Just when you thought crypto was getting boring, a new phenomenon is lighting up Crypto Twitter — Fake World Assets (FWAs). Yes, really.
It’s the latest iteration of the onchain gacha craze, where users receive a random collectible, or collectibles, that are usually worth very little, but are sometimes worth quite a lot.
Within four days of launch, FWAs guzzled so much Ethereum gas that they briefly became the chain’s largest gas consumer by fees over a 24-hour period.
At its peak on July 25, FWAs generated approximately $1.53 million in daily fees, and even leapfrogged Tether and Circle to briefly rank among Ethereum’s biggest consumers of blockspace. Its creators, TokenWorks, proclaimed:
“4 days since launch. Fake World Assets are the next big thing.”
TokenWorks is far from an impartial observer, but TVL continues to climb, reaching over $6.15 million on July 31. Fee revenue has now eased to around $350,000 per day, which equates to an annualized run rate of roughly $268 million. By August 1, FWA had seen 10,000 ETH in volume, and 100,000 purchases. Some of the activity is driven by users trying to access early FWA token incentives, but there also appears to be genuine interest in the gamified mechanic.
Fake World Assets TVL and fees. Source: DeFiLlama
Not everyone is convinced the excitement around FWA will last. Simon Dedic, founder of venture capital firm Moonrock Capital, and an early backer of onchain collectible platforms, tells Magazine:
“I’m very bullish on gamified commerce… my skepticism on FWA is specific.”
Dedic argues that much of the current activity is driven by generous token incentives rather than genuine demand.
“The whole thing is purely aimed at crypto degens so they can gamble and speculate,” he says.
So, is this just another short-lived obsession, or has the industry finally stumbled upon something built to last?
All very interesting, but what the heck are FWAs?
Crypto has spent years trying to put the real world onchain, from stocks and bonds to collectible cards and…
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