Intended as a chain to enable gaming, Flow gained notoriety as the platform on which the successful NBA Top Shot went live: the video NFTs of NBA moments. The coin is also called FLOW.

Flow was developed by Dapper Labs, a company that has been in crypto for a long time: for example, it launched the first crypto game: CryptoKitties. This game became so popular in late 2017 that the Ethereum blockchain became congested. That is why the developers at Dapper Labs created their own blockchain, for their own use: Flow. Only later did the chain become available to the public. High transaction volumes are possible on this chain.

User-friendly for developers

Flow is written in the Cadence programming language, which has user-friendly syntax. That is how Dapper Labs invites programmers to build applications on the chain as well. This is also evident from the multiple Software Development Kits Flow offers.

FLOW is the currency of the Flow network, and acts as a token for staking, governance and transaction fees. It is also the unit of account for the 'treasury' of the organization behind Flow.

NBA Top Shot on Flow

With Flow and the marketplace NBA Top Shot - launched together in October 2020 - Dapper Labs showed that it continues to innovate. Instead of selling "basketball cards" as NFTs, video became the medium. When you buy a top shot NFT, you become the owner of an NBA-recognized 'moment' in basketball history. You are buying the moment, so to speak.

In February 2021, the trading volume of Top Shots reached $220 million. A so-called cosmic dunk by Lebron James was traded for two hundred thousand dollars. Then the market collapsed, mainly because Top Shot flooded the market with new moments. That was bad for the price - it's the reason why most NFT collections have a set number of items, say ten thousand.

Projects after Top Shot

Flow is branching out to many projects related to sports. With the American NFL (American football) and UFC (ultimate fighting) but also with the Italian and German soccer leagues.

A Dapper wallet has also been developed, which you can link to Instagram. In fact, Instagram has a tab with Digital collectibles, or NFTs. So it's becoming an ecosystem.