friends”!

As we can see from last year, major technical giants are squeezing into Metaverse. The arrival of the Metaverse era is an irreversible trend. The 3D virtual figurine NFT of Mugen ARt will have advantages in future digital application scenarios. We will bridge the gap between the real world and the virtual world, and allow 3D NFT assets to travel more efficiently in various application scenarios.

Q4. Host: Thanks for the passionate sharing which let us have more expectations for 3D NFTs. Now let me give the floor to Dorado. Dorado, what is your view on 3D virtual figurine NFT?

A4. Dorado：Thanks for the question. Indeed as we all know 2D NFTs remain the most popular type of NFTS globally. However, we strongly believe that as shown by other AR games in Web2, AR and 3D virtual figurines are a natural next step for NFTs. This plus the fact that metaverse is looking for new ways to grow, in the future we expect that these 3D virtual figurines could see a use case in metaverse worlds. Why have 2D NFT avatars when you can use 3D AR avatars? That’s the question we are answering here.

Q5. Host: Thanks Dorado. It seems you also has great expectations for 3D NFT. Ok, Jerry, would you please tell me why Mugen ARt would choose Palette chain for the blind box sale of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

A5. Jerry：After we chose 3D digital figure to knock the door of NFT, we also paid attention to the rapid development of blockchain technology in recent years. Digital artworks using blockchain technology are known as NFTs. The application of blockchain technology to 3D digital figures can guarantee both anti-counterfeiting and right confirmation which solved the pain points of physical figures in this regard. So we decided to use blockchain technology to make our 3D digital figures more secure. Since we are keen on Japanese anime, Japanese IPs are our first choice. Under such background, HashPalette, the world’s first legal IEO recognized by the Japan Financial Services Agency, has naturally become our best choice. Palette itself is focusing on NFT, which is tailor-made for both of us. I personally like the name Palette very much. Palette provides a safe and powerful palette tool for digital artists, and we are like a group of painters who love to create, using Palette to express our imagination of art. Anyway, I think this kind of cooperation is cool.

Q6. Host：Nice sharing. As Jerry said, Palette does provide a great tool for a wide range of digital art creators. We noticed that HashPalette is also making great efforts to deploy the Gamefi field recently, such as the Elf Masters blind box that was sold out within 52 seconds of its initial drop. I would like to ask Dorado, is Palette preparing to make a big step into the Gamefi field? What is Palette’s ecological plan for a period of time in the future?

A6. Dorado：HashPalette is indeed fully committed in the GameFi field. More specifically, we have a strong pipeline in partnership with Japanese Entertainment IP holders, to develop P2E and other social gameFI blockchain games. Based on our success with ELF Masters, we are looking to rapidly increase our GameFI pipeline releasing upwards of 10+ games each year.

Also, we would like to mention that some products in these Gamefi projects will also be linked with Mugen ARt to release 3D virtual figures in the future. At the same time, the 3D virtual figures released by Mugen ARt may appear in the gamefi projects on Palette.

In addition, our 360 ecosystem will allow us to continue to build strong partnerships as we have our own blockchain + NFT marketplace + payment solutions. These 3 pillars will continue to drive an outstanding experience with our Partners like MagHuB, and PLT users.

Q7. Host: Thanks Dorado, really makes us full confidence in the future ecology of PLT. Ok, next let’s talk back to anime. With the rapid development of the industry, more and more animation IPs are releasing their own NFTs one after another, but many of them are 2D NFTs. Can you talk about the differentiated competition considerations of Mugen ARt in this area? Will the future development route be the 3D figure of the famous animation IP?

A7. Jerry：Yes, definitely. Most of the IPs chose 2D NFT as their initial trial. And current trendy NFTs in the industry are also PFP-type NFTs. As mentioned previously, we believe that the current popularity of PFP NFT and some other 2D projects is also driven by a profit-gaining effect. Of course, their designs are also very cool. The reason why we insist on 3D digital figures is not only our love for traditional figures and animation IPs, but also because we believe in “digital immortality”. Although human beings will eventually come to an end at the physical level, with the continuous development of science and technology, in the future, human beings will be able to achieve immortality with a high probability in the digital sense. This means that in the future, people’s asset ownership form may undergo major changes, and more and more digital assets will become extremely important. Including the popularity of the concept of the metaverse, in the future when the interaction between reality and virtuality becomes more and more frequent, 3D digital assets are bound to be a rigid need. What Mugen ARt is currently doing is paving the way for 3D digital assets to become a major trend in the future. In the future, by superimposing AR and VR technologies, Mugen ARt’s 3D digital assets will have more abundant application scenarios.

When it comes to the production content in the future, it is true that the famous animation IP must be our first choice. We hope to bring you more 3D digital figures linked by well-known IPs in Japan, Europe and the United States. In addition, we will also cooperate with designer toy artists to launch 3D digital designer toys. Besides our blind box product, we will launch another product in the near future — Mugen Space, which is a virtual space where users can place their purchased 3D digital figures. We also hope that everyone can experience various practical application scenarios of our products as soon as possible.

Host: “Digital immortality” is an interesting concept. What do you think of this Dorado?

Dorado：I am definitely no expert around this area but what I can say is that I am an a big fan of the idea. As technology have rapidly increased the average lifespan, another radical way to see the next step in evolution is the alternate “life paths”either by increasing interactions between people or fully digitizing life. If life is a set of interactions between two or more people, than we can say that by increasing the frequency of interactions, we are increasing our total life experience. By this I mean that digitization can and are already increasing the interaction between anyone in the world via Web3 via both gamefi and defi plus metaverse. Also, if I may, I am a big fan of scifi and recommend you guys to watch Amazon Video’s show called “Upload”which is about expanding life beyond the physical (no spoilers here).

