Champions Tactics – The Champions

• Mint Date: July 15
• Supply: 75,000
• Price: Free
• Chain: Oasys
• Link

Gaming giant Ubisoft, known for publishing generation-defining titles like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, will soon launch The Champions, a free mint for their upcoming NFT game Champions Tactics.

As the name suggests, these 3D Champion figurines will be the playable characters in this PVP turn-based strategy game.

Players can mix and match Champions with different stats and abilities to form teams and then battle other players online (like a Pokémon game battle). More info here.

I covered this project at the end of 2023 during the launch of their Warlords PFP, where I was critical of their engagement farming tactics and Ubisoft’s seeming lack of care for the project.

I still have those gripes (Ubisoft doesn’t tweet about the game), but this is a freebie from a team with resources, coming off the back of a gameplay trailer, with a closed beta starting next week. So it’s looking better.

The drop is on the Oasys blockchain (home to many other game studios), which would usually preclude it from our Top 25, but I’m making an executive exception in the name of crypto games.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

GigaBuds

• Mint Date: June 27
• Supply: 10,000
• Price: TBD
• Chain: Solana
• Link

This is the PFP and genesis NFT from AI company Grass, whose app has been downloaded over 100k times over the last year.

On first look, Grass might look like a Nigerian prince — a Chrome extension promising you passive income by selling your unused internet bandwidth.

Specifically, it visits (safe) websites using your internet to compile datasets that it then sells to AI companies’ bottomless data stomachs.

If that doesn’t sound sketchy, then you’re probably deep in the techbro rabbit hole.

The app claims not to access your personal data, its source code is viewable online, the founder is doxxed, and reputable VCs have backed the project. So there’s accountability in case of foul play.

Drop details are limited and mostly locked behind gated Discord channels, but it looks like a project that will probably reward engaged app users.

Installing an app like this may be icky for many, but it’s a working, funded product launching a PFP on Solana, and we’ve seen how those can play out.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