decrypt.co
Paris fashion house Maison Margiela has launched a gamified Web3 minting experience based around the famous numbering system of its physical collections. While it doesn’t appear to have an official name (besides Numbers, as it’s listed on OpenSea), "blockchain bingo" seems like a particularly apt description.
24 token-linked digits numbered 0 to 23 are up for grabs. Over the course of the next few weeks, participants in the multi-player game will compete to mint all of them in order to progress to the next stage of the experience. According to the brand, the activation “will create the basis of Maison Margiela’s future Web3 community.”
Rarities range from 15,000 zeros to 742 number 23s—the higher the number, the greater the rarity of the token. The number currently in play is indicated by a circle and fully minted numbers are highlighted in black. The game ends when all 24 numbers have been minted by the first 100 users “or at the Maison’s own discretion.”
Minted on the Polygon network, all the ERC-1155 tokens are soul-bound—as in non-transferable—and each wallet can only mint one of each number. Minting is free (no gas fee applies) and the same amount of gas is allocated to each user for every transaction.
All the above considerations are designed to give players an equal chance of success, rewarding perseverance and strategic thinking. However, dedicated first movers will have the edge over the competition.
Margiela’s gamified mint concept is strategic in itself. While the NFT market has been experiencing a slowdown of late, gaming continues to grow exponentially. According to IPSOS, current value is $385 billion and is set to reach in excess of $522 billion by 2027.
For the uninitiated, the garment tag of each Maison Margiela physical piece features the numbers 0 to 23, one of which is circled. Each number denotes one of 23 different collections with the circled digit corresponding to the collection to which the item in question belongs.
In fact, the house’s heritage holds many parallels with the decentralized ideology of Web3. In its early years, eponymous founder Martin Margiela was rarely seen in public, with any statements issued collectively by the entire design team.
Margiela was acquired by OTB Group—founding member of Aura Consortium alongside LVMH, Prada Group, Mercedes-Benz and Cartier (part of the Richemont Group)—in 2002.
Earlier this year, Margiela introduced on-chain certificates of authenticity and traceability—accessible via near field communication (NFC) chips embedded into its signature Tabi footwear.