First Class Warehouse: Learn about Mathcastles Art NFT Series Products Terraforms

Terraform is essentially a set of data containing information such as color, change, and cycle. GIF animations, 3D pictures, etc. can be presented through some visualization tools.

Written by: First Class Warehouse

Terraforms is a series of NFT images composed of ASCII characters created by Mathcastles, with interesting settings such as changes, pulses, and hidden attributes. At present, the market value of this project ranks 4th among art NFT projects, with a market value of about 20k ETH. Generally speaking, artistry and innovation are the moats of art NFTs, and the Terraforms project itself has strong product strength and a good community atmosphere. It can be regarded as an art NFT with excellent market performance and products. Therefore, the project deserves attention.

Project Summary

Terraforms is an NFT series created by Mathcastles, released in December 2021 with a total of 11,104 pieces. The project was developed by two anonymous creators and has not received external financing. The NFT sale in 2022 will receive a total of about 6 million US dollars. At present, the market value of the project is about 20kETH, and the transaction volume exceeds 30kETH, ranking 4th among art NFT projects.

The project's slogan is "The best virtual worlds are imagined, not simulated". Terraform is essentially a set of data containing information such as color, change, and cycle. GIF animations, 3D pictures, etc. can be presented through some visualization tools. Its data is completely stored on the Ethereum blockchain, and players can also create and modify it through smart contracts.

The main advantages of the project are:

1. The product is strong, using c language to compile ASCII characters to make animations, and the hidden attributes such as Daydream, Pulse, Keystone, etc. are innovative and interesting;

2. There is a good community atmosphere, and the tools developed by many enthusiasts also increase the playability of Terraforms.

But there are also certain risks:

1. Art NFT has a small audience, and the narrative is relatively single, lacking the empowerment of games and metaverses. If there are no other gameplays and highlights in the future, users may be lost;

2. In the short term, the NFT market is generally in a state where the trading volume is picking up but the price is falling, and there are greater risks.

Generally speaking, artistry and innovation are the moats of art NFTs, and the Terraforms project itself has strong product strength and a good community atmosphere. It can be regarded as an art NFT with excellent market performance and products.

In summary, the project deserves attention.

1. Basic overview

1.1 Project Introduction

Terraforms is an NFT series created by Mathcastles, released in December 2021 with a total of 11,104 pieces. The project's slogan is "The best virtual worlds are imagined, not simulated". Terraform is essentially a set of data containing information such as color, change, and cycle. GIF animations, 3D pictures, etc. can be presented through some visualization tools. Its data is completely stored on the Ethereum blockchain, and players can also create and modify it through smart contracts.

1.2 Basic information

2. Project details

2.1 Team

Terraform is developed by the Mathcastles team of two anonymous developers: xaltgeist and 0x113d. There is little public information about these two developers, and the only information currently available indicates that 0x113d is an artist.

2.2 Funding

Terraforms did not conduct external financing. The team sold 9,800 NFTs at a unit price of 0.16 ETH in December 2021, for a total of 1,568 ETH, which was about $6 million in US dollars at the time.

2.3 Products

Terraforms is a collection of NFT works created by the Mathcastles team. All 11,104 Terraforms form a 20-layer fictional structure - "Hypercastle", as shown in the figure below. Hypercastle is usually called "castle" or "mathematical castle" by players. It is a dynamic, changing, and three-dimensional structure. Each of its components is called a parcel (each parcel is also a Terraform).

Figure 2-1 Hypercastle

Parcel constitutes Hypercastle like building blocks. Terraforms’ three location features Level, X, and Y represent the position of this parcel in Hypercastle. Level refers to one of the 20 layers; X and Y are in this The 2D plane coordinates in the layer. In addition, Terraforms also has 5 features such as Biome, Chrome, and Mode.

Table 2-1 Features of Terraforms

Each Terraform is essentially a set of data that contains every feature of Terraform. On the most common web pages or secondary markets, Terraform is usually displayed in the form of a flat GIF image, as shown in the figure below (the lower left corner is the current Terraform floor plan). In addition to the location feature, several other features of Terraform determine the image it displays. All Terraforms are images composed of some ASCII characters. The Zone and Biome features determine the color and character group used by this Terraform respectively, as shown in the red box in the figure below (characters and colors are displayed at the same time); while Chroma and ? ? ? The characteristics determine the speed of color change and the cycle speed of characters when Terraform is used as an animation.

