From Metaverse to Hyperverse: Discussing the Evolving NFT Space

Latest developments in 2025

As the NFT space continues to evolve in 2025, the distinction between the Metaverse and the Hyperverse is becoming increasingly important. Characterized by decentralization and community-driven initiatives, the Hyperverse has maintained its position as an alternative to enterprise-controlled virtual environments.

Data shows that decentralized NFT projects are experiencing significant growth, with community-built applications expanding from gaming to various fields:

Recent regulatory developments prioritize investor protection in the NFT space. Several platforms have implemented enhanced verification processes for NFT projects to prevent plans similar to those seen in previous years.

The super-universe ecosystem continues to emphasize composability and permissionless innovation, with new projects built on established protocols rather than creating isolated environments. This approach fosters unprecedented collaboration among creators, further blurring the lines between users and builders.

Gate has observed a significant increase in trading volume for projects adopting the Metaverse model, indicating that the market’s interest in truly decentralized NFT applications continues to grow, surpassing simple collectibles.

From Metaverse to Hyperverse: Discussing the Evolving NFT Space

Everything related to the crypto world is developing rapidly, with new innovations and ideas constantly emerging and being applied, expanding to more projects while continuously growing. Undoubtedly, NFTs are currently the biggest “hype” in this cycle, with their application scope and prices reaching levels that were unimaginable just a few months ago. The NFT space is likely still in an exploratory phase, with many projects focusing on the tokenization of artworks or other real-world assets. However, recently, we have seen a brand new way of utilizing NFTs, a method that disrupts the usual process by not providing the final product itself but directly assisting in the establishment of the product. This is the Loot project.

Loot was launched at the end of August and is an “experiment” initiated by Dominik Hofmann, the co-founder of Vines. Loot NFT consists of a few simple lines of text describing adventurer gear. The Loot project is completely open, and users can mint for free by only paying the gas fee.

Source: twitter.com/dhof

Initially, Loot only provided 8,000 NFTs, and then Loot issued its own token, Adventure Gold (AGLD), which was airdropped to some of the initial creators. The project quickly gained popularity, and by early September, the value of the Loot bag had reached hundreds of thousands of dollars, with its overall quantity far exceeding that of any other NFT project to date.

Source: twitter.com/nftwhalealert

Loot
NFTs are just data; they will eventually be applied elsewhere in the NFT Metaverse. In this case, Loot describes items similar to those in role-playing games (similar to Dungeons & Dragons) in just a few lines of text. This text serves as a foundational layer upon which games and related products can be built. NFTs are not the final product of this project, but like other forms of NFTs, they can become a new type of infrastructure.

When talking about the characteristics of Loot, the most important concept is “Composability.” In the Loot project, participants can utilize the outputs of other members in the ecosystem to expand and create new products. The foundation of DeFi development is similar, which is why Loot was so popular from the beginning. Loot introduced this model into the NFT space, and developers refer to it as “Hyperverse,” corresponding to the Metaverse.

By combining NFTs or creating new use cases for them, Loot has opened up new possibilities. This is exactly what happened after the release of Loot Bags, and we can see this in the Loot project. Resource page See the detailed de_script_ion of these Bags.

Source: bitcoininsider.org

From users spontaneously forming guilds by sharing the same type of items to characters being automatically generated by artificial intelligence, Loot Bags has already spawned a thriving ecosystem. Since Loot has only been around for two weeks, it is still too early to determine its developmental direction. The Loot ecosystem is fully in the hands of the community, rather than belonging to a specific development team or company. Will Loot become a mature role-playing blockchain game? Or will it turn into a marketplace where players trade items? Anything can happen, and to some extent, it already has. Currently, the Loot project has also launched a hackathon (LootHack) to encourage development; this is just the beginning, with dozens of different development initiatives already underway.

Typically, an NFT collectible is sequentially released by creators (artists, developers, etc.), and its value depends on the content provided by the creator through the NFT. It is a finished product. However, Loot disrupts this concept as it aims to create a community-based Metaverse, where the value of these NFTs depends on how the related ecosystem expands and evolves after minting. This is a bottom-up approach.

