What happened
Tezos (XTZ 2.34%) tokens were having a fairly quiet afternoon on Tuesday, rising no more than 7% on a day when many of the most popular cryptocurrencies were soaring. That picture of relative serenity changed dramatically a few minutes after noon, Eastern Time, when the smart-contract platform's token skyrocketed 16% higher in just 15 minutes on massively higher trading volume. By 3 p.m. ET today, the token showed a 24-hour price gain of 37.4%.
So what
French video game developer Ubisoft Entertainment (UBSFY -0.23%) powered this massive jump. The company behind popular franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Just Dance, and Rayman will soon launch a platform for collecting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) tied to unique in-game items. And Ubisoft selected the Tezos blockchain as the backbone of this service over the leading smart-contracts platform Ethereum, citing Tezos' energy-efficient proof-of-stake architecture.
"We chose Tezos because of its original proof-of-stake network and its leadership on clean NFTs," says Ubisoft's blockchain chief, Didier Genevois. "One transaction on their network uses the same amount of energy as streaming 30 seconds of video, while the previous generation of blockchain networks can consume the same energy required for one year of nonstop streaming."
Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
A beta-testing version of Ubisoft Quartz will be available to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint players on the PC platform, starting this Thursday. The company is seeding the service with free NFT drops to early adopters in a few test markets. More drops of free NFTs will follow in 2022, and Ghost Recon should get some company from other Ubisoft games along the way. Of course, gamers can always buy or earn more Digits, or NFT tokens.
Tezos is off to the NFT races with a respectable partner by its side. Ubisoft isn't the biggest name in the video game industry, but the company still owns a large portfolio of household-name titles that should serve as a useful proving ground for Tezos-based NFT services. Other game developers may very well select Tezos for their own in-game item management if the blockchain network and its token can handle Ubisoft's requirements.