Among these features, due to the scarcity of some features, there is a certain scarcity. However, in addition to the quantity, Level also indicates the height of the Terraform. The official setting is that the highest 3 floors and the lowest 3 floors are relatively scarce, and the highest 3 floors are better than the lowest 3 floors.

Figure 2-2 Terraforms visualization information

Another important feature of Terraforms is Mode. There are 5 modes: Terrain, Daydream, Terraform, Origin Daydream, and Origin Terraform. Terrain is shown in the left picture of the figure below. From the plan view, it is some random terrain maps, which is also the initial state of Terraform. In Daydream, these terrains are emptied and turned into the same symbol, as shown in the picture in the middle of the figure below. At this time, players can freely edit and draw on the picture. Terraform (referring to Mode) is an NFT that is fixed after Daydream (it can also be changed back to Daydream at any time), as shown in the right figure below. OriginDaydream is Terraform (referred to as NFT) that is native to Daydream mode. After editing and saving, the Mode will become Origin Terraform.

The Mode on the left of Figure 2-3 is Terrain, the middle is Daydream, and the right is Terraform (referring to TerraformMode)

In its initial state, when Terraforms first shipped, there were only two Terraforms, Terrain and OriginDaydream. The conversion relationship between these modes is shown in the figure below. Terrain can be converted to Daydream, but this conversion is one-way, that is, Daydream cannot be converted back to Terrain; Daydream and Terraform can be converted to each other. The conversion relationship between Origin Daydream and Origin Terraform is the same as Daydream and Terraform. The difference is that the Origin Daydream Mode exists from the beginning, rather than Terrain. It can be understood as a rare feature of Terraforms , to distinguish them, the Mode converted from Origin Daydream is called Origin Terraform.

Figure 2-4 Mode conversion relationship

After converting Terrain to Daydream, Terraform will become a unified character (Daydream is usually described as blank in the project), at this time, players can use the characters in the Biome character group of Terraform to create, and will also change Metadata of Terraform; if the Terraform (referring to the NFT) is locked at this time, the data will be saved on the chain, and the Mode of the NFT will change from Daydream to Terraform (referring to one of the Modes). Players can also not save or make changes to Daydream, and the Mode of the NFT will always be expressed as Daydream, and it will be displayed in a blank (the same character).

Origin Daydream and Daydream are not much different in terms of appearance. Origin Daydream is mainly due to its original scarcity. In theory, only Origin Daydream is considered a rare NFT of Terraform, with only 165.

In addition, due to different visualization effects, Terraform also has some hidden attributes, as shown in the following table:

Table 2-2 Hidden attributes

There is a SEED parameter in the source code of Terraform. When the SEED of Origin > 9000 or the SEED of non-Origin > 9970, a special pulse effect can be produced. These SEEDs are called X SEED. There are 14 Origin Terraform and 34 Terrain with X SEED, and these NFTs are the most visible pulse effects. But are there some other SEEDs that work with certain? ? ? Features also produce some pulsating effects, the community refers to this type of SEED as X SEED II, and there are about 5,000 of these NFTs.

The hidden attribute of Elevation is not obvious from the visual perception, but it needs to enter the Token ID into the tokenSupplementalData function of Etherscan to return an elevation value. The community regards this value ranging from -4 to +4 as another value other than Level. A location feature. If a Terraform has an elevation value of +4 at Level 20, then this Terraform can be considered as the NFT with the highest "absolute value" in Hypercastle.

Keystones is the most interesting hidden attribute of Terraform. The NFT with this hidden attribute looks like a mini map of the Terraform's Level. The project party said that there are 50~100 such NFTs, and 68 have been discovered so far. Basically, there are 2~4 for each Level. These Terraform Modes are basically Terrain, with only two Daydreams, one Origin Daydream and one Terraform (referred to as Mode).

