Tezos: What to Know about Ubisoft’s NFT Partner

Tezos (XTZ) was one of the most ambitious network projects, performing a $400M token sale in 2017. Since then, the Tezos network has slowly added new features, until breaking out into the play to earn space in late 2021. 

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough for Tezos was the announcement that Ubisoft had chosen the network to deploy a collection of NFTs for in-game items. The collection of character skin items for the Ghost Retcon game opens the door to exporting in-game items to a wider market and preserving game achievements for future gains. 

Ubisoft brings a big chunk of the gaming business to Tezos, testing the NFT feature after a record year in sales. For 2020-2021, Ubisoft marked $1.8B in digital bookings, marking a decade of rapid growth for the gaming sector. 

What to Know About Tezos

The Tezos network uses a list of electable delegates, or “bakers” as the entities to produce blocks. This means Tezos has relatively lower fees, but also different rules from other blockchains. 

This also means Tezos has multiple marketplaces focusing on its specific network and potentially unique game startups. Beyond the partnership with Ubisoft, Tezos is the home of art collections and the author of the Green NFT initiative, focusing on sustainable energy usage. 

How to Access XTZ

The native asset of Tezox, XTZ, is available through multiple wallets. The safest tool to store the token is the hardware wallet. XTZ is compatible with both Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets and their desktop apps. 

XTZ is accessible through Trust Wallet, which also can show any NFTs owned. For fast and basic web-based wallet, the Temple and Kukai apps offer an experience similar to MyEtherWallet.

XTZ is available through Coinbase Exchange, as well as through most swap services and brokerages, including the Binance swap service. 

The Tezos protocol is connected to Ethereum via the WRAP bridge service, offering limited movements of assets between those networks. 

Is Tezos Ready for Play to Earn

When it comes to the NFT item aspect, Tezos has already opened shop. Beyond Opensea, Tezos hosts several digital item marketplaces, including Kalamint and Objkt.com. 

Tezos is also reaching for the other key element of play to earn, the open finance infrastructure. However, as of December 2021 the total value locked in Tezos-based projects is just above $100M equivalent. This is a relatively small pool for a limited DeFi sector.

To compare, projects like Terra (LUNA) lock in more than $11B, and Ethereum has over $110B in notional value. That value may fluctuate with time, but Tezos is yet to add big DeFi projects and ensure higher liquidity for play to earn. 

A robust DeFi space means enough venues to exchange reward tokens, buy or sell fungible assets and achieve various forms of staking, liquidity mining or other types of passive income. 

XTZ can yield some passive income when locked for “baking”, but the coins will not be usable for a few days. 

How Ready is Tezos for Play to Earn

It may take a while before the Tezos network is fully ready, though it is worth watching for new projects. The Ubisoft partnership, for instance, is limited to a few countries for adults with a Tezos wallet. 

Among known games deployed on the network, Tezotopia is seen as the most active, though it is yet to add users. Pixel Games is one of the most actively developing projects bringing play to earn to Tezos built with a mix of image collections and gamified DeFi. Rocket Monsters and other game headlines are getting developed for Tezos.

While Tezos is a promising network, it remains a laggard compared to more active platforms. The XTZ market price, moving between $0.50 and $8 for most of its history, is rather volatile and may yet move in unexpected ways.