Vancouver’s Dapper Labs is partnering with the celebrity-driven avatar tech company Genies to build a new marketplace on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain.
Dapper Labs uses the power of play to deliver blockchain-based experiences in the real world. Getting their start with collecting and breeding digital at CryptoKitties—the world’s most successful blockchain game—the Vancouver studio also lets basketball fans trade jaw-dropping NBA basketball highlights with NBA Top Shot.
According to Forbes, the new platform will be called the “Genies Marketplace” and it is aiming to become the “Amazon of Digital Wearable NFTs” where celebrities and, ultimately, all platform users can create and sell digital wearable NFT collections for their avatars, or digital alter-egos.
Genies will also periodically have challenges for users to unlock special wearables. Dapper Labs and Genies hope to launch the beta version sometime in the third quarter of 2021.
Genies competes directly with Snapchat-owned Bitmoji, which has popularized sticker-like cartoon avatars, or personalized emojis, widely used across social media platforms.
Genies claims it owns 99% of the celebrity avatar market which partnerships with with celebrities including Rihanna, Shawn Mendes and Cardi B, who have used their personalized avatars as alternative ways to connect with their fans, announcing new song drops or partnerships.
Dapper Labs spun out of startup studio Axoim Zen in 2017, was named to Techcouver’s 10 Homegrown B.C. Startups to Watch in 2021, and was recently valued at over $7.5 billion.
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