In addition to NFT itself, Mathcastles and the community also provide some Terraforms-related tools, such as tools for visual rendering, tools to help users draw Daydream, and tools for interpreting data on the chain, etc. Nearly 10 tools. Such tools have increased the playability of Terraforms to a certain extent, but Terraforms has not developed a larger ecology like other NFT projects, but only perfected its works themselves.

Figure 2-5 Some tools provided by the community

**Summary: Terraforms are data stored on the Ethereum chain, including data with attributes such as characters, colors, and changes. The flat images displayed are dynamic images composed of ASCII characters. The project has interesting settings such as Daydream, XSEED, and Keystone, and has strong product strength and innovation. The project team has only two anonymous creators, and the NFT will be sold in 2022 to obtain about 6 million US dollars, and there is no external financing other than this. **

3. Development

3.1 History

Table 3-1Terraform Major Events

Terraforms is an artistic NFT. Its works basically do not need to be maintained after release, and the team has no idea of ecological development. Therefore, the follow-up team and the community just launched some tools to increase the playability of Terraforms.

3.2 Status Quo

Currently (March 27, 2023), the total transaction volume of Terraforms exceeds 30k ETH, and the floor price is 1.8 ETH. Nansen estimates the market value of the project at 17.7k ETH, and NFT GO estimates the market value of the project at 21.2k ETH. Ranked by market value, Terraforms ranks around 50 among all NFT projects, and ranks 4th among art NFT projects.

Figure 3-1 Transaction volume and price data, source: Nansen

Judging from the transaction volume data, except for the high transaction popularity when the project was first released, the transaction volume will be low for most of the time in 2022. By October 2022, Terraforms' transaction volume has picked up, but only for a while. Later, from December 2022 to January this year, Terraforms has a larger increase. The entire NFT market began to rise in mid-February 2023, and declined slightly by March, and the trading volume of Terraforms is similar. Overall, the market heat this year is higher than that in the second half of last year.

As can be seen from the figure above, the transaction volume from the end of last year to January this year is equivalent to that in February this year, but the average price in February has a relatively large drop. Combined with the figure below, we can see that the number of transactions in January is much lower than that in February, and the transaction volume of the two is similar, so there is a big difference in the average price.

Figure 3-2 Data on the number of transactions, source: Nansen

From the perspective of floor price and average price, Terraforms basically started to have a sharp price increase in October last year, from about 0.5 ETH to 1.8 ETH. The price is 4.5 ETH. However, from mid-to-late February to now, the price has dropped somewhat, but overall it is still higher than last year's price.

Figure 3-3 Transaction price and floor price data, source: NFT GO

Judging from the transaction information of giant whales (the green circle in the picture below indicates that giant whales buy, and the orange circle indicates that giant whales sell), when the project was released, giant whales bought more and sold less. Later, in February 2022, giant whales Whales were sold at a price higher than the floor price and the average price, and then giant whales bought at a price close to the floor price and average price from May to June. The average price and the floor price are sold at a lot of price. Then in October 2022, the project market became more popular, the buying and selling volume of giant whales increased, and both the buying price and selling price rose to a certain extent. But in November, as prices fell back, whales sold more than bought. In December, the trading heat of Terraforms rose again, and the trading of giant whales also appeared at this time, and the price also rose accordingly. But in March of this year, as the price fell back and the market heat decreased, some giant whales began to buy.

Figure 3-4 Giant whale transactions, source: NFT GO

Judging from the data of Top Sales (NFT with the highest transaction price in history), the transaction price of the top ten Terraforms has a wide range, with prices ranging from 18 ETH to 319 ETH, but the Terraform transaction of 319 ETH was in January 2022. That is, when the project was first released, the market valuation at that time might not be rational. If this Terraform is excluded, it can be found that only another Terraform was traded during that period, and the transaction price was 53 ETH. Except for this, the rest of Terraforms will be traded from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, with the transaction price range from 18 ETH to 135 ETH.