Q8. Host: Nice sharing. Cool. Ok, next, we saw that Mugen ARt launched several interesting activities for the upcoming blind box sale. Would like to hear more introduction from Jerry about this part which is also what our fans concern most.

A8. Jerry：Before introducing, please allow me to take this opportunity to thank our important strategic partner HashPalette. Especially CEO Yoshida San. It is Yoshida San who led to our cooperation with the IP lisencor.

“The Ancient Magus’ Bride” tells a fantasy magic story set in the United Kingdom. The whole work is very healing. Our team members were fans of this work before, so when we learned that the cooperation was reached, we were very happy.

In terms of blind box, the rule of our blind box is very interesting this time, and the benefits to users are also very rich. Let me introduce them one by one.

A. First is basic sales information. We issued a total of 2 blind boxes this time. One is a blind box of character figurines, which contains 20 3D virtual figurines of the characters in The Ancient Magus’ Bride, a total of 10,000 copies, priced at $49.9. The other Blind Box is the Blind Box of the Badges, which contains 15 exquisite The Ancient Magus’ Bride badges for a total of 12,750 copies. There are only two ways to get the Blind Box of Badges:

1. Every time you purchase a blind box of figurines, you get 1 chance to open the blind box of badges.

2. You can also invite friends to get the chance. Once there are 4 purchases have been done by the persons you invited then you get 1 chance to open the blind box of badges.

B. Secondly, we also prepared interesting collection reward activities for all fans who like to collect. In addition to the 20 types of character figurines in the Blind Box of Figurines, we have 4 ultimate rare hidden figurines that can only be obtained by collecting badges.

Collecting different numbers of unique badges can exchange these ultimate figurines. For those who like collecting, this setting should be more interesting.

C. Besides ultimate collecting events, as the debut of our Mugen Box, we have prepared very rich benefits for users who participate in the purchase. We encourage users to invite more friends and partners to participate in our activities together. When a friend invited by a user purchases our blind box of figurines, the inviter can get a reward of 5% of the purchase amount, and the invitee can also get a reward of 2.5% of the purchase amount. These rewards will be distributed to users in the form of PLT after the sale period ends

D. Finally, there is a innovative bonus! PAY TO EARN! It is the pledge mining mode of NFT. After users purchase our blind box of figurines, the 3D NFT they open will be automatically staked. Similar to the traditional DeFI stake mining logic, our NFT will also bring continuous benefits to users, and the benefits will be paid in PLT. NFT Staking is a pilot trial in the way we explore NFT utility and also an innovative step we take to enrich the entire Palette ecosystem. Your 3D NFTs are not only good-looking and fun, but they can also bring you revenue rewards, which sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? As an important ecological partner of HashPalette, we also hope to continue to bring practical cases to the entire ecosystem through various innovative attempts. For the detailed rules of this section, you are welcome to visit our official website.

Q9. Host: Wow, so many events for the upcoming blind box which also combined with DeFi. Intersting. If you’re intersted, you are highly recommended to check details via Mugen ARt website and discord channel. OK. One last question, I would like you two to share your views on the future development of the entire industry. Dorado, you first?

A8. Dorado：Right now, our view is that the industry is running at top speed. It is like seeing a horse race between 4 horses: NFTs, GameFi, DeFi, and metaverse. Of course, they all run on tokens / cryptocurrencies as the common “engine”, but to a certain degree we see siloed business models.

By that I mean, that there are great opportunities to be had with business models and partnerships that blur the differences between let say: NFTs and DeFi. Now that is the next logical step, is to marry 2 or more of this into a seamless solution. Our view is that once this is done correctly, the next big explosion of Web3 will happen as mainstream users will jump in higher numbers.

A9. Jerry：The entire Crypto industry has been preaching and building through Buidlers and Hodlers in recent years. Now it has begun to go out of the circle and gradually entered the vision of ordinary people. This is something that everyone in our circle is happy about. Speaking of NFT, the subdivision of Crypto, Crypto Kitties let everyone know the concept of NFT for the first time; NBA Topshot made the traditional circle begin to focus on NFT; Axie made NFT superimposed on P2E to activate the game interactive properties; Crypto Punks, BAYC and other high-quality PFPs let people see the possibility of NFT becoming a cross-border IP. The development of the entire NFT field is also very rapid, but at present, the driving logic behind most of the popular NFTs still relies heavily on the profit-making effect, and the public’s attention to the application scenarios of NFTs itself is not as high as imagined.

In other words, the entire NFT market is still in a stage where financial attributes are greater than collection attributes, which is very normal in the early stage of the industry, and the bubble period in the early stage of industry growth is inevitable. But with the passage of time, with the influx of more outsiders, with the iteration of technological equipment, with the Metaverse framework becoming more and more clear. Excessive bubbles will be squeezed reasonably, and the entire NFT field will surely find a balance. At that time, NFTs who can interact with real life will receive more attention. It is also based on this prediction that Mugen ARt chose the 3D digital collectibles from the very beginning. In the near future, in the future where AR and VR technologies are popularized, in the future where the metaverse becomes approchable, 3D digital assets that can be traversed in different scenarios are sure to shine.

That’s my view. Thanks a lot.

Host: Thanks Jerry, Thanks Dorado for great view sharing in this AMA.

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About Mugen ARt

Mugen ARt, leading product of MAG HUB, is a platform for releasing and displaying premium digital collectibles. We provide fabulous 3D AR collectibles with limited editions, covering celebrated IPs, popular designer toys, fine works from artists and more.

All collectibles are NFTs with unique AR technology to present a fancy visual experience.

Website: https://www.mugenart.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MugenARt_Closet

Discord: https://discord.gg/K7rzpAmEYH

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mugenart.eth/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mugenart