The concept of NFT gaming projects takes on different forms, which is not new in the crypto world. It is well known that Enjin builds its own ecosystem by integrating cross-trading projects through its gaming platform. Because these are associated with the norms established by Enjin, they all adopt the typical NFT approach. The innovation of Loot lies in elevating the concept of NFT to a decentralized level, requiring no permission and unrelated to the planning of developers.

Source: twitter.com/tandavas

Despite being newly born, the Loot project has already undergone many changes. Since Loot’s initial supply was set at only 8,000 pieces, and the entire NFT market is filled with speculative sentiment, Loot attracted a large number of users after its release. Even without obtaining the first batch of released Loot Bags, many users purchased Loot Bags on the secondary market. This situation repeats itself every time a new NFT project appears this month, leading to parabolic price increases and also resulting in high Gas fees.

Some believe this is how a free market operates, considering that anyone can mint Loot bags and there are no market monopolists, so the issuance of Loot is fair. However, this is not the case; the price of Loot is purely based on a first-come-first-served principle and subsequent price discovery. This is very different from other blockchain-based projects that raise funds before a formal release and start practices such as token mining in advance, conducting private channel sales at launch to inflate prices, and even wash trading for profit. As an experiment in the blockchain space, the issuance of the Loot project is truly decentralized, and any value or applications built upon it stem from this decentralized nature and are controlled by the community. Therefore, if the community continues to develop ideal use cases that can attract users, the price will rise accordingly. This is the bottom-up project-building approach mentioned earlier, rather than the issuance of cryptocurrencies controlled by venture capital firms.

Regardless, shortly after, Dom Hofmann announced that anyone could mint “Synthetic Bag NFT.” This led to a significant price drop, as it undermined the original idea of limiting the circulation of items. Following the same logic as the original batch, users can now generate items randomly without restriction to participate in the Loot project. Obviously, these synthetic versions of Loot are not considered original, so their market value is far lower than the initial versions. This is a straightforward supply and demand issue. However, some lucky item combinations can be quite useful, and more importantly, it does seem that these can indeed join the community and all derivative projects. The surge in loot has formed a hierarchical system based on loot rarity, adding another layer to the existing ecosystem.

There is no doubt that Loot’s foray into the NFT space has caused quite a stir, with Vitalik Buterin praising the project, believing that its concept is very correct, and importantly, that others are building upon this foundation. Furthermore, another groundbreaking aspect is that it has changed the concept of NFTs and the norms within the NFT space. So, what will happen next in the thriving ecosystem that Loot is developing? Will other NFT projects follow this path?

Currently still in the early stages of development, these questions cannot be answered yet. But one thing is certain: this new approach to handling the Metaverse (or more precisely, the Hyperverse?) may be more appealing to crypto enthusiasts who are genuinely interested in decentralization. The core principles behind blockchain and cryptocurrency may slowly be sidelined recently, while new features such as scalability are being sought after, especially projects supported by well-known brands or those that replicate popular NFTs on another chain.

Loot has changed the fundamental logic of NFT projects, which is a positive signal for the entire industry.

Similar to the innovative top-down approach to creating NFT products in the Loot project, Gate’s OpenPunks is also a highly innovative product. In OpenPunks, the system will automatically generate NFT de_script_ions with several basic elements based on algorithms, allowing users to create their own avatar display NFT products based on the de_script_ions.

OpenPunks
Leveraging the diversity of the GateChain ecosystem and the existing community attributes of the NFT Magic Box, it builds a safe, reliable, and freely open creative environment for global NFT artists and Punks creators. OpenPunks maximizes the enthusiasm of community users for creation based on the form of first or multiple recreations, thereby obtaining value returns from innovative Punks works.

Click this link to learn more:

Gate.OpenPunks Global Launch, Recreating a New NFT Metaverse - Announcement - Gate\
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