Figure 3-5 TopSales, source: NFT GO

In terms of holders, according to NFT GO data, there are a total of 1917 holders, of which the proportion of UniqueHolders is low-only 19%. Among them, there are 29 giant whales, accounting for 1.51%, holding 12.29% of NFTs (1,218 pieces), 571 blue chip holders (BlueChipHolders), accounting for 29.79%, holding 38.18% of NFTs (3,784 pieces). Whales and blue chip holders collectively hold over 50% of all NFTs**. Judging from the changes, the holders of Terraforms are constantly decreasing, with a decrease of nearly 20% compared to the highest number of holders. From the perspective of giant whales and blue-chip holders, the data is missing in some periods of time, but overall, the number of blue-chip holders is relatively stable, while the number of giant whales decreased in November last year.

Figure 3-6 holder data, source: NFT GO

Judging from the holding time data, Terraforms holders are basically long-term holders, and there are fewer new players. Only a small number of new players entered at the end of last year. In February of this year, the number of players who held for another 3 months to 1 year decreased, while the number of players who held for 1 month to 3 months and more than 1 year increased.

Figure 3-7 Holding time data, source: NFT GO

From the perspective of the number of holdings, most Terraforms players still hold a small number of NFTs, but the total number of Terraforms holders is less than 2,000, so the proportion of these small players holding NFTs is also small . Based on the situation of giant whales and blue-chip holders, a small number of Terraforms users hold most of the NFTs, and the proportion of Unique Holders is relatively low.

Figure 3-8 Holding quantity data, source: NFT GO

The picture below shows the positions of large investors. On the whole, the positions of several large investors are constantly increasing. Their holdings increased significantly in August, October and January of last year. The top 5 large investors hold about 1,200 Terraforms in total, accounting for about 10%.

Figure 3-9 Positions of large investors, source: Nansen

However, the position of Smart Money is opposite to that of large investors. On the whole, the position of Smart Money has decreased. Some Smart Money positions have increased at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. reducing their holdings.

Figure 3-10 SmartMoney holdings, source: Nansen

3.3 Future

The Mathcastles team does not have a clear roadmap or plan, and may continue to launch some related tools related to GIF images and 3D visual rendering in the future. In addition, the project has also cooperated with projects such as ZIELCHAIN and FINILIAR, and there may be profit opportunities such as airdrops and whitelists in the future.

Inspired by Terraforms, the community has also developed many new ways to play code art, such as Little Block Machines and Terraflows. There is already a good community around Mathcastles, and the team and community may introduce new code art in the future.

Figure 3-11 Terraflows Legend

**Summary: Terraforms is an artistic NFT in terms of product positioning. The focus of the project is on the product, which is basically a one-time delivery, so the team has not expanded its IP and ecology. After the project was launched, the community has a good atmosphere, and some enthusiasts have also spontaneously developed related tools. It is worth noting that in terms of holders, the giant whales and SmartMoney in Terraforms have more NFTs, and the proportion of UniqueHolders is lower. Although the current market popularity has declined, the current floor price of Terraforms is still more than ten times higher than the original launch price. **

4. Economic Model

Terraforms and its development team, Mathcastles, do not have tokens, and there are currently no plans to issue tokens.

5. Competition

5.1 Industry Overview

Nearly 10 projects at the head of the NFT track and several other NFT-related research reports on the current first-class position of the track analysis have basically covered, and the fundamentals of most projects have not changed, so this article will be more biased towards the current situation for analysis. If necessary, please refer to the other NFT project research reports of the first-class warehouse.

Figure 4-1 NFT market data, source: NFT GO

The NFT market and the entire cryptocurrency field have been relatively sluggish since May last year, and their trends are basically the same. However, the transaction volume and market size of the encryption market have rebounded in January this year, while the NFT market is still relatively cold. Market synchronization. The trading volume of the NFT market has increased significantly in mid-February this year, but the prices of most NFTs have not risen, especially the blue chip index has fallen instead.

Figure 4-2 Blue Chip Index, source: NFT GO

From the figure below, it can be seen more intuitively that Blur has contributed a lot of market transaction volume since the end of last year, and its transaction volume has further increased this year. Overall, in recent months, the trading volume of the NFT market has largely come from Blur.

