Wax Studios Reimagines Ecommerce With “vIRL Market” for Physical Redemption of NFTs
The highly scalable marketplace will enable WAX Cloud Wallet’s 13 million users to buy, sell or trade NFTs and vIRLs gas-free
Cayman Islands, 9th August, 2022 – 9am PT — WAX Studios, a gaming and blockchain services studio created by the founders of the carbon-neutral WAX Blockchain, today announces the launch of vIRL® Market, the official non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace for the WAX ecosystem with digital-to-physical redemption.
The marketplace features WAX’s proprietary vIRL® (virtual in real life) technology — a type of NFT created by WAX in 2018 to represent both physical goods and services in the real world.
vIRL® technology enables users to separate ownership from possession, helping creators and collectors save on shipping, emissions, and more by removing the carbon footprint incurred from trading physical collectibles in real life. vIRL® NFT holders can trade or redeem their NFTs for the physical product it is associated with.
In addition, vIRL® Market caters to Play-to-Earn (P2E)/Play-to-Own games, supporting gamers in buying, selling, and trading digital items from leading P2E games across the WAX network, including Blockchain Brawlers, Alien Worlds, Millions on Mars, Splinterlands, and others.
Notably, WAX Studios will enable direct in-game integration of vIRL® Market into the recently unveiled Blockchain Brawlers game. This will allow players to seamlessly list their digital items on the marketplace without having to leave the game.
The marketplace also leverages an innovative Play-to-Own (P2O) system, an industry-first that allows users to put an item up for sale while still using it. For example, an in-game item can still be used in gameplay up until the point of sale, granting greater flexibility to the seller.
This collaboration will serve as the first demonstrable in-app use case to further bolster the development of in-game economies and widen the range of possibilities at players’ disposal, including buying, selling, and exchanging of NFTs directly in-game.
To mark the launch of vIRL® Market, WAX Studios is also teaming up with bountyblok.io to give users a chance to win an official vBot NFT. The contest will feature a leaderboard, and all participants will receive a referral link and gain points for all new users they refer. The top 10,000 contestants on the board will win a 1-of-1 PFP vBot NFT.
William Quigley, Founder of the WAX Blockchain, said: “The ownership of and the ability to trade and breathe new life into in-game assets has sparked debate across the gaming community, and it can no longer be ignored. Understandably, gamers no longer want their time and money spent on attaining in-game items and status poured down the drain when they no longer want or need them or move onto the next game.”
He added: “The vIRL market takes the concept of verifiable digital ownership one step further, allowing users to redeem any physical item tied to their NFT. This stands to completely revolutionize and streamline e-commerce — particularly when it comes to collectibles.”
About WAX
The Worldwide Asset eXchange™ (WAX), aka the King of NFTs, is the world’s #1 blockchain as measured by both the number of users and the number of transactions, according to Dappradar.com. WAX is also the leading entertainment NFT network. In 2018, the company introduced vIRLs®, giving consumer product companies the ability to directly link NFTs to physical consumer products. Co-founded in 2017 by William E. Quigley and Jonathan Yantis, WAX delivers the safest and most convenient way to create, buy, sell and trade virtual items and physical products (NFTs and vIRLs®) to anyone, anywhere in the world. WAX has facilitated the trade of more than 100 million digital collectibles including Major League Baseball (via Topps MLB collectibles), Capcom’s “Street Fighter,” and world-renowned entertainers Deadmau5 and Weezer. For more information, please visit https://wax.io and follow along on Twitter and Discord.