The past few weeks on NBA Top Shot have ushered in a wave of new features. Some, such as the Rookie and Top Shot Debut badges, have been teased for a while, while others such as Mike Conley narrating his Seeing Stars reward Moment came as a complete surprise.
The Mike Conley Seeing Stars Moment presents a new manner of engagement that closes the gap between collectors and NBA players, hinting at what could lie beyond the horizon. In MomentRanks’s interview with OG collector alxo, he talked about his project over the summer with Dapper Labs to create a feature that allows players to sign Moments from their touch screen, each a unique autograph.
The Top Shot team has emphasized many times that there are plans to reward collectors in the future, with Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou stating: “Being a great collector should give more access and utility, one-hundred percent.”
This begs the question – in what ways will the utility of Moments change in the upcoming weeks, months, and years? Let’s talk about a few utility cases for Top Shot Moments that may be coming in the near future that could add real-world uses and value to Top Shot Moments.
Top Shot Challenge Utility
Historically, we’ve seen how utility (or the lack of it) has affected the value of Moments and other NFTs. Currently, the utility of a Moment does not extend much beyond memorabilia, unless it happens to be in a challenge.
In the case of an ongoing challenge, there has developed a general trend where Moments are marked up with a “utility premium,” meaning that they are priced with additional value due to a specific event (in this case, an ongoing challenge). Once the challenge ends, these Moments quickly depreciate in value — sometimes cut in more than half — under the assumption that they will have no future added utility.
However, Top Shot Community Lead Jacob Eisenberg has hinted that there may be plans to make Seeing Stars Moments more relevant in the long-term, although no details are confirmed. This could also be the case for other sets needed for challenges going forward.
Retroactively Adding Challenge Utility
Top Shot may also start incorporating Moments from previous packs in future challenges, adding utility to Moments across the board. We’ve seen the inclusion of Series 2 Base Set Moments in the Cool Cats challenges alongside the Cool Cats Moment requirements, and how that has affected their price.
During the CC2 challenge, the price of the Series 2 Base Set Will Barton increased six-fold and more. If this becomes a more common practice, it could incentivize collectors to hold onto their Moments that may alleviate costs in completing a future challenge.
Moment Utility via Pack Drop Requirements
When Top Shot announced that only accounts with a minimum of three Moments would be eligible to participate in the All-Star Game pack drop, Series 2 common Moments received a large utility boost. Users flooded to the marketplace to pick up the cheapest Moments in order to join the pack drop, and the price floor on /35,000 CC Moments rose from $4 to nearly $20 at its peak.
In the future, Top Shot collectors may have to prove more serious collecting commitment to participate in exclusive drops. For Holo Icon Drop 2, collectors had to hold at least 15 Moments, or two Rare Moments, or one Legendary, or have spent at least $999 on the marketplace.
For the collectors who don’t believe in lasting value of cheap commons, they might opt to chase after two Rare Moments instead in order to qualify for future sought-after packs.
Whether future requirements come in the form of collection evaluation or market activity, we are left to only speculate. Several potential features that have been discussed by Dapper Labs will, if implemented, play a large hand in the future utility of Moments.
Top Shot Hardcourt: Mobile Game
With the development of NBA Top Shot’s Hardcourt, Dapper Labs’ upcoming arcade-style mobile game, we’ll begin to see the utility of Moments extend even further beyond the Top Shot platform.
Hardcourt is reported to be a free-to-play mobile-only game where users will receive various upgrades depending on the Moments they own. Players will be a shell, while Moments are used to upgrade or power-up players. As an example: if Zion Williamson is equipped with a Steph Curry 3-pointer, he will have better three-point abilities in Hardcourt.
This may lead to a whole new influx of users who will collect Moments primarily for their utility within Hardcourt, depending on how captivating the game is.
Aside from Hardcourt, Dapper Labs is also developing a Top Shot mobile app, giving collectors a mobile-first interface to display and share their collection and Showcases.
Hardcourt will soon be in testing, and is expected to be released by the end of 2021. As Dapper’s mission is to build games on the blockchain, it seems likely that the Hardcourt launch will come before Top Shot is out of beta.
Swyysh and Fantasy Sports
Swyysh, currently in the alpha phase of development, is another one of many projects being built around NBA Top Shot that will provide Moments utility outside of the marketplace.
Swyysh is a fantasy sports-style game where users build their starting lineups from Moments they own and are consequently rewarded points based on a player’s performance and the specific play in their ]Moment. For example, a Damian Lillard assist Moment will award points specifically to assists— so choosing a player who will accrue a lot of particular stat categories is crucial to succeeding on Swyysh.
Users are able to win weekly prizes such as packs and Moments depending on their lineup’s performance. It’s only the beginning of these types of fantasy sports games that can be played with Top Shot Moments,.
Historically in Top Shot, there hasn’t been a linear correlation between a player’s performance within the league and their popularity and price in the marketplace (injuries tend to be an exception).
However, if Swyysh, Hardcourt, and other similar platforms experience a growth in popularity, collectors may begin to seek out players who have been performing exceptionally well during the live seasons as they will perform better on these platforms.
In-Person Benefits at NBA Games
There have been talks of giving collectors in-arena benefits, especially once the pandemic is over and fans are again able to go to games in-person. There are currently no hard details, but Eisenberg has discussed the possibility that collectors could earn Moments by going to arenas and attending games, much like Pokemon Go.
Additionally, ideas like player meet and greets or perks for owning several of a team’s Moments have been floated as well.
Since Top Shot is officially licensed by the NBA, the potential for future collaborations and content rewards are limitless. Once we begin hearing about actual details of how the NBA and teams are planning to reward collectors, it could suddenly add a ton of value to every Moment from your favorite team.
Burning Moments
If collectors are given the option to burn their moments for certain perks, such as a better place in the queue of pack drops, or as power-ups in Hardcourt, we’ll see a large appreciation in the utility value of cheaper, less sought-after Moments similar to the conditions preceding the ASG pack drop.
Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou has previously included this use case in past Twitter polls, and in previous Office Hours there have been discussions about the development of a feature that allows collectors to burn their moments for a reward.
Nothing confirmed here, but this is something to consider that could shift the Top Shot landscape.
Closing Thoughts: Top Shot Moment Utility
It’s clear that the Top Shot team’s vision for the future is to reward true collectors, those who
participate in challenges and engage with the product in other forms, beyond just the possibility of a good challenge serial number.
We’ve recently seen the release of the pink star icon to distinguish challenge reward Moments across Top Shot. This is only a start. And while it will be a long process, with many twists and turns that are unforeseen, future developments will only serve to increase the utility of existing and upcoming Moments.
As always, you can follow MomentRanks on Twitter for the latest Top Shot news, including any breaking news on utility, or join our Discord to contribute to the discussion on what Top Shot is up to.