Figure 4-3 NFT market trading volume data, source: Nansen

As can be seen from the figure below, since mid-February, Smart Money operations have also become more frequent, and the transaction volume of buying and selling is relatively large, but there is no obvious sign of net fund changes.

Figure 4-4 SmartMoney operation, source: Nansen

Further subdividing the NFT market, it can be found that PFP is still the mainstream of the market, and the rest of the market value and transaction volume of collections, games, and art are not high. At present, art NFT accounts for about 9% of the market value, and the transaction volume in the past month accounts for about 7%, which is still a big gap compared with PFP.

Figure 4-5 Market Value of NFT Market by Category, Source: NFT GO

The picture below shows the situation of several NFT indexes of Nansen (the value data of the index fund purchased for $1,000 on January 1, 2022). It can be seen that the overall market has been relatively sluggish during this period. As of today (March 27, 2023) day) all index returns were negative. During the period from the end of last year to the first quarter of this year, the income of the art NFT index was higher than that of other indexes, but the market fell again after March. At present, the game index has the most losses, and the losses of the other indexes are relatively similar.

Figure 4-6 NFT index, source: Nansen

Judging from the recent situation, the emergence of Blur has brought some market heat to the NFT market, but the increase in transaction volume has also been accompanied by a decline in the price data of most projects. If the market heat decreases in the future, how to maintain the price will be a difficult problem. Overall, opportunities and risks coexist in the NFT market at this stage.

5.2 Comparison of competing products

Terraforms is a work of art in code visualization, and both OpenSea and NFT GO classify it as an artistic NFT. When OpenSea classifies art NFTs, some art NFT platforms (Art Blocks, etc.), PFP derivative NFTs, and social NFTs are also classified into the art category, which is not accurate. NFT GO excludes NFTs such as music and photography when classifying art NFTs, and basically narrows the scope to flat images, but also includes some art NFT platforms.

Figure 4-7 Top ten art NFT projects, source: NFT GO

From the perspective of market data, the overall market size of art NFT is not large, far lower than the market size of PFP. From the picture above, we can see that Art Blocks has a market value of 300k ETH, accounting for 37% of the entire art market value, but in fact Art Blocks is not an art NFT project, but an art NFT platform, ranking top Foudation, SuperRare, BEEPLE, and MakersPlace in the top ten are actually artistic NFT platforms.

If several art platforms are excluded, according to the data of NFT GO, Terraforms, CyberBrokers, Deafbeef, Friendship Bracelets by Alexis André and Karafuru remain among the top 10 art projects by market capitalization.

Table 4-1 Comparison of competing products

CyberBrokers is a cyberpunk-style NFT created by Josie Bellini in March 2022. Its content is mainly some sci-fi style 3D characters. Around its role IP, the project has launched a series of derivative NFT, games and other ecology, and the development route is similar to PFP projects such as BAYC.

Deafbeef is a music audio-visual art NFT project developed based on blockchain and NFT technology. The author writes audio and video output in c language, stores it in a decentralized cloud storage platform, and then distributes it through NFT , to ensure file persistence. In addition to the original audio and video NFT, the author also released PAYPHONE, slot machine series NFT and real-world vinyl records.

Friendship Bracelets by Alexis André is an NFT project of the ArtBlocks community, created by artists Erick Calderon and Alexis André. The project focuses on art + community. All NFTs are initially distributed to whitelist users for free, which is essentially a membership-like NFT.

Karafuru is an NFT project designed as a gashapon machine, but the gashapon machine is not a toy, but some graffiti and cartoon-style NFT works. It is essentially the role IP of PFP. The main gameplay is to obtain tokens by pledging NFT. The tokens can be used to purchase real-life peripherals in the store.

The distinction between artistic NFTs and PFPs is rather vague. CyberBrokers and Karafuru are actually PFP projects, and their products and development routes are very similar to PFP projects such as BAYC. Friendship Bracelets by Alexis André isn’t actually an art NFT either, it’s a membership NFT. If these projects are excluded, Deafbeef remains as an art NFT project with a higher market value.

