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When Dom Hofmann launched Loot, an NFT project of 8,000 randomly generated treasure sheets for a videogame he hadnât yet created, Ethereum developers filled in the gaps by crafting character sheets, artwork and music.Â
But the most popular offshoot project in the past 24 hours has nothing to do with the noble romance of Lootâs medieval lore. Its most prized asset isnât a magical robe or a well-honed swordâitâs a virtual cock ring.Â
Bloot, or Based Loot, replaces the medieval treasure of Loot NFTs with memes lifted from crypto speculators on 4chan, Reddit and Crypto Twitter.
Instead of Lootâs âDivine Robes of Anger,â Blootâs heroes wear ââERC-20 Poorâ Maxi Skirt of Rugging.â Instead of âWool Shoesâ, Bloot offers âMoon Shoes of Death.â And Blootâs warriors donât fight with âShort Swordsâ; they fight with âBaguettes of Shit.âÂ
In the past day, $5.3 million of Bloot NFTs have changed hands and the floor price has risen to 1.44 ETH ($5,600). Bloot fans have traded $143 million of Based Gold, of BGLD, a fork of AGLD, Lootâs cryptocurrency.Â
This makes Bloot the fourth-most popular NFT project of the past day, according to data from Nansen.Â
While Loot itself is still the most-traded NFT project, with volumes of 3,325 ETH about double Blootâs and its average price of 16 ETH over ten times as much as the average Bloot, none of Lootâs derivative projects are taking off as fast as Bloot.Â
Blootâs rise, however, has come at a cost: its sense of humor has alienated prominent NFT investors. Pranksy, a prominent NFT collector, told Decrypt the community is âa very nasty community built up of 4chan forum posters,â and represents âthe worst side of nfts.âÂ
Will Papper, the creator of Lootâs ERC-20 token, AGLD, tweeted that he has received death threats from Blootâs community and only âscammersâ would claim that BGLD is affiliated with AGLD.
The most popular Bloot investor, Beanie, has told the Bloot community to be kinder to Papper, but Blootâs Discord chat is certainly more vicious and brash than Lootâs optimism.
Lootâs writers are busy creating tales of war for Loot holders to play with. But it looks like their first real challenge could come from outside the ecosystem, from those who arm themselves with Blootâs âBall Gag of Fomoâ instead. Â
Editor's note: This article was updated to remove a comment about the reputation of Bloot vs Loot.