January 29, 2023

Flowverse: Crash Course to Flow Blockchain 2023

Quickly get up to speed with the Flow Blockchain ecosystem in 2023

Read, listen or watch the full AMA/ research/ coverage here

We’ve spent the last 2+ years researching the entire Flow ecosystem. This is our crash course to get you up to speed.

Let’s start simple. What is Flow? 

Flow is a layer-1 blockchain and the top blockchain for NFTs by all-time number of transactions. 

It is a smart contract platform for developers to build powerful, secure, and scalable Web3 apps including NFTs, fungible tokens, DAOs, DeFi and more.

Flow is differentiated from other blockchains 

  • Trusted by top brands (incl. NBA Top Shot which has >$1b sales) 
  • Consumer-friendly onboarding (targeted towards the 1b+ mainstream) 
  • Developer-first (easy for web2 developers to learn)
  • Outstanding team (created the ERC-721 standard and coined the term 'NFT')

Now getting into the ecosystem.

What wallets can I use on Flow? 

  1. Dapper Wallet - custodial web
  2. Blocto App - custodial web, android & iOS (non-custodial options) 
  3. Lilico Wallet - Non-custodial web

Others: Ledger, NuFi, Flipper, Finoa 

A Dapper non-custodial mobile wallet is also coming soon.

We compare Flow wallets in more detail here.

Block explorers

What block explorers can I use to search information about transactions, blocks, addresses, contracts?

Flowscan is the leading block explorer on Flow.

NFT marketplaces

Where can I buy NFTs on Flow?

Flow’s fragmented with 50+ marketplaces that you can view on Flowverse’s website.

So we’ll break this down into sports, general and others.

Top sports marketplaces include NBA Top Shot, UFC Strike, NFL All Day, La Liga Golazos, TFC, FanCraze, Aera by OneFootball

Top general purpose marketplaces are where you can find PFPs and other Flow NFTs. These include Gaia Marketplace, Matrix Market, find, BloctoBay, Flowty, Evaluate and VIV3

Other marketplaces include our own at Flowverse NFT, RCRDSHP, Flovatar, Epix, Starly. 

Many NFTs also have their own marketplaces, but you can find all NFTs on Flow regardless of marketplace on Flowverse

Flow Blockchain DeFi

Flow’s DeFi ecosystem is less developed and predominantly focused on NFTs. 

That said, there are places you can put your FLOW and Flow NFTs to work.

Increment Finance: A one-stop DeFi platform on Flow. AMM/DEX & Farm + Money Market + Liquid Staking

Blocto Swap: The first DEX and cross-chain bridge on Flow built by @BloctoApp

Flowty: Peer-to-peer (P2P) NFT lending 

Celer Network: Inter-blockchain and cross-layer communication platform for cross-chain composability and bridging

Boolean ZYZ: DEX aggregator, liquidity bootstrapping (not released yet)

Starvaults: brings liquidity to NFTs on Flow via vaults

PFPs

What fun is a blockchain without having a dope avatar to rep?

On Flow we have:

Ballerz: basketball-inspired generative NFT on Flow, pixel-art style

Flovatar: An NFT world where users can create their own characters in any creative and fun way they like

Hoodlums: First PFP on Flow, designed by @somehoodlum

Flunks: Pixel-style PFP on Flow aiming to bring back the best parts about being a student

Some others include: Driverz, Barter Yard Club, Crypto Piggos, Pirates of the Metaverse, SNKRHUD, Crypto Pharaohs, Jolly Jokers, The Party Goobz, Bobblz

The data

Flow NFT all time sales volume is ranked fourth overall behind Ethereum, Ronin and Solana (according to CryptoSlam)

Though this is largely due to Flow’s top NFT, NBA Top Shot with over $1b in sales

Following Top Shot there is NFL All Day 2nd at $127m, UFC Strike at $19.3m then Ballerz at $12.9m

Digging deeper into the data shows that the top projects are dominated by sports IPs based on sales

Though in terms of BD Flow NFT ecosystem compares very well against Polygon an NFT specifically known for it’s BD

‍Moving on to how you can create a Flow NFT.

It’s easy and free. It takes 2-3 minutes on:

  • FLOAT
  • Matrix Market
  • Touchstone
  • Everbloom
  • MintMe

To learn more about the process, read our article on creating a Flow NFT.

There are two NFT name services on Flow

  • .find: name service that's also an NFT marketplace and gallery
  • .fns: the first Flow name service

Metaverse projects on Flow include:

Gaming

  • Joyride Games: Blockchain-powered competitive gaming platform. Over 4m transacting users in 2022.
  • Dimension X: Free-to-Play, Play-to-Earn strategic role playing game. Started as a free mint now has over $1.6m sales volume.
  • The Football Club: officially licensed NFTs from Bundesliga and other top European football leagues
  • Metaverse Football League: on-chain football management game
  • Zeedz
  • Chainmonsters
  • Basic Beasts
  • Moxy: The founder of Chuck E. Cheese and Atari + creator of Pong is involved here!
  • AiSports: Free to play game around NBA Top shot
  • Blocklete Games
  • Contendr
  • SolarPups
  • GameDay+
  • Dark Country
  • Enemy Metal

Other interesting companies building on Flow

  • The Fabricant
  • Genies
  • Unblocked incl. FEWOCIOUS
  • Cryptoys
  • Zigazoo incl. Nyla Hayes
  • Mattel + Hot Wheels

And that’s the Flow ecosystem in a nut-shell! 

The TLDR:

The sales volume is driven by sports projects

Projects tend to have their own marketplaces.

Many large IPs.

Fun communities.

On a beautifully designed, welcoming blockchain ❤️

View more Flow Blockchain Research