5.3 Competition Analysis

5.3.1ArtvsPFP

At present, there are many classifications of NFT, but in fact, the difference between various categories of NFT, especially PFP and art, is not obvious. Judging from the several PFP projects in the head, they all have more or less blessings from some artists, and their products are also related to works of art. For example, CloneX has the blessings of artists such as Takashi Murakami and Jeff Staples; the founder of Doodles is himself a well-known illustrator.

At the same time, it is precisely because of the blessings of these well-known artists that many projects will have higher valuations and premiums in the market. The market value of the leading BAYC and CryptoPunks is around 800k ETH; while the market value of blue-chip NFT has declined at this stage, but it is also around 100k ETH. Compared with these projects, Terraforms has a large gap in terms of transaction volume and market value, which is basically similar to the market value of the derivative NFT projects of these projects. However, there are also some projects that rely entirely on celebrities to "bring goods", such as Jay Lun Xiong, etc. These products are not strong and prefer hype, and the later market performance is not good.

5.3.2 Operation Mode

The biggest difference between PFP and art NFT lies in its development route or operation mode. PFP is more commercialized and usually has a sustainable profit model. This makes the PFP project more ambitious in terms of narrative, most of which are involved in metaverse, games and other fields, and all have rich derivative series NFT. The reason why the top NFT projects can achieve better market performance is largely due to the operational capabilities of the project parties.

For many Web3.0 users, the cypherpunk spirit is one aspect, and investment attributes are also more important. These top projects of BAYC have strong value-added capabilities in the early stage, and they continue to release derivative series NFT and provide other potential benefits to users. Art-like NFTs such as Terraforms are more like a one-shot deal, with less room for profit for users (although early users can also get good profits), basically there are no other derivative NFTs, and the team basically seldom updates project. This development model is more suitable for projects with strong product strength. Players pay for consumption rather than investment.

5.3.3 Artistry and Innovation

PFP projects usually use random combinations to generate a large number of graffiti or cartoon-style avatars in terms of creative techniques or forms of expression. This method allows the project to maintain the same style and facilitate mass production. And PFP with bright colors and simple patterns is easier for most people to accept. However, this method also makes the threshold for project creation low, and market competition is incentivized, so it is necessary to start from the aspects of artists and operating models.

Compared with PFP, art projects pay more attention to its artistry and innovation. Terraforms and Deafbeef are obviously better at innovation. One of them uses ASCII characters to draw, the other uses c language to write audio and video, and the product content is more interesting. Projects such as Terraforms and Deafbeef are more recognizable and unique, and this type of work is difficult to imitate. This makes their works less accessible, but more attractive to target users.

The difference is that if the total amount of NFT is considered, the total amount of Deafbeef and Elemental by Fang Lijun is not large. The current total amount of Deafbeef is less than 200, and the total amount of Elemental by Fang Lijun is 2022. The market performance of Deafbeef is particularly outstanding. Its total number is only 164, but it has created a market value of 16k ETH and a transaction volume of nearly 6k ETH. There are only 100 holders, and the Unique Holder ratio is 44%. Deafbeef maintains a high price due to the shortage of supply (the current floor price of Deafbeef is about 70 ETH), but this also makes the entry threshold for users higher.

Figure 4-8 Deafbeef official website

However, compared to other art NFTs or even PFP NFTs, the biggest difference between Terraforms in terms of products is its Daydream mode, which gives players the freedom to create. Before Terraforms, there was no NFT with similar functions. Players could only passively accept the cultural symbols and spiritual connotations of NFT, but Daydream provided a new way to play.

**Summary: The current NFT market trading volume has picked up, but the price keeps falling, opportunities and risks coexist. PFP is still the mainstream of the NFT market, and its market value and transaction volume are much higher than other types of NFT. Terraforms' market data ranks 4th among art NFT projects, but excluding NFT platform projects, its market value ranking should be No. 1 among art NFT projects. Compared with PFP projects, art projects such as Terraforms pay more attention to artistry and innovation, which is also their moat. The project is basically a one-time delivery, and projects with strong product strength also have good market performance. Among the art projects, Deafbeef, which has a strong product and a small amount, also has a good market performance. **

References:

Official TerraformsbyMathcastles Documentation,