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Valhalla and its team may have bitten off more than they can chew. The NFT project\u2019s ambitious goals include creating a platform that can rival Twitch. However, despite the enormity of this task, the project has already shown promise.<\/p>\n
It had a successful mint that quickly sold out, and the project has had more than 23,000 ETH <\/a>in total sales volume. If that doesn\u2019t sound promising enough, the project was created by Stacked Studios, an LA-based startup with a stated goal of building web3 products to become one of the largest crypto companies in the world. So far, the company has secured $15 million in funding<\/a>.<\/p>\n Obviously, this is far more than a mere PFP project, but can the team succeed in its grand vision? We delve into the project\u2019s history, team, accomplishments, and plans for challenging Twitch\u2019s dominance to find out.<\/p>\n Valhalla is an anime collection that aims to bring gamers from around the world together to build a community. In a Twitter thread<\/a>, the founder described the Valhalla NFT project as \u201ca crypto native brand for gamers.\u201d <\/p>\n The collection consists of five core character types, each with its own unique personality<\/a>.<\/p>\n The art for the project was created by Hicham Habchi<\/a>, a concept artist who has worked with some of the biggest brands in gaming and comics \u2014 including Marvel, DC Comics, and Blizzard. <\/p>\n Valhalla made a splash in the summer of 2022 with a 3D billboard in Times Square<\/a>, which went live months before the official mint. The project quickly gained attention for its innovative minting process, in which prospective holders could only gain entry to the community by obtaining referral codes from existing members. This approach sparked a wave of interest and resulted in tens of thousands of applications for membership.<\/p>\n The presale sold out in 1 minute<\/a>. And over the next four days, the team was 33x oversubscribed and had received more than 16,300 paid deposits.<\/p>\n As mentioned, Valhalla is a product of Stacked Studios<\/a>, which is led by CEO Alex Lin.<\/p>\n Prior to Valhalla, Lin was a consumer tech entrepreneur who was part of two Y Combinator-backed startups and was featured in Forbes\u2019 30 Under 30 list<\/a>. The fully-doxxed team comprises members with experience in a host of well-known companies. Most notably, Ding Zhang<\/a> is the Lead Software Engineer at Stacked. Prior to joining the team, he was a Founding Engineer on Uber\u2019s membership team.<\/p>\n The funding round was led by Pantera Capital, and the company also participated in the mint<\/a>. However, it\u2019s unclear exactly how many NFTs they claimed. <\/p>\n Stacked Studios\u2019 ultimate goal is to create a streaming platform owned and operated by content creators, much like Twitch for Web3.<\/p>\n The idea is to \u201cempower creators to build powerful communities through NFTs\u201d like Valhalla, according to Lin<\/a>. The platform would use governance tokens to turn video streaming creators into shareholders of the platform. In Lin\u2019s vision, users wouldn\u2019t need to be crypto-savvy to use the service.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to tell how far they are from this vision. But in the meantime, Valhalla\u2019s team has done a lot for their holders.<\/p>\n In Q4 2022, Valhalla hosted a successful tournament for Fall Guys, a popular Massive multiplayer battle royale game. The event was so well-received<\/a> that several other web3 projects contributed to hosting another one in the future. Valhalla also offers their holders NFT skins to celebrate special occasions, like Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a> and Chinese New Year<\/a>. The team also organized a re-roll event<\/a>, where holders could burn a special token to \u201cre-roll\u201d for new traits on their NFTs.<\/p>\n In accordance with their dedication to the gaming community, Valhalla has established partnerships with several esports teams, including 3x League of Legends world champions T1<\/a> and Sentinels, a team that specializes in Halo and Valorant. Moreover, Stacked Studios released a trailer<\/a> in November for an unreleased, unspecified game.<\/p>\n Lin and the Stacked Studios team believe NFT projects should own their distribution, similar to fashion retailers like Nike. As such, Valhalla launched its own marketplace in February 2023, which was perfectly on schedule and aligned with what the team promised when they initially announced the marketplace.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also planned multiple community events, including a Fortnite invitational tournament with over $10,000 in prizes, a community holders event in a Hollywood Hills mansion in March, and a holder event at NFT NYC in April.<\/p>\n That said, the project was hit with controversy early on. There was speculation that CEO Alex Lin was the same person as Hoshiboy, the founder of the much-maligned NFT collection Azuki<\/a>, which has a similar anime art style as Valhalla. However, many in the Valhalla community came to the project\u2019s defense, saying the accusations were unfounded. The Twitter user that made the claims quickly debunked its own investigation<\/a> and noted that the two are, instead, close business partners.<\/p>\n Since then, the team has been flying high, with solid community sentiment<\/a> and high participation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, the success of Valhalla and Stacked Studios will depend mainly on their ability to create and establish the streaming platform they envision (and have promised).<\/p>\n With no concrete signs of the game they\u2019ve created a trailer for, and no significant public announcements on the streaming platform\u2019s progress, the project has a lot to prove. So in short, while their activities and events have generated excitement in their community, it remains to be seen whether they can deliver on their grand vision of becoming the Twitch for web3.<\/p>\n Creating a platform that can compete with Twitch, which garners over 55 million hours<\/a> of watch time every day, is a massive<\/em> undertaking. So even if they do deliver their promised product, it will be exceptionally difficult for them to secure those kinds of numbers. <\/p>\n Is the Valhalla collection a necessary means to reach Stacked Studios\u2019 vision or a distraction from the ultimate goal? For now, we must wait and see. But either way, they\u2019ve captured the attention of the Web3 gaming community, and they have the funding and community to establish themselves as a major player in the space.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhat are Valhalla NFTs?<\/h2>\n
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Who is the Valhalla leadership team?<\/h2>\n
Valhalla\u2019s progress so far<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s in the future for Valhalla and Stacked Studios?<\/h2>\n