At the end of August, encrypted payment provider MoonPay teamed up with the famous real estate developer The Howard Hughes Corp to bring a "Web3 offline treasure hunt activity", combining NFT with the real world to create a gamified Web3 experience. This event combines urban scavenger hunt games with NFT digital assets, bringing participants a realistic gaming experience and digital collection value, and also allows the wider public to participate in and understand the concept of Web3 in an easy way.

In this article, veDAO Research Institute will introduce the treasure hunt activity and explore the positive significance that this combination of digital and reality brings to the encryption field.

MoonPay was founded in 2019 and focuses on providing payment infrastructure for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, lowering the payment threshold for cryptocurrencies, and helping cryptocurrency service providers simplify transaction steps, thereby increasing the adoption of cryptocurrencies. The company was founded by two young founders, Ivan Soto-Wright and Victor Faramond. MoonPay's vision is to "bring 1 billion people into the cryptocurrency world" by 2030, and it states that its software "promotes the democratization of virtual currencies," allowing any business to use the necessary cryptocurrency infrastructure while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

MoonPay received a first round of financing of US$555 million led by Coatue and Tiger Global in October 2021, with a valuation of US$3.4 billion. This also includes US$87 million in financing from more than 60 celebrities or organizations in the fields of music, sports, media and entertainment, including Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton and other celebrities.

MoonPay not only provides support for individual users, but also links to multiple applications and payment solutions, making cryptocurrency more accessible and usable. The company has currently established partnerships with more than 300 partners in more than 160 countries and regions.

New York Harbor City Treasure Hunt: A fusion of digital and real

Background and purpose of the event

New York City hosts the Harbor Scavenger Hunt as an urban adventure event designed to encourage visitors to explore attractions in Manhattan. MoonPay is at the helm, ensuring safe storage of NFTs through its wallet. Meanwhile, QR code technology promoted by Flowcode, a brand that specializes in direct-to-consumer connections, plays a vital role in enabling treasure hunts. Behind this urban treasure hunt is a broader vision to bring NFTs into the real world, making the concept of cryptocurrencies more accessible and tangible.

MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright said the "treasure hunt" has two main purposes. The treasure hunt advertisement at the entrance of the harbor does not mention cryptocurrency, NFT or Polygon (the NFT casting chain of the event). Through a simplified and low-threshold approach, it hopes to encourage a wider audience to participate and allow participants to use digital wallets through offline activities to enter the Web3 world. And the event also gives winners more control: for example, if you win a ticket to a concert in the treasure hunt, but you can't go, you can directly put the prize on the chain on OpenSea for sale.

Another goal of the treasure hunt is to have a positive impact on local businesses in Manhattan Seaport. The event collects data on participants, such as their geographic origin, providing local businesses with valuable market information such as foot traffic maps. In addition, the event encourages visitors to interact with local businesses for the first time, injecting new vitality into the economy.

Event Details

Starting on August 21 and running until October 31, locals and visitors can take part in a Seaport scavenger hunt. Participants’ goal is to find ten purple “pearls” scattered throughout the Seaport District. Each pearl has a QR code that, when scanned with a mobile device, grants the user a free NFT. The tokens were crafted by 3D artist and NFT creator Johana Kroft, and the images of the NFTs are playful depictions of iconic New York City content.

There are two types of NFTs available for the scavenger hunt - daily NFTs and prize NFTs. On the Wallet page, participants can see all of their daily NFTs collected. Participants who successfully collect all 10 NFTs will automatically receive the prize NFT. The prize NFT qualifies participants for a weekly draw, where multiple winners will be selected each week. Winners will have the opportunity to win a variety of prizes, including VIP tickets to the summer concert series at The Rooftop at Pier 17, a culinary gift box curated by Tin Building worth up to $350, and other rewards. In addition, individuals can re-enter the event every 24 hours. These NFTs can be sold or purchased.

An attempt to merge the digital and real worlds

The Harbor Treasure Hunt is essentially a classic example of how traditional outdoor activities can be enhanced by modern technology, but it is all driven by blockchain technology. By combining the physical search for pearls with digital rewards, MoonPay and Howard Hughes Corp provide the public with an opportunity to easily familiarize themselves with the concepts of Web3 and NFT.

For the crypto community, MoonPay demonstrated an attempt to combine the crypto world with the real world through this event, and it is also a way to promote and popularize the crypto world. As with other situations in the crypto field, early user experience may take more time to catch up with the vision. If everything goes well, MoonPay's treasure hunt game may become a successful template, and perhaps the same event will become other location-based experiences from the harbor to Central Park and even out of New York. The concept is rich, providing real-world use cases for NFTs and bringing the expected benefits to all participants-a way to bridge the gap between cryptocurrency and the real world, and it can also be said to be another step towards broader Web3 participation.

Reference: https://theseaport.nyc/events/seaport-scavenger-hunt/

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