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NBCUniversal and Aptos Labs group up over Nicolas Cage’s ‘Renfield’


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Even the centuries-old Dracula can study newfangled tech.

Aptos Labs, the developer behind the Aptos blockchain, introduced on Friday that it has partnered with NBCUniversal on a Web3 recreation to publicize the upcoming movie Renfield that options Nicolas Cage, everybody’s favourite finest worst actor, as Dracula.

The sport, which is on-line and accessible by means of both a QR code or URL, is already live. Gameplay entails gamers trying by means of a collection of stylized photographs primarily based on scenes from the film to determine which have hidden “bugs.” (Renfield, Dracula’s assistant and the main target of the film, apparently eats bugs in the course of the movie to offer himself superpowers.)

After gamers efficiently determine the bugs is when Aptos comes into play. Customers are entered in a digital raffle with the possibility to win three digital collectibles, which embody film posters and comedian e book scenes from the movie. And people unfortunate sufficient to fail to seek out the clandestine bugs nonetheless obtain a collectible. These non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are minted on the Aptos blockchain and customers can entry them by means of Petra, a pockets constructed by Aptos.

“We all know audiences simply need to be linked. They need story, and enjoyable, and no obstacles to connecting with their fandom,” Greg Reed, vice chairman of expertise partnerships at Common Footage, mentioned in a press release. “Our job is to leverage high-performing, scalable networks.”

NBCUniversal’s partnership with Aptos Labs marks the media large’s first main foray into Web3, in keeping with Mo Shaikh, cofounder and CEO of Aptos Labs. And it’s one more coup for the fledgling blockchain developer because it continues to notch high-profile partnerships for its protocol lower than a 12 months and a half after it went reside.

“This partnership was actually born out of a shared curiosity of exploring Web3 and blockchain expertise to actually improve the fan expertise,” Shaikh informed Fortune.

Shaikh and cofounder Avery Ching publicly launched the Aptos blockchain in October 2022. That they had beforehand been at Meta (previously Fb) engaged on Diem (previously Libra), the social media titan’s stablecoin mission that was scuttled in January 2022 because it met important resistance from lawmakers and regulators within the U.S. and Europe.

Following the collapse of Diem, Shaikh and Ching, who have been particularly engaged on Diem’s stablecoin wallet, set off on their very own and used tech from their days at Meta to create Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain secured by proof of stake.

Regardless of its questionable token drop, Aptos quickly took off. Its token APT has a market capitalization of roughly $2.35 billion as of late Thursday afternoon. The blockchain boasts a few of the highest transaction speeds amongst protocols, per crypto research firm Messari. And along with NBCUniversal, Aptos Labs has introduced partnerships with Google Cloud in addition to MoonPay, the fintech agency that builds crypto funds infrastructure.

“We,” Shaikh informed Fortune, “don’t plan to simply cease with simply NBCUniversal and this movie.”


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