Somebody Paid $101,336 For A Virtual F1 Car

Someone has purchased an exclusive “virtual car” for more than $100,000 USD in an unreleased, officially-licensed Formula 1 game you have almost certainly never heard of.

Wait… what?

If you think that sounds crazy, keep reading. There’s a lot of weird stuff to digest here that has far-reaching implications for both the future of racing games and Formula 1, so we’ll cover things one at a time.

What is “F1 Delta Time“?

Not much has been said about exactly what “F1 Delta Time” is.

It was announced as a “blockchain game” earlier this year, to be developed by Animoca Brands in an official partnership with Liberty Media Group, the owners of Formula 1. It was revealed with little fanfare — receiving attention only from cryptocurrency websites — and has flown quietly under the radar until now.

What is a “blockchain game”?

You have probably heard about blockchain used in the context of discussions around cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. A full explanation of blockchain is beyond the scope of this article (I recommend this explainer video, if you’re interested), but the easiest way to think of it is an open, decentralized ledger of transactions that anyone can read with confidence that it is accurate.

While cryptocurrencies are the most widely-known use for blockchains right now, people are quickly figuring out other ways to use them. One promising application is games, thanks to something called “non-fungible tokens”, or NFTs.

NFTs are unique digital assets that can be owned, bought, and sold. Think of them like virtual trading cards, of which only one exists. (It might be hard to imagine that something virtual is unique or entirely “owned” by one person, but thanks to the blockchain, anyone can verify that it is only being used by its rightful owner.)

One of the most popular NFT-based “games” is CryptoKitties, which allows you to breed, trade, and play with one-of-a-kind virtual cats. (Oh, what a time to be alive!)

What does this have to do with racing?

Formula 1 is aiming to take this dynamic a step further with F1 Delta Time, which allows players to own unique cars and drivers to compete in virtual racing events.

As described on the game’s official website:

F1® Delta Time is a blockchain-based game which will utilise the ERC-721 and ERC-20 standards, and run on the Ethereum blockchain.

The game will center around the collection and trading of unique Cars, Drivers and Components – all of which will exist as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the ERC-721 token standard.

In F1® Delta Time, all Cars, Drivers and Components will be NFTs, and will possess special raceday attributes which will increase players’ chances of out-performing competition on the track. Tokens are produced in limited quantities as determined by their level of rarity, with the rarest tokens possessing the most impressive racing attributes.

What cost over $100,000?

To hype the upcoming launch of F1 Delta Time, Animoca put the game’s very first item up for auction: a unique F1 car called the “1-1-1”.

On its auction page, the 1-1-1 is described as “the first car to be released for F1® Delta Time, and we made this a hyper-limited edition: there is just one single 1-1-1, and there will never be another. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind digital collectible.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ubo010n1Jns%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The car is listed with an odd YouTube video and “boost” stats, including metrics for “acceleration”, “grip”, “luck”, and “top speed”, which seem to offer insight into how the game will actually function.

The 1-1-1 was made available to purchase via auction for approximately four days, where members of the public could place bids for it with Ethereum cryptocurrency. After receiving 31 bids, it was purchased by an anonymous bidder known as “09E282” for 415.9 ETH, equivalent to $101,336.40 USD at the time of purchase.

This makes the 1-1-1 one of the most expensive NFT digital assets ever purchased, and certainly the most expensive virtual car ever purchased for a game.

But… why?

That is the hundred-thousand-dollar question, which at this point, can only be answered by “09E282”, whomever they might be (if you are reading, please contact us!).

Why would anyone spend that much money on a virtual car in a racing game that hasn’t been released and nobody knows anything about? While NFT-based cryptocurrency games like F1 Delta Time are interesting and exciting new ways to use blockchain, this investment is so outrageously bizarre that it seems almost suspicious.

Was Animoco just using this auction to build publicity around their new game? (As of writing, this news has only been reported by cryptocurrency websites.) Could the 1-1-1 really have been purchased by some wealthy F1 fan with a penchant for cryptocurrency speculation?

At this point, there are a lot more questions than answers. We’ll be keeping a close eye on F1 Delta Time and the 1-1-1 moving forward to see how this all plays out.

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